I started out in the 90’s doing independent on site tech support. Most of my clientele consisted of 50-something early retirees with way too much time on their hands. One of my services was to help them order a computer system and then set it up for them, since getting online with dialup could be a daunting for the inexperienced this service was in high demand.
One client call in particular I’ll never forget, I arrived at their home, unpacked their desktop and printer, set up everything, connected them to AOL, gave them a run through of how to find things, collected my check and said; have a nice day. They seemed very happy.
The next day I got a call from them. We went through all the obligatory checks; the power button, the paper tray, paper in the paper tray, the print tray. According to them everything was exactly as I’d left it. I explained to them that they might want to call customer service for the printer because they should confirm it’s not defective before I come back out. If I made an error in connecting it there would be no charge but if it was anything else it would be a standard service call. No, they hadn’t done anything and the printer was brand new, it must be my fault. I scheduled a return service call.
When I got there I found the printer I had carefully set up on the desk had been put on the floor. “What’s it doing down there?” I ask. The client replied that he needed the desk room for his “PCs for Dummies” book. I crawled under the desk, they had folded up the print tray when they had moved it to the floor so I folded it down, drew a smiley face in MS Pand hit ‘print.’
“Will that be cash or check?” I asked as I held up the printout.
[Picture Source: striatic (CC)]
