I work as a student worker with my university’s IT department. We service and manage computers for students and faculty, typically with malware or hardware issues. Sometimes, we have customers that need something done with their phone, in which cases we usually can’t do much more than connect them to the university’s Wi-Fi.

This happens less than a month after I start working on the front desk directly with customers. The more experienced student worker that has been showing me the ropes has stepped away for a moment. The glass front door is thrown open and a very tall, lanky customer storms in.

Me: “Hello, sir, how can I—”

I’m interrupted as the customer thrusts his phone across the front desk and into my face. He has the flashlight function on and it glares right into my eyes.

Customer: “Why is there that light?”

Me: “Um, you may have left the flashlight on, sir?”

Customer: “You mean, you don’t know?”

Me: “We don’t typically service phones. I think—”

Customer: *Shouting* “God, why do you even work here?!”

The customer storms out, muttering something about me being useless. The other student worker returns to the front, having heard the shouting.

Student Worker: “Ah, was that the rent-a-room guy?”

Me: “What?”

Student Worker: “Did he want to rent a room?”

Me: “No. We don’t rent rooms, do we?”

Student Worker: “No, but he was in a bit ago and screamed at me about wanting to rent a room.”

Me: “He wanted me to turn the flashlight off on his phone.”

Student Worker: “Looks like he’s using one of the computer lab computers.”

Our office is adjacent to the university computer lab. From the front desk, we can see through the window as the customer angrily slumps into one of the seats and logs in. By now, our supervisor has come out from the back.

Supervisor: “That was horrible.”

Me: “Yeah, the guy screamed at me.”

Supervisor: “If he comes back in, try to get his username. We can report him to student conduct for being verbally abusive.”

Student Worker: “What if he’s not a student?”

Supervisor: “Then we can report him to his department manager.”

After an hour, the customer got up and left without coming back in. That’s when I hatched a plan. I went to the computer he had been using, logged in, and looked at the “user” folders in the computer’s hard drive. They were all recorded with usernames, and there weren’t more than ten. I quickly copied the usernames to an email and sent it to my supervisor.

He replied simply that he had it.

The other student worker identified the guy by his account photograph when the right username was looked up, and he was reported. I never saw that customer again.

When I am around five or six years old, my family decides they want to do something nice for the neighborhood, so they buy a great deal of candy and plastic eggs for a community Easter Egg Hunt. Easter morning arrives and a bunch of kids have already started hunting for eggs when two other kids from down the street arrive and ask to join.

Now, these kids aren’t exactly known for being the nicest children on the block, but my parents shrug and figure that everyone should have a chance. My dad speaks as he’s handing the kids their Easter baskets.

Dad:  “Okay, try to let the little kids get some eggs, too, guys! And please don’t roughhouse with anyone; we’re all just here for fun!”

Rowdy Kids: “Don’t worry; we’ll be good!”

They immediately run off, and the second the adults’ eyes are off of them, they start pushing kids over and taking eggs from their baskets. My dad pulls them aside after hearing the yelling and tells them off, informing them that if it happens again, they’ll be kicked out. I suppose he should kick them out right then, but he wants to be nice to everyone.

All seems well after that, aside from the bigger kids outrunning the toddlers and hoarding all of the eggs to themselves, so once all of the eggs are found, my dad announces:

Dad: “Okay, guys, since the little ones didn’t get the chance to get as much candy as everyone else, we’re going to redistribute it so everyone gets a fair share!”

The rowdy kids take off running before my dad even finishes his sentence. My parents look at each other in irritation and dismay, deciding just to have a discussion with their parents after the event is done. After the candy is given out and the cleanup is done, my parents go over to the kids’ house and explain the situation.

Rowdy Kid’s Mom: “Well, how is that my problem? Serves you right for letting them in!” *Shuts the door*

Yeah, my parents never did anything for the neighborhood after that. We always felt really badly for those kids, though, having parents like that. I hope they’re doing well now.

When I was in Spanish 3, one of our assignments was to translate a children’s book from English into Spanish. She suggested we get a book that’s a beginning reader level. My teacher’s only rule was we couldn’t use a Dr. Seuss book because the rhyming structure and the made-up words would be too difficult to translate. This was an in-class assignment we would be doing all the next week.

