Why We Need Physical Coupons For A While Longer

I work in the print section of a rather large electronics superstore. A lady brings in her laptop.

Customer: “Can you print an email off for me?”

She boots it up but then gets angry because her Internet isn’t working.

Me: “Ma’am, you will need to connect to our store Wi-Fi to work.”

Customer: “No, that makes no sense! I don’t have to do that at home! You must have done something to my computer to delete my Internet!”

Me: “Ma’am, I haven’t even touched your computer.”

She pushes her laptop toward me.

Customer: “Fine, you do it, then!”

I connect her to our store Wi-Fi. Oh, God, her computer is a mess. Her desktop is completely covered in icons. I give it back to her so she can get to her email.

Customer: “See, this is my Internet. I told you!”

This victory is short-lived, as she doesn’t know where her email is.

Customer: “Usually, it’s automatically on there!”

Me: “What email do you use? Gmail? Yahoo? Hotmail?”

Customer: *Looks at me like I’m stupid* “Why does that matter?”

I have several other customers waiting on me, so I mess around on her bookmarks, hoping that it’s on there somewhere. Thank God, it is! I connect her to the email site.

Me: “Just enter your password.”

Customer: “What password?”

After a few botched password guesses, she decides to call her son to ask him. I help the other customers while she does this. I come back and she gives me the correct password. I get into her email. She doesn’t remember which email it was. I’m going one by one in her inbox. Nope.

Customer: “It was from a few months ago.”

I have to sift through three months of spam to find it. It’s a f****** EXPIRED spa coupon. I point out that it’s expired.

Customer: *Waves it off* “Just print it out.”

Then, the Windows update thing pops up. I ignore it while I’m trying to print the file.

Customer: “What are you doing? You can’t ignore that!”

She pulled the laptop toward her and pressed update, which required it to shut down. No, she didn’t postpone it for “four hours” She did it for right now.

The computer turned off, and she turned it back on and let the 100-plus updates proceed. She was there for at least another hour letting it update before giving up and leaving. She didn’t even get her coupon.