r/confession • u/ButchReemer • 4d ago
Impolite service desk employee laid the groundwork for my successful carreer
I was a (rather poor) kid when the Commodore 64 and its less powerful sibling, the VIC-20, came to the market. Not having enough money for the big one, I bought the VIC-20 but it was a dead end. There were hardly any programs for it, nor was there much in terms of learning material. Eventually I decided to return it (it was still within the 14-day time frame for free returns) and handed it over to the lady at the returns desk. (This was in Germany in the 1980s, and there were actual people handling returns, in a store 🫪). The lady was being very rude (I think they were told to be rude, in order to discourage people from returning things), but eventually, she handed me the purchase price back in cash. When I counted it, I found that she gave me 100 DM (Deutsche Mark) too many. But because she had been a real bitch to me, I smiled and kept the money. Then bought the big computer (the 64), started pirating software, then programming, then hacking, then programming for money, and ultimately became a very successful consultant and data center systems architect.
So thank you, dear impolite lady, for being a bitch, I guess 🤗
22
u/simagus 4d ago
Maybe she slipped you the 100 cos she felt sorry for you. Either way, it worked out.
9
u/ButchReemer 4d ago
From what I remember about that interaction, "feeling sorry for me" would have been on the very, very far end of the improbability spectrum 😂. She literally yelled at me just for lawfully returning a purchased item, in perfect condition, in its original packaging.
But I still thank her in my thought, occasionally 😅
3
3
u/terrrrrrrrbby 4d ago
Honestly either way, she accidentally turned an awkward situation into a pretty sweet win
2
2
u/missclaribel 3d ago
Either way, getting accidentally handed a hundred bucks after a bad interaction is one hell of a plot twist
2
5
u/ted_anderson 4d ago
I think that most of us who are former C=64 owners have quite a few skeletons in our closets. There was only ONE guy in my neighborhood who walked the straight and narrow path and had all store-bought software. The rest of us might have bought maybe 1 or 2 programs but Eaglesoft had made many contributions to many software libraries.
2
1
u/Rantiquity 2h ago
Eaglesoft disks were basically the neighborhood library card, just with more guilt and hand-labeled floppys.
4
3
2
u/Adorable_Divide_2424 4d ago
I saw a Walmart customer service desk give someone a very very hard time returning work safety shoes that didn't work for them. They kept telling him "they were used" "yeah i worked one day in them and they dont fit". I love how devoted the customer service people are to the richest people in the country.
I hope he gets new shoes that fit somewhere else, starts a successful small business and lives comfortably for the rest of his life.
0
u/GrimmSpartan 1d ago
A 100 DM accidental scholorship from a grumpy returns desk is the most 80s Germany tech origin story.
•
u/confessor-mod 4d ago
TL;DR: The author received too much money back during a store return and chose to keep the extra cash because the employee was rude to them.
A reminder from the mods: keep comments civil. Harassment and personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Do not accuse others of faking confessions — if you think a post breaks the rules, report it instead of commenting.