I can’t imagine the kind of macho posturing that goes on in auto parts stores.

Guys acting like they know everything there is to know about cars and never wanting to ask any questions for fear of looking foolish.

And this story confirms my suspicions…

Read on and see what happened.

Just get me a spark plug. They’re all the same.

“Many years ago I worked in an AutoZone. If you’ve never worked in one, here’s what you need to know about it.

Customers are rude. I would say,”Hi, how are you today?” and they reply “1995 Chevy Truck, alternator.”

Customers think that they know everything about cars. They don’t.

Customers are jerks. They would buy the wrong part, kick it around the dirt in their driveway for an hour, and then return it and demand their money back. We’d refund them, because the profit margins on these Chinese parts were so high that it wasn’t worth losing the customer over.

Sounds like a lot of fun!

And this particular store had a problem with the AC, so it was constantly a sweatbox.

After 6 months of this, I was not a nice guy anymore.

One day a man came in looking for a spark plug for an old dirtbike.

Motorcycle plugs are hard to match, since our database is limited and so is our stock of plugs, but I made my best effort. “Do you have the old plug with you? I can cross reference the number on the old plug and find a match.”

“No. I just need a plug.”

“Yes sir. I want to be sure I get the right one for you. Do you know the make and model of the bike?”

He gave me the make and model, but our system didn’t have any information on that bike. So I’ve got no way of finding the right plug. Meanwhile, the customer is becoming more insistent that he “just needs a plug, they’re all the same.”

I pull out my phone, and try to look up the part number online. No luck. I ask the guy if there’s anyone at home who can pull the plug out and give us the part number.

He lost it.

Customer has had enough of me trying to help him, and barks,”Just give me a **** sparkplug! I don’t have time for this!”

I’d had enough of sweating in this store and being treated like an idiot by jerks.

I wanted this guy to learn a lesson.

I turned to the rack of plugs and grabbed the first one on the top left. Since they were sorted by number, this was a plug that would fit a 1960’s Chevy V8.

It was twice the size of anything that might fit on a dirtbike.

I handed it to the customer and said,”This will not work. Cash register’s over there,” and then went to help the next customer.

Well, look at that…

I should mention that this was a store in the country.

It wasn’t unusual for a customer to drive an hour to get to us.

Several hours later, the guy returned, tail between his legs, and with the old spark plug.

“You were right. It didn’t fit.”

I took the old plug, cross referenced the part number, and sent him on his way with the right part. Hopefully the extra round trip taught him to be a little more respectful next time.

This is how people reacted on Reddit.

This person had an Auto Zone story.

Another individual was impressed.

This reader shared a story.

Another person chimed in.

The customer is NOT always right.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.