I have an older customer call us at tech support.

Caller: “I’m worried about performing a virus scan. What’s a safe distance to stand away from the computer whilst it is happening?”

Me: “You can sit in front of the computer, madam. It’s perfectly safe.”

Caller: “No, I had an MRI scan once, and everyone else had to stand in another room.”

Me: “This is a different kind of scan, madam. You don’t have to stand away.”

Caller: “Oh, that’s good to know. By the way… there’s a hole in the bottom of my computer. What do I put in there?” 

It turned out that she had a laptop and didn’t realise you could actually put the battery in and it would work anywhere. When I told her this, her mind was blown! It was like she’d discovered a whole new world, and her sheer happiness was kind of infectious. I think that really made her day.

Back in the 1990s, I worked at a place that had a really nice color printer — not laser or inkjet, but I don’t remember what it was. It used special paper, too. It belonged to a different group, but it was sitting in our office area, and we were told not to ever print anything to it because of how expensive it was.

One day, a print job went wrong, and it started spewing out pages of plain-text random characters — obviously, an image incorrectly being processed as text. It couldn’t be stopped, only paused. We paused it and told the printer’s owners about it. They told us to just let it continue.

Okay, you’re fine with dozens of pages of your fancy paper being wasted? Guess us printing one or two color prints won’t be so bad, after all.

I work in the kitchen appliance section, and a customer is browsing our refrigerators. I see her take a display cup from one of our display kitchens, walk over to a fridge with a cold water and ice dispenser, and try to fill her cup. Obviously, nothing comes out.

Customer: “Why are you trying to sell broken fridges?”

Me: “It’s not broken, but these are display items. They’re not connected to the water or power.”

Customer: “Why would it need to be connected to water?”

Me: “You just tried to use the water dispenser, right?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “Where do you think that water would come from?”

Customer: “Doesn’t the fridge just… make it?”

Me: “No, it needs to be connected to the water supply.”

Customer: “I don’t think that’s true.”

Me: “How does the fridge ‘make’ the water, then?”

Customer: “I don’t know! I’m not a liquidologist! Are you?!”

Me: “I don’t think anyone is.” 

Related:
H2-D’oh!, Part 9
H2-D’oh!, Part 8
H2-D’oh!, Part 7
H2-D’oh!, Part 6
H2-D’oh!, Part 5

I’m a Southerner. My grandparents on both sides had a very strong “throw nothing away; you might need it later” mentality, and Dad’s pretty dang cheap regardless of all that. So, I certainly understand the “use it ’til it breaks” mentality. I’m like that with my stuff (especially shoes).

But! When you’re running a business, it’s important to update your technology over time. If that ancient tech breaks, nobody will be able to fix it ’cause it’s so old nobody’s being trained on it anymore.

Here’s an example. My last job in 2020 was at a place that made awards — ribbons, trophies, plaques, etc. Everything was ancient, including the building. That wasn’t a big deal with the ribbon-making hot press, but the engraving machine was controlled by a 2001 Dell running WinXP. (The program for the engraver was from the 1980s and was keyboard-only input.)

That old Dell stopped working one day. My boss called in a PC repair guy. He showed up, took one look at the Dell, and said:

Repair Guy: “Wow! I’ve never seen a computer this old before.”

He couldn’t fix it; he didn’t know how. He had to take it away to the office where a much older tech finally fixed it.

I asked [Boss] why she didn’t get a newer PC to run the engraver.

Boss: “New computers don’t have the right connection.”

I told her a custom PC could be built with the needed connector, and it’d be easy enough to install the engraver software. We just needed someone who knew what they were doing. It wouldn’t be THAT difficult to find, honestly, but probably not cheap.

[Boss] wasn’t interested; she wouldn’t even let me finish my sentence.

Boss: “No, the Dell still works.”

Except it didn’t work at that moment, hence being taken away by the repair tech. If the repair company hadn’t been able to fix it, [Boss] would’ve been massively SOL. Engraving was a big part of the business. But [Boss] didn’t even want to consider alternatives for when that Dell bit the dust for good.

A customer has spent a moment looking at our USB sticks, so I offer him some help.

Customer: “Which one of these memory sticks will fit my computer?”

This is during the height of USB 2.0, so no USB-C yet.

Me: “Well, they all will. The difference between them is essentially the memory capacity and data speed, but they’ll all fit. If you let me know what you need it for, you can—”

Customer: “Wait, they’ll all fit?”

Me: “If your computer has a USB slot, then yes.”

Customer: “They’ll all fit?”

Me: “Yes, they’re universal. That’s what the U in ‘USB’ stands for.”

Customer: “How do you know they’ll fit?”

Me: “They’re universal.”

Customer: “But how do you know?”

Me: “Sir, do you know what ‘universal’ means?”

Customer: “Hmm, fine. But I want a refund if it doesn’t work!”

The customer chooses an affordable option but is back later that day, angry, but with his laptop this time.

Customer: *Pointing* “I told you it wouldn’t fit! I tried to jam this into my memory card slot, and it didn’t fit!”

Me: “You mean the SD card slot?”

Customer: “Whatever you call it!”

I take the laptop, turn it around, and put the USB stick easily into one of the several USB ports on the back of the laptop. The customer is silent for a moment.

Customer: “Well, no one told me to look at the back!” 

He stormed off, while I was left to contend with my first experience proving that no matter how idiot-proof you make something, the universe makes a better idiot.