It's now time to talk about FAS

[jmowreader]

No, not Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or the Federation of American States.

This FAS is far worse. It's Freeper Air-Conditioning Stupidity!

Okay, check this shit out: a freeper (from all the Bush stickers on the back of his SUV, I'm fairly certain that he is one) purchased an 18,000-btu air conditioner from Lowe's. He took said air conditioner home and discovered that there's a strange plug on the end of the cord. One he's never seen before!

If you read the side of the boxes these air conditioners come in, it says "runs off 220 volt current." The plug in question is a standard NEMA 20-amp 220-volt plug.

Most logical people would have either read the side of the box in the store, saw "runs on 220" and made sure they had a 220-volt plug under their window. This is a freeper. This fucking idiot went back to Lowe's, bought a 20-amp 220v receptacle, changed the 15-amp 110v receptacle he had to the receptacle he bought (without doing anything to...well, you know, get 220v to it...) and plugged the air conditioner in.

Fortunately, no huge disasters happened--no showers of sparks, no fires, no three-headed monsters crawling out of the wall. Unfortunately, the air conditioner didn't come on either. Today's candidate for the Customer Hall of Fame (which is is the same room as the Fucking Idiots Anonymous Hall of Fame) boxed up the air conditioner, hauled it back to Lowe's and told them it was no good.

(The real entertaining part of this story follows...)

[achtung_circus]

1. ?

(The real entertaining part of this story follows...)

Bated breath

[KitchenWitch]

2. Sounds about right

he could have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome too...it does affect the intellect LOL

[jmowreader]

3. The real entertaining part...

Okay, so the antagonist in this story has installed an illegal plug in his 110v circuit to run his 220v air conditioner, and the shit didn't work.

He returned three air conditioners to Lowes because they didn't work, and now he's working on us. (Yes, he is getting his exercise today!)

I got into the middle of this because I went to returns to find this oaf screaming at the top of his lungs at the youngest cashier we've got about how our air conditioners suck, he'll never shop here again, he's going to call the newspaper about the defective junk we sell and it's all her fault. Better yet, I'm certain young Mary (as always, names changed to protect the guilty) learned at least twenty new words today and all of them are foul.

There are times to be kind to customers. There are times to give the customer a soft shoulder to cry on. There are also times to go into the "look and act pissed but not actually be pissed" mode they taught us in sergeant school. One pissed-off-looking associate coming up.

I just walked around the returns desk so I'd be in front of him, looked him right straight in the eye, and said in a loud but steady voice, "what the HELL is the matter with you?"

At this point, Mary was able to disengage and fall back a bit. This asshat started screaming that all the air conditioners in town don't fucking work and he's gonna call our corporate office about how we're ripping people off.

I immediately dropped into a normal tone of voice and asked him what it did when he turned it on. The guy first asked how I did that. (Old army trick, sir.) Then he dropped into a normal tone of voice and told me all the lights on the unit came on but nothing else worked.

I then elicited the information about him changing the plug without running any new wire. "Well, then it ain't ever gonna work."

'What you mean?'

"It needs 220-volt power. It doesn't care what kind of a plug is on it--some people even chop the plug off and wire them right in. But all you've got is 110v power running to the socket, so this AC ain't gonna work unless you rewire the plug."

The guy asked if this meant it was something he did. "Afraid so, man." The poor fucker's spirits dropped so low after I told him that, I probably could have sold him a hand truck to get them back to the car.

About an hour later, Mary called me from a regular register. "You gotta see this." The customer bought her flowers.

(Before you ask: the guy left the store with a 10,000-btu air conditioner that runs on 110, and a new receptacle so he could put his house wiring back the way it was.)

[KitchenWitch]

4. Wow, at least he made an attempt to make amends to Mary

that is cool

[jmowreader]

5. It shocked the hell out of me, I'm here to tell ya

Normally they just scream louder that no one told them there was more than one kind of outlet before they brought the AC home.

[REP]

6. {{{Stunned}}}

The guy basically admitted he was wrong, made amends to the cashier he chewed out, and bought the right kind of AC unit?? This does not sound like a typical Bushlican. This guy might be educatable!