[rl, dense people] Dude, I appreciate that you do your own repairs too, but how many times do I have to repeat that we're not a repair shop?

I get it, I'm sitting behind the counter at a game store here in the mall. and you're asking me where to buy "the white wires for a PS4", but I'm going to need more context than that, and "where do you order your parts from?" since most people call it "parts" when they mean like, "the power cord" or "the video cord" for a system.

...I can imagine thinking of a game store as a place to try asking, but why on earth would someone just... assume that's a thing the store does

turns out, the guy meant the wires between the internal power supply and the motherboard. "Well, first off, we're not a repair shop. if you need something fixed, I'd recommend you go to [repair shop]. The info's right over-" "No, I just need to order the parts. so where do you get yours from?" "We're not a repair shop."

I mean, he isn't actually wrong, in that I do often fix systems so we can sell them? but I normally cannibalize other broken systems we've bought in the past.

like... walk in like "hey idk if you can help with this, but I'm looking for parts to repair this device" not just "yo where do you get your parts"

but he was very firmly assuming that, 1, we did do repairs - enough to be ordering parts, and that 2, this meant we had specific sites we'd order whatever parts off of, and 3, if he just asked me enough times, I'd tell him. I finally just said to try looking on ebay or going to [repair shop], because past that, I cannot help him.

yeah no, he was insistent.

we do sometimes have to order parts, admittedly - but Ian just goes to ebay for that.

which the guy was not accepting as an answer.

.........did he think you were trying to trick him?

wh

and then seemed wholly frustrated when I became a broken record with "we are not a repair shop. we don't do that."

"you should ask a repair shop, like [repair shop]. Maybe they'll tell you where they get parts from."

really, the only parts we ever order are new 72-pin pieces for the original NESes, and PS2 lasers.

and, again- ebay.

what a weird way to respond to someone saying they can't help you by like... insisting that they can and must

yeah, I'm just... I do not have enough caffeine in me to properly deal with this particular weirdo today.

he's gone now, ofc. just... I'm still sitting here going, what was his malfunction?

I don't think I have enough caffeine in my apartment to deal with that

hah. or idk, maybe my half-zombie state helped me be an unflappably broken record for him? maybe that was the proper way to deal with him.

I mean, I'm really trying to think of how else to've dealt with that, when he was just... refusing to comprehend, and I'm coming up blank.

yeah idk there's a certain point where it makes sense to reduce to the interaction level of an automated phone service

Can't help but wonder if there was a layer of misogyny in there too. "This woman can't know what she's talking about even though she works here", etc.

honestly, it seemed more like he just was not connecting the dots between "we don't do repairs" and "does not order repair parts"

or between "we ask [repair shop]" and "we don't do that ourselves", come to think of it