Not the brightest bulb in the box
One of my customers calls me in to plug in his cables each time he moves the computer from one room to another. After the first time, I drew a nice diagram for him, showing where each cable plugs into the back of the beast, and stuck labels on the back of the box over each device, with little labels attached to each cable. Supposedly foolproof, you may think? Wrong! This time, he's moved house, and, guess what? ... he rings me up to come and plug him in again. While I'm there, he asks for help plugging an old Sega Megadrive into his TV. How freaking hard is that? I had to make several attempts to explain to him that the TV aerial didn't have to be plugged in for the console to work and that Sega games are not broadcast over the air. He also wanted his Net connection re-established. I ask if he has a phone extension cable to reach the socket (I knew he had one, I'd put it in for him at his old place) and he says he's left it at the other house ... after a wasted 20 mins looking for it. I arrange to call a few days later when he's retrieved the cable. I arrive, say "Where's the cable?". He hands it to me, and I'm blowed if he hasn't cut the socket end off the cable! I ask him what the hell does he think he's doing and has he still got the plug. Ten minutes later, he produces the cut-off end with about 2 inches of cable attached (ultrasonically welded plug assembly, no dismantling here). OK, I say, I can splice that and pull the cable out of the bag. He's only cut the bloody plug off the OTHER end of the cable! ... flush with the plug, nothing to splice. At this point words failed me and I was looking for a wall to bang my head against. Meanwhile, his kids are screaming to be allowed on the computer and use the Paint program and the dog is sniffing the Christmas tree as though he's going to lift a leg on it ... most unwise if this guy had anything to do with wiring the lights on the tree :) At this point, I give up for the night and decide to make a run home and maybe make the pub for last orders. Boy, am I going to add an idiocy surcharge on his bill ...
I think I've EATEN things with more intelligence than this guy ... in a vegetarian restaurant!
