Early Morning of the Incompetents

So I've already had four customers. Four customers, and zero sales. All four customers demanded I work on their computer for free. I'm not sure if maybe they overheard one another demand free labor and each thought this was a brilliant idea that they should try despite the outhand rejection, or if it was just plain gross incompetents. I'm leaning towards the latter.

My first customer demanded I fix her DVD drive for free. Now, its not her fault a CD exploded in there (At least not from what she told me anyways), just bad luck. Its also bad luck that for some reason she purchased the warranty for everything on her ticket but her computer. Unfortunately bad luck simply isn't my problem. I'm not going to disassemble an entire DVD drive, vacuum out the pieces of your broken disc, clean the lens, see if it works, and install a new drive if it doesn't all for free. No amount of yelling, screaming, or threatening to take it to your friend the computer guy who will do it for free anyways, is going to persuade me. After all if you truly had such a friend you would have brought it to him in the first place. Not hauled the whole damn thing down to Circuit City and brow beaten the technician.

My next customer wasn't much better. She demanded I look at her Dell and tell me if she'd installed her NIC correctly. Why should I do this for free? Because she bought the NIC here. I told her that's all well and good, we charge forty dollars to install a Network card and verify that it is infact totally operational. No, no, no, this will not do you see, she's already installed the card. She just wants me to look inside the computer, verify that its in the slot correctly, then turn the computer on, and make the computer recognize the card.

'So', I said, 'you want me to install the card then.'
'No', she says, 'I want you to just verify that I have installed the card correctly.'
'If it was installed correctly, it would work properly. The card is returnable within fourteen days if you're having a problem with it. Otherwise, I will have to charge you forty dollars to install the card properly.'
'You don't understand', she protested, 'I've already installed the card. I don't want you to install it, I want you to verify that I have installed it correctly by making it work.'

At this point, I knew I was going nowhere fast. Reason is not a tool that this person would understand in the slightest, its something she'd pick up and bludgeon another human being to death with like a primal ape suddenly gifted with a shotgun (or computer for that matter). Thinking to just be rid of her by opening the computer and at least verifying that the card is actually in the PCI slot, I glanced at the back of the computer.

'Why do you have two network cards?', I asked.
'I don't have two network cards. That's why I bought this.'
'You do have two network cards. This', I said pointing at the offending port, 'is a network card, it came with your Dell. So, back to my original question, why do you have two network cards?'
'But I don't have two cards, they told me I needed to buy a NIC.'
'Whose they? You've already got an onboard NIC, does this one not work or something?'
'They just told me I didn't have one.', she babbled.
'Well you do, and its a good bet that is why you are having difficulty installing a second one. If you want we do offer a diagnostic service for sixty dollars where we can sort all this out for you.'
'No', she answered quickly, 'I think I know what the problem is now.'

I'm sure you do, if you couldn't even figure out that you already had a NIC, good luck figuring out why neither works. All in all though, I couldn't help but cheer inwardly at her departing form as she walked out the door.

The third customer for the day wasn't to bad. At least he was willing to pay for part of the labor. Not that I could perform it. You see despite claiming to be a 'computer repair facility', we lack a parts ordering department. So unless the part happens to be something we actually sell on the shelf, virtually an impossibility when it comes to laptops, I can't get it, and so can't do the repair. I explained this to the customer, that while I was fully qualified to do the repair, and had done so numerous times in the past, I could not order the replacement part for his computer. I suggested he contact Toshiba, and ask for the closest service center to him, and then even offered him a bit more help by telling him that either his screen was bad, or it was just the backlight. A bit of a mistake on my part I suppose, because he immediately wanted me to diagnose which it was. Just like my previous customer I once more explained that I would be happy to take a look at his computer, but that it was a sixty dollar fee for any diagnostic. Why should he pay for a diagnostic? He bought the computer here five years ago, I should do it for free. Besides, it shouldn't be that hard for me to diagnose the problem. What astounds me is that if these customers know the repair isn't that hard, why don't they just do it themselves? Oh that's right, they don't know how. At least he gave up graciously after I again explained that it would be sixty dollars.

My last customer this morning was a real piece of work. He walked in carrying a brand new computer and immediately brought it up to Customer Service. Never a good sign. He wanted a return, seems the computer was giving him a lot of error messages. As its standard procedure, Customer Service sent him over to me to check out the computer before they exchange it. Not that it actually does anything, if they're within the 14 day period they can still return the computer if they raise a fuss, but occasionally I'm able to talk people out of it. So I power the machine on, and as he said immediately I started getting error messages from a lot of programs that shouldn't be loaded in memory anyways. I dig a little deeper, then I see it. Virus. Norton caught it before it did a lot of damage, but its messed with a few programs in the registry and on startup. Nothing to serious, but since he bought it less then a week ago it'd be a wise idea to simply restore the computer. I explained all this to the customer, that there was nothing wrong with the computer, that he'd downloaded a virus and needed to be careful, and that all he needed to do was restore the computer by pressing F11 on startup and he'd be fine. The customer would have none of it though. It couldn't be a virus, he'd only had the computer a week. I explained that my sister has destroyed multiple computers in less then 24 hours, if you aren't careful that's what happens. This set him off even more. Of course he was careful, he is the pinnacle of careful. The cloth from which all other careful people are cut. I looked at him dead in the face and said, 'Well then you wouldn't have gotten a virus then. But you do, and you need to be more careful.' In the end he refused to take the computer back, he demanded a new computer, and they gave him one. I've a feeling he'll be back in another week, and he'll be outside the return policy (not like that's ever stopped anyone however).

I really wish I'd stayed in bed today. In fact had I not been personally told that I was on a last warning basis for calling off, or missing work (I've only called off once, had two small scheduling mistakes were I reversed two work days, and been more then hour late after calling it in because of some unforeseen disaster twice) , I'd still be in bed right now. Nice, warm, and comfy. *sigh* Need, new job.