Why Kinkos Blows and Other Stuff

Last night I didn't go to bed. At all.

It's kind of a long story, but in case you're wondering, no, it didn't involve midget pornography (not THIS time anyway).

Basically I overestimated my computer skills, and a project that I thought would take a couple of hours ended up being an all night affair. At around four o'clock I finished everything up, and headed off to my local Kinkos to have it all printed and bound for it's 7:30 AM due date.

So I left the apartment and got in my car, wearing a maroon hoodie, gray sweat pants, a furry Russian hat and dress shoes. Needless to say, I was looking pretty good. When I got to Kinkos there were only two other people in the whole place--a Kinkos worker and a guy (I'm not making this up) printing Mitt Romney pamphlets. It's hard enough for me to understand why you would lend any kind of support to Mitt Romney, but trying to figure out why you'd do it at 4 in the morning would make my head explode.

When the Romney guy was done, I stepped up to the counter and began to explain my project to the clerk:

"Um, so yeah, I've got a 47 page PDF. The first two pages are color and the rest are black and white, and I just need it have them printed--" At this point the worker interrupts me with sigh that sounds something like this: "Pffffpssfshsfhffsssffffffffhhh," followed by a long, drawn out eye roll. He looks at me at hits me with this little gem:

"Uuuuuuh, so like, I'm really behind on everything else I've got to do here, so, like . . . . "

At this point I glance at the clock on the wall. It's 4:15 in the morning, I'm at Kinkos wearing dress shoes and sweatpants, and the clerk is telling me he's simply too busy to help me out with my project that's due in, oh, 3 hours. I was so tired that my brain literally could not compute what was going on. All I could say was:

"Sooooooooooooooooooo . . . " I think I drug that "so" out for about 3 minutes. That's all I could think to say. His complete incompetency and disregard for customer service was shattering my universe and causing my brain to malfunction. Eventually though, after a few more "ppfffffsshshffffspphhhhhh's" and about a 10 minute long eye-roll, he agreed to help me. It took about 2 minutes, and then I was done.

The worst part looking back is how apologetic I was. Sure, I know what it's like to be that employee, swamped and busy, yet forced to deal with goofy customers and their 47 page PDF's. But why should I be made to feel guilty for shopping at your store? Why am I apologizing for keeping you in business? And maybe the best question of all, why the hell am I wear dress shoes with sweat pants?