You Sir, Have A Brain The Size Of Your Balls

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I sincerely believe that all service sector workers (i.e. waiters, technical support staff, and (God-forbid) telemarketers) all should be treated with a good measure of respect and courtesy. Until they piss you off of course and that can happen pretty damn fast when it comes to credit card salespeople*.

But like I said, be nice to them because no one likes a rude client/customer.

Last week I went down to a service center to get a laptop fixed. There was this guy ahead of me in the waiting line. Come his turn and he walks up angrily to the service staff (a girl who looks like she's had one too many bad customers).

He pulls out his laptop from his bag and plops it on the desk with all the theatrical might and pomp he can muster (which probably added problems to his already existing laptop woes). He switches on his laptop and makes a big show of typing rather roughly on the keypad.

I'm no expert on laptops but I believe that laptop keyboards are like little girls who've never played soccer or any sport in their life: be rough with them and they bruise easily. They're pretty much unlike their desktop counterparts that can take batterings of all sorts especially that of the Monday morning head banging-keyboard type. The last time I did that, my keyboard fared much better than my head.

Back to the story. After a few rough keypresses, he turns to the lady and says with a false sense of royalty and I-am-better-than-thou, "Why is my keyboard spoilt?"

"Sir, we can look into it and if the keyboard is broken, we will have to replace it for you at a cost..."

"My wife (said with an air of supremacy) was typing and it just stopped working," said the man while whacking on the keys. In all things ironic, the man failed to realize that the keyboard was in fact, working. He had Microsoft Word open and nonsensical gibberish was appearing on the screen. The support lady probably noticed the same thing I was seeing and after a while stopped his typing and just stared blankly at his laptop.

What he said next would've blown fish out of the water much in the same way a grenade achieves that feat. He turned angrily to the lady and asks in a very rude voice, "Why are you trying to cheat me?" And then he stormed angrily away and called his wife to, as Singaporeans say, complain.

I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if the guy had just picked up his laptop and left but he kept it there thus holding up the queue for a hideously long time. And to make matters even more anal, he stormed off to a corner of the waiting area and just sat down sulking. After 10 minutes of that, he went back to the service counter and accused the laptop company of ripping him off his money. And then he left.

I don't think many would agree with me on this but if you're laptop keyboard is spoilt from your own rough usage (as displayed by the guy's temper), it's hardly the problem of the laptop company or any of us sods waiting in line for that manner. A person should just own up to their own mis-use and not point fingers.

A law should be made that people like this shouldn't be allowed to breed. They'll just make the world a sadder place to live in.

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* A typical conversation with a credit card sales person:
Salesperson: Do you have a credit card?
You: Yes.
Salesperson: Would you like one?
You: No.
Salesperson: Our card offers X,Y,Z benefits and a harem of 200 women!
You: No thanks.
Salesperson: You'll regret it if you don't sign up for our card.
You: NO DAMMIT! I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN CARD!