- I pretended that I didn't know that my client had moved her mail folder to a different portion of her hard drive, thus causing her mail program to forget about its account settings, (evil POP) mailboxes, and address book. I just smiled politely and moved the files back to the correct directory while I said, “good thing this backup of your mail settings is on the drive!” I have helped many other Mac users who have done housekeeping on their drives and who inadvertantly removed core operating system files, program settings, and data. It's their fault, but they never accept the blame so why bother to verbalize the blame? There are subtle ways to scold people that are much more effective than being blunt.
- I saw someone on the floor trying to wrestle a bag of garden salsa Sun Chips that were trapped almost at the bottom of the vending machine. I paid for a packet of Pop-Tarts and another bag of Sun Chips to force the original bag to come loose. I told the wary vendee to keep all the food, all I wanted was a water from the machine next to it, then I bought myself a water. She asked me why I did all that. I smiled and told her “because I'm a nice person”* then I walked away.
- I pressed No instead of Yes when the person in front of me at the ATM forgot to respond to the “Do want another transaction?” question. (I could have wiped out his account...) I then mistakenly hit Français as my language of choice for my ATM transaction and had fun hurriedly reading the screens while the person behind me acted impatient. I would have enjoyed more time to explore my comprehension of Business French, but oh well.
*Damn you, Avi, you're always right.
