Long ago, I was a pharmacy tech in a small independent pharmacy in a MS suburb. We had a bad ice storm which completely brought central MS to its knees. The power had been out for 2 days. The emergency lights in the store had burned out the day before and we were running people back and forth with flashlights and filling scripts by candlelight. It was night outside, and very dark. So, this one guy comes in with a folder. He walks back to the pharmacy register, where stands a copy machine. He opens his folder, extracts a piece of paper, raises the lid on the copy machine, places his document in the proper position, closes the lid, and presses the “copy” button. The copy machine, without power just like everything else in the store, of course does nothing. He then notices that the copy machine has not started, and asks me, while I watch with growing disbelief, if the copy machine is out of paper. I calmly respond that the copy machine is currently not working because the store has no power. “Oh”, he says, “when is that coming back on?” I calmly responded that I didn’t know.
He shrugged his shoulders and left. To this day I don’t think that he realized that he couldn’t make copies without power.
I had this exact same experience in San Francisco a few years back! I was running a movie theater and the power was out in certain parts of the city. You would not believe the number of people who could not comprehend that NO I could not possibly run a projector and 1000 Watt Xenon bulb with no electricity. I got the same questions too “when will the power be back on?” in addition to “well, will you show the next show then?” Uh, yeah, IF THERE’S ELECTRICITY! Some people seemed to think we were just being lazy and lying, despite the fact that to get there they had to drive through several streets of darkness; no streetlights or traffic signals, and we were all wandering around inside with flashlights in the dark. Bizarre!
There is some proprietary software where I work. Yesterday morning it wasn’t coming on when folks tried to sign in. One of the features is an IM type message system. When I found out how to have them sign on I was going to send a voice mail to everyone, but one of the people that’s been there longer than me said, (I kid you not) oh don’t bother, I’ve sending them all a message now.
Long afar and go away, I was a mere prat-visiting my big brother and his wife for a week, during which a storm arose in their city. Power went out, and my brother hollers to his wife to see if it’s their building or the whole block.
To the window she goes, and replies that it’s just their building, as she’d seen a car going down the street with it’s lights on.
I worked in a hotel a few years back. I remember the morning after a city-wide power outage (due to an ice storm) that I had several customers who demanded their money back. One woman said she felt she deserved a full refund because nothing in her room had worked all night. Like it was our fault.
Back in 1996 the power grid here was overloaded due to high demand (very hot that day) and we had a statewide blackout. I was working at OfficeMax at the time. We lost power that afternoon. I was hoping the store would close, but we kept the doors open and people kept coming in. We had to guide customers around with flashlights and all the sales had to be calculated by hand. The cashiers had to write down the UPC numbers for everything. We couldn’t look anything up on the computer. It was a really frustrating mess, and given all the problems we had that day because of the blackout, we should have just closed. I’m sure some people took advantage of the dark and looted the store. About a dozen or so people asked me, “When’s the power gonna be back on?” Yeah, like I’m really going to know that! :rolleyes:
5 minutes ago one of our service techs played a voice mail for all of us in the office. A customer is complaining that ‘his chamber will not run, turn on, or light up. Please call him to arrange for service.’
Where is he calling from? New Jersey.
Maybe it is time to add another section in the manual called "“Your Chamber Needs Power to Work.”
Sorry - I’m used to just calling them that but I forget that other people have no idea what I am talking about. We make environmental chambers for other companies to test their products in - the chambers simulate heat, cold, rain, whatever. This guy must have been trying to run a test but couldn’t get the chamber to turn on.
Back when I was in college, in the late 70’s, I worked at a grocery store. There was a severe storm and the power went out for large parts of the city. The store was very dark, because there were no windows, just the glass entrance/exit doors up front. To we are placing cardboard over the uncovered bins of frozen veggies and stuff. I walk back to my register up front and there are several customers with carts, hoping the power will come back so they can check out. My manager Gary tells me one guy wants to be checked out anyway, by hand, and will I do it?(He knows I have the best math skills, but I can tell by the look on his face I don’t have to if I don’t want to, as Gary thinks the guy is being a jerk). I say, in a worried tone, “Gary, I need to go home and check on my cats.” He replies, “Sure!” and I walk out past the clueless customer.
I think nobody ended up being checked out, as the power was off for hours. If that customer had had just a few things, and had sounded more polite(I’d heard the whine in his voice) I might have done it.
When I lived in Hawaii the power went out, on average, once every 10 days. Sometimes just a few minutes, sometimes for hours. Every time the power went out - and no matter how many candles I had lit around the house - I was surprised each and every time I opened the refrigerator and the light didn’t turn on. Every couple of weeks. For the entire three years I lived there.
I lived in an apartment complex in Jersey when a storm knocked out the power to our area. I called Public Service and got the recording to when the power would be on. I went outside and was talking to the two girls who lived upstairs, and I mentioned that I had just called the electric company and that it would be a while till the power was restored.
They didn’t believe my phone worked since their’s didn’t. I told them if they had a cordless phone, which they did, it wouldn’t work with the power off, and mine was just a wall phone.
“But, the battery has a full charge!”
As an aside, I used to work in a place that sold telephones. A woman charged me with false advertising because our “cordless phones” had a cord that plugged into a phone jack.
Don’t feel bad - it’s not immediately obvious, even when you own one of them. The handset operates on battery power, but the base station needs electricity to send and receive signals to and from the handset, and the base station doesn’t have any battery power.
Well, ok.