I will say, I was not a fan of this teacher. There were times I felt like she singled me out. I didn’t like her teaching style, and her personality clashed with mine. She also kept calling me a name that wasn’t my name, and I insisted she call me by my name, and that didn’t help things. I feel like the only reason she didn’t give me a harder time was that I was quiet, I did my work on time, I got mostly As and Bs, and I actually paid attention in class.

I went home and looked through my old children’s books and settled on a book about a bunny who had an identity crisis. It wasn’t written by Dr. Seuss and it was a beginner reader level, so I thought I was good to go.

The next time I had class, I brought in the book so I could do the assignment. I placed the book on my desk and, while I was getting paper out, one of my classmates saw the book on my desk and said, way too loud, “You’re not supposed to have a Dr. Seuss book!”

On the top right corner of the cover was a small picture of the Cat in the Hat with a seal that said, “Beginner Books: I can read all by myself!” The back cover of the book had some information about the Beginner Books, as well as a bigger picture of the Cat in the Hat. 

Beginner Books was created by Dr. Seuss, and most — if not all — Dr. Seuss books are Beginner Books, but not all Beginner Books are Dr. Seuss books. All it means is that it’s easy to read.

I tried to explain this to my teacher and I pointed out the extremely feminine author’s name, but my teacher refused to listen and made me pick another book.

A different classmate had brought in three or four books in case someone else couldn’t find a book to use, and she offered to let me use one for the assignment. I agreed, only because my teacher wouldn’t give me an extension and I would be wasting classtime doing nothing otherwise. 

I ended up with a B on the assignment. I still feel like if it had been anybody else, she would’ve let them translate the original book. This teacher was the reason I gave up studying Spanish and switched to Latin for my last two years of high school and took ASL in college.

I am in the grocery store buying milk and cereal for tomorrow morning. This lady comes out of nowhere and says, “Excuse me, you should leave the milk for the people who actually need it.”

I look at her funny because there are three full refrigerated cases of milk in the milk aisle, and does she expect me to eat my cereal dry? I tell her about all the other milk available and go along with my business. 

I check out, load all my groceries in the car, get in, plug my phone in, crack the windows open, turn my music on, and go through my shopping list to make sure I have everything

The lady comes up to me again and knocks on my window! She goes, “Can you turn your hillbilly music off? You’re going to turn my kids into rednecks.” 

I’m pissed, because I’m listening to my favorite artist, Dustin Lynch, who doesn’t have a very heavy accent and isn’t heavy country. I am also in my own car, minding my own business. I pull up my most Honky-Tonk, twangy country song and put it on full blast for her and her crotch goblins to hear. 

Then, she sees me again in the street and puts her full body weight on the horn as she passes me.

Back in the late nineties, I was an IT manager for a radio station conglomerate. 

I had a sales rep email me and tell me that her desktop computer was acting funky and to please look at it. I asked her to bring the tower to my office. She did. I ran a diagnostic on it and it was indeed acting weird: programs not running, missing files, the like. 

The HDD was reporting fine, so I reloaded all the programs that she needed and told her to come pick it up.

Two days later, she emailed me, yet again, that the computer was wonky. I told her to bring it back to me and I’d sort it out. Same issues. This time I replaced the HDD and sent it back, confident that it was okay now.

Two days later, she emailed me, my boss, the general manager, and the owner, and said that I was incompetent because her computer was dead yet again, I should be fired, I didn’t know what I was doing, ad I was costing her lost sales, I couldn’t keep the computers running, and I was useless. 

I agreed to meet all of them at her cubicle and sort it out then and there.

We all met there at 1:00 pm on the dot. 

Her desktop case was covered with refrigerator magnets! All sides, front and back! These were removed before she brought it to me, as she “didn’t want me stealing them.”

Herein lies the rub: these people making a lot more than me didn’t realize that magnets can screw up HDDs. 

I had to rebuild the machine, yet again, test it with all programs that she needed, and put it on my test-bench with a commercial demagnetizer — used for bulk tape erasure in a radio environment — to prove that magnets were kinda bad for a computer. 

The chick still argued that the magnets didn’t do anything wrong to her machine.

I got out of IT soon after. I don’t have much patience.