(I’m a customer in a popular fast food restaurant, picking myself up some dinner after a night church meeting. This particular fast food franchise has added kiosks in all stores where you input your order, pay using a debit/credit card or cash, receive a receipt with a number on it, and then wait for your number to be called. You no longer give your order to the employees, which allows them to focus on cooking the food and handing out orders when finished in a quick and efficient manner. I’ve used them several times in the past and have always received my order within minutes. Just after I have processed my order, I stand off to the side, waiting for my number, when I notice a woman with four kids standing near the counter. She does not have a receipt.)

Employee: *walking around and checking on the status of customer orders* “Excuse me, ma’am, what’s your order number?”

Woman: “Oh, I’m still waiting to order.”

Employee: “Do you need help with the kiosks?”

Woman: “No, I want to order at the counter.”

Employee: “Oh, we use the kiosks now; it’s much faster, and we–“

Woman: *cuts him off* “I refuse to use something like that. I want proper, real customer service as the counter. Are you telling me you do not do that anymore?”

Employee: *clearly having no idea what to say* “Uh, well, we use the kiosks because it allows us to focus on—”

Woman: *looking quite annoyed* “I don’t care. I refuse to use technology. Don’t you know they’re trying to steal everyone’s jobs? This is just ridiculous!”

Employee: “I can help you with the kiosk if you don’t know what to do, but—”

Woman: “I absolutely refuse to use computers! They’ll put everyone out of a job! They’ll take over your job!”

Employee: “But ma’am, I can—”

Woman: *in full-blown rant mode* “I never use computers. Ever! They’ll put everyone out of a job! They’ll take over your job! I’m not going to shop somewhere like this; you’re not getting my money! I’m leaving!”

(She proceeded to storm out of the store with her kids in tow, leaving the poor employee — who looked like he was only about sixteen — looking quite confused. The surprising part is that the woman in question looked like she was only in her mid-thirties; how she refuses to use computers and modern technology in this day and age is baffling to me, not to mention that her kids likely use computers every day at school! Maybe new technology like kiosks will cut down on some jobs, but it will also create more — after all, someone has to fix the machines when they break down!)

Customer: “This Transformers movie doesn’t work. I want to return it.”

Me: “That’s not a movie; it’s a Nintendo 3DS game.”

Customer: “It doesn’t even fit in my DVD player!”

Me: “Well, it wouldn’t, because it’s not a DVD; it’s a 3DS cartridge.”

Customer: “So how can I watch it? I want my money back.”

Me: “I’m not refunding you because your game won’t work in your DVD machine.”

Customer: *curses* “Well, I’ll just buy movies somewhere else from now on!”

Me: “That’s a good idea, ma’am, because we don’t sell movies.”

(I work in a library.)

Customer: “Can you help me send an email through my IM?”

(“Here we go,” I think.)

Me:  “Let me take a look at your screen.”

(The customer has Yahoo IM up.)

Me: “You can’t send an email through an IM; you can do instant messaging and chat back and forth instantaneously on IM. Do you have an email address through the yahoo website?”

Customer: “I think so. I don’t know. I just want to send an email through my IM!”

Me: “Well, let’s open up a web browser and take a look. If you want to send a detailed message, an email through an email client is the best option.”

Customer: “…”

Me: “You can choose the icon that looks like an E, the swirling fox, or the colorful circle.”

(The customer clicks on Internet Explorer.)

Me: “Oh, you’ll need to double-click.”

Customer: “Double-click?”

(How did he open the IM?)

Me: “Oh, yes, you have to click twice, very quickly.”

(The customer gets it open after a couple of tries. To speed things along, I start pointing to where he needs to click.)

Me: “Okay, now you need to type in your username.”

Customer: “I think it’s [First Name][Last Name]@yahoo-dot-com.

Me: “Are you sure your password is right?”

Customer: “Yes. Maybe that’s not my name?”

(I hope he means username.)

Me: “Okay, a trick I like to try is to use nicknames, periods and underscores to figure out if your username is a different combination. People have so many usernames these days it’s hard to keep them apart.”

(We try several combinations. The customer starts to squirm.)

Me: “Let’s try to retrieve your username from Yahoo. What’s your alternate email address?”

Customer: “Oh, I don’t have another email address. Hey, maybe it’s with Google! I had a Google email a while ago.”

(So, we try accessing a Google account with various combinations of his name. Nothing works.)

Me: “I think your best option is to create a new email address and write it down right away.”

Customer: “I have to send my email! I am being hired at [Company] and I have to get into the email they sent me at the Yahoo address they set up for me.”

Me: “I see. The only thing you can do now is to call your employer or call Yahoo’s customer service. I’m sorry about that.”

(He wandered away with the number from Yahoo and I decided to avoid doing business with [Company].)

(I work at a Register Office; a wedding is due to begin in the next half hour. A woman dressed in a formal gown comes into the office.)

Customer: “I’m singing at my friend’s wedding and my laptop battery is about to die! Can I plug it in here?”

Me: “I don’t think we can do that, but I’ll go and check for you.”

(I go and speak to my manager, who tells me that we’re meant to have any electronic device tested and certified before we can plug it in. She says to tell the customer this, but if the laptop is nearly dead and the customer is upset, to come back and talk to her again. I go back out to the customer.)

Me: “I’m very sorry, but we’re really not supposed to plug anything in that hasn’t been tested.”

Customer: “I just need to plug it in for a few minutes!”

Me: “How low is the battery? There are some things you can do to make the battery last longer, like dimming the screen, and there might be a setting to maximise battery power. Here, let’s have a quick look.”

(She opens her laptop and points to the battery display.)

Customer: “It says it has twelve hours on it; is that okay?”

Me: *pause* “Yes, it has over twelve hours of battery on it and it says 93% remaining. You’ll be fine. I take it it’s working okay; you haven’t had any problems with the battery…?”

Customer: “No, it’s fine!”

Me: “Then it’ll be fine.”

Customer: “Okay, thanks. I wasn’t sure what it meant!”

(She did look a little embarrassed as she left.)

(This is overheard by my brother when digital TV recorders, the kind where you can record a show or movie to a hard-disk or DVD, are relatively new.)

Customer: “Excuse me. I’ve inspected these two types of records — [Product] and [Product]-Plus — but I can’t spot a difference besides the Plus costing €50 more.”

(The employee checks the boxes. Read and write speed are the same, same hard disk size, no difference in cable connections, etc.)

Employee: “Ah, hang on. I’ve spotted it! The Plus version is digital!”

(For those who don’t know, DVD stands for DIGITAL video disk. If you have an analog recorder for DVDs, that would probably cost more since it would be unique!)