My lips are sticking to my teeth from all the polite fake-smiling I am doing in your honor.
I work in a copy department of a big box store. The way that things are set up and staffed in these places are so that we can spend about 5-10 minutes per customer, either printing/laminating/whatever something quickly, or take a job request for something more complex. We don't have the manpower or time or effort to spend more time than that with people. If we do, we can't finish jobs that other customers have dropped off in the time they needed. At any given time, there is only one person behind the counter.
We have a full service copy area, where we do everything for you, or a self service area, where you make your own copies for a discounted price. Fifteen minutes today was spent with a man who refused to just let me do his copies for him in my area, but instead insisted that I stand there and line up each and every single thing on the glass in the self serve so he would get the discount, although I did all of the work. During this time, he also expected that I stand there and wait while he cut each piece of paper down to the appropriate size or held blank paper over the parts he didn't want (can't use tape, oh no).
I usually have only a couple of people at my counter, if I get really busy, I may have four or five. For a long time this evening, at any given time, I had SEVEN people in line. Each person insisted that their job was thee most important, needed to be done very right now, and they would be completely willing to wait, no matter how long it takes.
What do you mean, you can't print posters of pictures I've downloaded of copy written material?
What do you mean, you can't scan in this tiny photo of my cat, blow it up, and create a complex flier in Photoshop right now while I wait and these other six people are staring at you angrily? Scruffles* is MISSING.
What do you mean, I can't wait for you to hand count out twenty of each of this long list of various colored papers that I'm still not certain that I want and print out a total of hundreds of flyers while all seven of us stare at you angrily? Did you know I wrote a book? Can I tell you at great length about it and about how contraception is a sin?
What do you mean, you can't photo copy this page of my resume that I previously printed on really dark paper and have it turn out super crisp and clean and brand new like the day I originally printed it? Can you try again?
(Phone Call while I was slammed) Hi. I am an obscure person that may or may not have had something created and printed there ages ago and have zero idea what it was called, and I need you to send it to me in an email right away.
I almost purchased these online, but I don't want to pay shipping, can you create, design, and print a multitude of labels in silver while I wait? Oh, I don't want to pay you for design time.
I need three different layouts on two different size/shape labels, but don't need them for a few days. (This lady was nice and my last one of the day, but SHE STOLE MY FAVORITE PEN so she, too, gets a mention here.)
During a slight lull, a woman comes in and says that she needs fliers made for her missing dog. I ask if she has a photo, and she says she sort of has one on her computer. She's not very computer savvy and is having issues finding it, so she turns her laptop toward me. When I look at it, it dies. "Do you have a place for me to plug this in?" Well... not really... but I crawled behind a bunch of things in a very disgusting area to do so, because I'm willing to go the extra mile to help her find Puddles*. When we fire up her laptop, I see that she has numerous pages open in Internet Explorer and seems to have installed every single possible search toolbox ever created. She has used ask.com to search for Google. I ask if the picture is a file saved on her computer, and she says "Sort of." She has me click all sorts of various links and use all sorts of various search engines and we eventually get to a site (petamberalert or somesuch), and she gets really confused again. During this time, she gets up and leaves her purse and laptop and various belongings spread all over my counter so that she can go next door to the pet store. They know her dog, you see, so they probably have a picture, you see. She's gone a half hour (during which time I'm trying to help others and catch up on paperwork and get jobs done that are due this evening), and comes back and has me search again (*points to a link title in Google* "Are these words what I type up here?" *points to address bar in IE*). We get to another random pet search site, and I finally just ask her point blank. "Did you create a profile, did you place a picture of your dog that you actually own (part of the search was trying to use random pictures of other people's pets for the flier) with their service?" "I just called a phone number, and he drew it for me. Can you draw one for me?" I ask "Do you have a picture of your dog, an actual picture, of YOUR dog, that we can use?" I had explain at great length why it's not a super thing to do to find a picture of someone else's pet in the area (she was involving the county and local zip codes in her search) to post it as missing. I will spare you details of the lengthy discussion that we had as I tried to explain to her repeatedly what lamination is and what the difference between 8.5x11 and 11x17 paper is, though I will say that I had physical examples of each of these at hand during the conversation.
