Yeah I’m here to pick up the most expensive item you have.

my mother is ancient. she thinks buying cheap shit online is productive. i try to emphasize to her gently that consumption isn't productive, but the boomerism is real.

when we're in the same place, ill often find her speaking into her cell phone on speaker phone (max volume of course) with somebody in a call center going in circles about where some doodad nobody wants or needs ended up. she calls with no information and barely a memory of where she ordered it from or when.

i used to work in a call center and it sucked. hearing these conversations happening makes me have to leave the room so my blood pressure can go back to normal. she's friendly at least, but it just goes in circles as some unlucky person has to help her wade through her clusterbang inbox to find an order number on the phone she is using to talk, all to find out that she ordered the wrong thing that didn't match the other wrong thing but it all arrived weeks ago and is sitting in some closet she forgot putting it in.

when i found out she had started doing water colors i bought her a nice set of beginner supplies and a big print art book demonstrating techniques. she loved it and told everyone who would listen how thoughtful i was, but hasn't done anything with it in years. she promptly went back to her real passion: just buying junk online, losing track of it, and occasionally spending an afternoon on the phone chasing the foggy memory of it through her phone.

she has a laptop with a stable linux on it for email and browsing, but never thinks to use it for anything computer. just wants to try and do everything on tiny phone screen she can't read while talking on speaker.

for all those call center peeps that get stuck with her, thanks and im sorry. im trying to get through on this end. i used to be that call center person for others and while sometimes it was OK, frequently it was a concentric, expanding madness requiring one to find some upanishad-grade connection to a non-dualistic reality so as to avoid completely losing one's shit.

Reminds me of the people who come to my department and say "give me one of these" while pointing to a steak that I can't see because the counter is blocking my view and then became terribly confused by the concept of a sign stating what the item is when I ask for clarification

Don't worry, these people follow you to any other profession you try

I spent days last week debugging and trying to recreate an issue a client reported, before they thought it might help me to diagnose the issue if they told me they changed manually filenames they weren't supposed to

im not here to give you my info, im here to grab your shit and go

Instead of "nope" or "I dunno" say "I have a gun"

looks at customer's wrist, sees wristwatch

"what time is it?"

customer does not look at wristwatch or respond in any way

It would be nice if the place you order from told you very clearly what information you'd need to bring in order to pick something up. Like, I'm not going to memorise the serial number of an order or something unless I know I'll actually need it.

you know that truck of kitkats that got stolen by someone with a clip board and a yellow vest? it's like they're trying to do that but they haven't thought it through.

After the first couple lines I was like oh shit it’s me and then it just kept going and going and going. I’m sorry regardless for not being more prepared. I’ve only ever ordered one thing online for in person pickup and it was a clusterfuck

Still more useful than bubblesort 🥁✨

yeah I commited to this joke before I read the post