The day I had today is the kind of day you can only have when you work retail. In my seven years as an on-site computer technician I rarely dealt with the kind of nonsense I dealt with today, because I was dealing with corporate customers. That means that the people you deal with self-select; you don't get a crapton of entitled ignoramuses demanding that you give them all sorts of free stuff as I did at work today.
The first one--some idiot sitting in a call center told her that she was entitled to a new iPod; I want to find that moron and shove his headset up his ass, sideways. The iPod had a broken screen and was covered under her accidental damage policy, but the repair center still has the unit and there's not a goddamned thing I--or my boss, or my boss' boss, or my boss' boss' boss--can do about it. You can talk until you're blue in the face, you can yell, you can demand, but once the unit leaves the store there's nothing we can do to help you until the service center is done with it, one way or another.
You are not entitled to a new iPod just because the repair is taking longer than you expected. (Whoever quoted her a turn time of three days was smoking crack, but that is an estimate and it says so clearly on the sheet the client must sign to initiate the repair process.)
...but I know what happened. She got impatient waiting for the unit to be shipped to her home--which was also clearly marked on the paper she signed--and started making phone calls. I'd wager that the guy in the call center told her that IF HER UNIT WAS DEEMED NOT REPAIRABLE she'd be able to pick up a new one at the store, only she didn't f-ing listen and only heard "you get a new one TODAY!"
I noticed that she didn't say anything about the repaired unit being shipped to her home until I pointed that out to her. She demanded to talk to a manager, but the best I could do was to give her my boss' name. Then, later, someone from corporate tried to get to the bottom of the story and I told her everything I knew, which wasn't bloody much--but that the iPod in question had been shipped to the repair center and was still "in process". Jeeze louise.
Further--dude, seriously? You're talking about a motherfucking iPod. It's a portable music player; it's not like it's a computer you desperately need because you use it for billing clients and you won't get paid until you can process stuff. It wasn't even hers; it's her daughter's. I mean, if you're absolutely desperate for music, there's this thing called a "radio", and you can actually use it to listen to music, for free and everything! It's magical!
*rolleyes*
(Yes, I understand that an iPod does more than play music. You can do Facebook and games and run apps--none of it vital.)
Second, then, came the woman who bought a laptop and a wireless laser printer, and who wanted a tech to come to her house and make them work together...because she spent all that money and it didn't work and "these things are supposed to come with a warranty!"
Okay: I hooked the printer up to her laptop and had the thing printing wirelessly on the counter, so everything works, but you cannot set up a wireless printer without the client's router. That's how it works; the printer must be connected to the network at the client's home. It does no good to set it up to work at the store because once the whole shebang is back at the client site it won't f-ing work.
...but just try explaining that to someone with a sense of entitlement a mile wide. I tried to explain to her why I couldn't make it work and could only demonstrate the functionality in the store. I told her what her options were--but she didn't like that and wanted to talk to a manager...who then proceeded to tell her exactly the same things I'd told her.
Look: if you want someone to come out to your house and make the thing work, it's going to cost you $100. Yes, I understand that you spent $1,200 on a laptop and a printer. Yes, I understand that they come with a warranty. No, the warranty does not cover network integration or other services; the warranties only cover broken shit and none of your shit is broken.
$100 for hooking up network devices is cheap. In 1997, the last time I worked as an on-site computer guy, the company I worked for charged $120 an hour for network services. Minimum of one hour and a $35 trip charge on top of it. $155 for twenty minutes of fiddling with a printer--yeah.
Between these people, though, were a few very nice customers who only needed some help with simple matters, which I was able to process smoothly and efficiently and without guidance. I was busy nearly the entire time I was at work, which made the time go quickly.
* * *
My poor wife--she got scared today when she thought someone was lurking around the house, specifically on the front porch, looking in the window; but after getting scared she realized it was the wind sock hanging from the front porch.
...there have been a few issues with that kind of behavior, someone who doesn't understand boundaries very well; it's been going on for more than a year. This person hasn't been on the property since June--as far as we know--but the earlier occurrences are still fresh in our minds. It hasn't risen to the level of calling the police...yet.
Still, she's nervous about it, and I can't say I blame her. This person showed up at her job a few months ago, really freaking her out, which is one reason seeing the wind sock moving scared her today.
On the plus side, the Fungal Vale has a fairly responsive (if overzealous) police force. That helps.
* * *
So Obamacare is a hot mess. You heard that, right?
Steven Den Beste calls it a "shipwreck", because that's bigger and more disastrous than a train wreck.
JayG notes that the pro-Obamacare propaganda is at best insulting the very people it's meant to appeal to. ("Brosurance"? Seriously?) Jay correctly points out that if the GOP had come up with an ad campaign like that, the liberals would be pillorying it like there was no tomorrow.
* * *
Karl Denninger never minces words. Titling a post "You Evil Bitch" is a prime example of this.
It's about how the Fed, under new management, will continue to print money and devalue the dollar regardless of the fact that it has a net negative effect on the economy, because if the money printing stops our government will no longer be able to hide the recession from the public.
* * *
Regardless of the bad day, I left work with a smile on my face. Venting about stupidity helps me deal with it, but otherwise the nonsense had very little effect on me.
'Tain't nothin' compared to what Black Friday will be like.