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*Names changed to protect the innocent
We have a full service copy area, where we do everything for you, or a self service area, where you make your own copies for a discounted price. Fifteen minutes today was spent with a man who refused to just let me do his copies for him in my area, but instead insisted that I stand there and line up each and every single thing on the glass in the self serve so he would get the discount, although I did all of the work. During this time, he also expected that I stand there and wait while he cut each piece of paper down to the appropriate size or held blank paper over the parts he didn't want (can't use tape, oh no).
I usually have only a couple of people at my counter, if I get really busy, I may have four or five. For a long time this evening, at any given time, I had SEVEN people in line. Each person insisted that their job was thee most important, needed to be done very right now, and they would be completely willing to wait, no matter how long it takes.
What do you mean, you can't print posters of pictures I've downloaded of copy written material?
What do you mean, you can't scan in this tiny photo of my cat, blow it up, and create a complex flier in Photoshop right now while I wait and these other six people are staring at you angrily? Scruffles* is MISSING.
What do you mean, I can't wait for you to hand count out twenty of each of this long list of various colored papers that I'm still not certain that I want and print out a total of hundreds of flyers while all seven of us stare at you angrily? Did you know I wrote a book? Can I tell you at great length about it and about how contraception is a sin?
What do you mean, you can't photo copy this page of my resume that I previously printed on really dark paper and have it turn out super crisp and clean and brand new like the day I originally printed it? Can you try again?
(Phone Call while I was slammed) Hi. I am an obscure person that may or may not have had something created and printed there ages ago and have zero idea what it was called, and I need you to send it to me in an email right away.
I almost purchased these online, but I don't want to pay shipping, can you create, design, and print a multitude of labels in silver while I wait? Oh, I don't want to pay you for design time.
I need three different layouts on two different size/shape labels, but don't need them for a few days. (This lady was nice and my last one of the day, but SHE STOLE MY FAVORITE PEN so she, too, gets a mention here.)
During a slight lull, a woman comes in and says that she needs fliers made for her missing dog. I ask if she has a photo, and she says she sort of has one on her computer. She's not very computer savvy and is having issues finding it, so she turns her laptop toward me. When I look at it, it dies. "Do you have a place for me to plug this in?" Well... not really... but I crawled behind a bunch of things in a very disgusting area to do so, because I'm willing to go the extra mile to help her find Puddles*. When we fire up her laptop, I see that she has numerous pages open in Internet Explorer and seems to have installed every single possible search toolbox ever created. She has used ask.com to search for Google. I ask if the picture is a file saved on her computer, and she says "Sort of." She has me click all sorts of various links and use all sorts of various search engines and we eventually get to a site (petamberalert or somesuch), and she gets really confused again. During this time, she gets up and leaves her purse and laptop and various belongings spread all over my counter so that she can go next door to the pet store. They know her dog, you see, so they probably have a picture, you see. She's gone a half hour (during which time I'm trying to help others and catch up on paperwork and get jobs done that are due this evening), and comes back and has me search again (*points to a link title in Google* "Are these words what I type up here?" *points to address bar in IE*). We get to another random pet search site, and I finally just ask her point blank. "Did you create a profile, did you place a picture of your dog that you actually own (part of the search was trying to use random pictures of other people's pets for the flier) with their service?" "I just called a phone number, and he drew it for me. Can you draw one for me?" I ask "Do you have a picture of your dog, an actual picture, of YOUR dog, that we can use?" I had explain at great length why it's not a super thing to do to find a picture of someone else's pet in the area (she was involving the county and local zip codes in her search) to post it as missing. I will spare you details of the lengthy discussion that we had as I tried to explain to her repeatedly what lamination is and what the difference between 8.5x11 and 11x17 paper is, though I will say that I had physical examples of each of these at hand during the conversation.
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*Names changed to protect the innocent