Just when you think you've heard everything--a view from behind the counter

Sometimes I’ll say off the wall things to a person behind the counter. I bought a Chevrolet Uplander that had been a “program” vehicle, but was still under warranty. When I purchased the Uplander, I was assigned to a service writer who was a very attractive young lady who was also very knowledgeable about cars. Shortly after I purchased the Uplander,it developed a bumpy feeling as I turned the steering wheel. When I took it back to the dealer, the service writer explained to me that the problem was the intermediate steering shaft and she described the joint as being similar to a person’s rotator cuff. My wife had a rotator cuff problem and was having surgery the next week. I said to the service writer, “I think the Uplander caught this illness from my wife. She has a rotator cuff problem and is going to have surgery for it next week. I shouldn’t have let her drive the Uplander”. The service writer replied, “I wish you had told us that when you bought the vehicle. We would have given the Uplander an immunization shot of grease”.

@dagosa: Common sense may need to be nurtured, but you have to have a little seedling there to nurture in the first place…

@Triedaq
I also liked to say off the wall things either for a laugh or just to see a persons reaction.
One of my favorite things was to ask a customer who brought in this particular vehicle " how do you spell BMW" or “how you spell TR7”.
Some laughed but most just had a puzzled look.
Or when someone brought in a Jeep I asked them what model Willys they had. That got mostly laughs.

A guy came in with a Pontiac 6000 ST and said he has a Pontiac Goosest

I had a colleague who was a woman who migrated to this country from an eastern European nation. She had a doctorate in optic physics and was absolutely brilliant in her own field. However, she didn’t have much understanding about the workings of an automobile. She had purchased a 1977 Dodge Aspen from another faculty member. The Dodge wouldn’t run right in wet weather. She explained to me that the mixture of moisture with the gasoline made the gasoline hard to ignite and therefore the car wouldn’t run right. I asked her to make a few empirical observations as to why other cars ran flawlessly in wet weather. I repaired her Dodge with new spark plug wires, a distributor cap and rotor and that cured the wet weather problem.

@Triedaq;
My wife has a masters in Physics and used to teach college courses. Unfortunately, the knowledge is somehow not reflected in its application.

She is always suspicious of the thermostat function of the HVAC, I have a hard time explaining that the temp is just set.

When it comes to cars, she just doesn’t care to learn anything about them. When she asks me to take her car instead of mine, I usually know there is something wrong with it. If you ask her she would just say “a new noise” or “doesn’t behave like it usually does”.

I can recall being in an auto parts shop when a customer asked for a part for his Mitsubishi “Cordial”.

The model of his car was, “Cordia L”, but…he thought that his car was…Cordial…

@dagosa: Common sense may need to be nurtured, but you have to have a little seedling there to nurture in the first place...

To a point…Obviously most of us here will never have been able to major in Theoretical Physics at Cal-Tec. But you’d be amazed how far nurture takes you. There have been many case studies about kids who were adopted into a good loving family who stress education. Their biological parents were in and out of prison…and didn’t have a high-school education. Their siblings who weren’t so lucky had the same fate as their parents…yet these adopted kids went on to be doctors and lawyers and theoretical physicists. It’s amazing what someone can do given the right environment to thrive.

@oblivian
What you call “a little seedling”, I call teaching.

To say people are " born with or without common sense" is to also say people are born " good or bad" . It eliminates all the experiences we have that alter and inform those who do make good choices. Pavlov had some disagreeable to some, but poignant findings. I would like to feel that education and not just conditioning changed peoples behavior but regardless, humans can have successful transformations through experiences that change them from gullible to informed, from not to exhibiting common sense.

Teach a person to read, he can read a label. If he can read a label, he can make a more informed choice. To make an informed hoice is to exhibit common sense.

I always felt that one barrier to common sense, was greed. That, is an attitude developed from learned experiences as well. So not exhibiting common sense can be learned also.

Someone who exhibits good common sense in one area, may not exhibit it in another. You can’t say he was only born with common sense in some areas. You say he hasn’t learned enough choices, or experienced the benefits of the right choices in those areas to exhibit common sense.

So no, I don’t accept that people are " born with common sense". Common sense in my experiences, is a result of learned behaviors. To say differently is to eliminate good parenting and role modeling from child development.

Btw @MikInNh. That was @Oblivian 's quote, not mine. But, your example is well taken and to the point.

@VDCDriver: mabye “CordiaL” was deliberate?

People like to be funny, it seems…and you get the Toyota “Mister 2,” the Honda “Quaalude,” the Subaru "[T-] WRX,"the Ford “Tempo (of doom)”…

If I owned a Cordia L, I’d be sorely tempted…

During the summers in college, I worked at an ATV/motorcycle/boat store. We had quite a few interesting customers.

Our particular store sold only Kawasakis and Suzukis; there was a Honda shop on the other side of town. More than once I had customers come in, throw a mystery cable on the counter, and say “You got one of these?” After informing me it was for a Honda, I’d tell them we didn’t sell Honda parts, but the customer still would ask me to “just try and match it up to something we had” because he didn’t want to drive across town to the Honda shop. This also happened with other parts; a customer would come in and just throw a greasy, worn part onto the counter, with no information about what kind of machine he had other than, “Well, it’s a red Kawasaki.”

Another time, a customer brought a very nice, very expensive ATV into the shop for service. The machine wouldn’t start, and had obviously been through some deep mud recently. When the mechanic got it torn down…there was mud coming out of the engine when the starter cranked. Basically the customer had sucked mud into the engine by driving it into too deep a hole. It was going to cost several thousand dollars to rebuild the engine; the father of the young man who brought it in simply wrote a check for the repairs. Approx. 2 weeks later… the ATV was back in the shop…for the exact same problem: mud in the engine.

An older parts guy told me about a shop he used to work in that offered PWC service customers a deal in the summertime. If you were willing to pay double the price for parts and double the price for service, the shop would push your machine to the front of the line. He said you’d be shocked how many people took that offer immediately.

My favorite story though, involved a PCM “brain box” for a utility vehicle. A young man came in with one from his vehicle, which he was convinced was “bad”. He didn’t know for sure what year model he had; there was no part number on his part, but best we could determine, he had one of two model years of vehicle. Our store had a strict no return policy on both electrical and special order items; this item was several hundred dollars to boot. All of these factors were made clear to the young man, who insisted on ordering the part that day. He signed the ticket. He came back in and picked up his part a few days later. About a week later… he shows up back at the parts counter. Apparently the part didn’t solve his problem, and/or he had the wrong one. Sorry, the part is yours; we showed him the ticket he signed and reminded him of the no return policy. With tensions rising, he proceeded to get out his cell phone, call his father, and try to hand me the phone to talk to his father. I went to to get the manager, as this situation was getting out of hand. So the manager talked with the father, then the father talked to his son, who then stormed out with his new, yet worthless multi-hundred dollar part. About a week later… the young man came back into the shop, and tried to return the part again. As if we’d forgotten. We denied him again, he left, and never came back.

Sometimes it’s a combination of ignorance, impatience, and more money than sense. But I treat parts guys with a whole other perspective now.

Being in the computer business for about 40 years…I’ve heard so many funny stories about customers and their computers. Some people shouldn’t drive cars…or work on computers…or VOTE…

Tech support: What’s on your monitor now, ma’am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it’s plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can’t get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back
Customer: OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there’s another one here. Ah…that one does work…

Tech support: Your password is the small letter “a” as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters?

Customer: I can’t get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I’m sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.

Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That’s not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry…Internet Explorer.

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: “No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.”

And last but not least…
Tech support: "Okay Bob, let’s press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter “P” to bring up the Program Manager"
Customer: I don’t have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: “P”…on your keyboard, Bob.
CompTrashCustomer: I’M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

@MikeInNH

http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

The only thing that gets printed in the news is how bad dealers and repair shops are.
Somehow
For some odd reason , they seen to never mention these butthead customers.

And not just in the auto business.
“I’ts all your fault, I can’t possibly be out of money…I still have checks left ! “
” let me check the math in your check register”
" My WHAT ??"

my wife was in banking 17 years prior to getting her R.N. and it was aallwwaayyss the banks fault ;/

Oh boy nurture versus nature, chicken versus egg. I’ve got the same examples of adopted kids into a good family continuing to have problems while the biological kid in the same family excels. Part of the issue is the first months and year of a childs life can imprint them for life, just like ducks. Hard to break it if their first year is screwed up. Then again I believe it is both innate from the parents and learned. My college roommate was adopted and in a good home and never knew his biological folks until a couple years ago. Found out a lot of his talents and abilities were inherited, not learned.

I've got the same examples of adopted kids into a good family continuing to have problems while the biological kid in the same family excels.

I know Dag and I NEVER said nature wasn’t a factor. Of course genetics has something to do with it. But to say that nurture has NOTHING to do with it - is just plain wrong. They both play an important role in how a child develops.

There are a lot of people who think that genetics is the ONLY factor. Which is a total bunch of garbage. But there are just way too many kids who’s parents/grandparents had little to zero education and did very poorly in the schooling they had…but the kids went on to schools like Harvard. I personally know one family. Parents were NOT the brightest bulbs. They were very poor…neither even had a high-school education. But they knew that their kids needed an education to do better then they did. All three of their kids got academic college scholarships. One to Boston College, one to Vanderbilt and one to Boston University. All graduated with honors…and are doing very well. There are just too many of those examples to discount nurture.

I was standing behind a older lady with very poor English speaking skills, in line at a big box auto parts counter. The staff guy there, he’s asking her for the city where she lives, so to advise her where the closest outlet near her home is located, to make it easy for her to get the part she needs.

Staff: Ok, 423 Elm … which city did you say?
Customer: Onion City
Staff: Onion City, where is that?
Customer: 15 mile, everybody know Onion City.
Staff: I’m not familiar with that city. May I see your drivers license address?
Customer: Ok, see license, “Onion City”.
Staff? Oh, ok, I see the confusion, you are mispronouncing the name of the city, it is not pronounced “Onion City” is pronounced “Union City”!

@MikeInNH: I too have been in this business a long time. A couple more gems:

Cashier looking at a credit card terminal after just having swiped a card: “Why does it say it’s dialating?” (many images came to mind)

I obtain a second monitor for someone that needs to compare spreadsheets side by side: “Where’s the other keyboard and mouse?”

“How do I get back items that were in my recycle bin? I emptied it and there were things I need in there!” (person was using it for storage)

From a legal consultant making at least 6 figures: “I just got this monitor yesterday and it’s not working! This is totally unacceptable!” (I walked over to the office and pressed the power button on the monitor after asking them several times to try that)

“I washed my keyboard and now it’s not working!” (yes, in the sink with soap and water)

Most of our customers are engineers…so we don’t get the idiot questions anymore. But years ago when computers (especially PC’s) were new…dealing with customers who never saw a computer before…and we have to troubleshoot our application running on their PC was to say the least - a challenge.

@MikeInNh "I know Dag and I NEVER said nature wasn’t a factor. "
I don’t know why you are quoting others and attributing it to me. There is NOTHING you have said in this thread that I disagree with what so ever. Please recheck your references. Cause, on this topic you are my “hero” !