Look, we live in a world increasingly governed by paranoid, bureaucratic nonsense. You walk into a UPS store, desperate to do something as simple as scan a few documents, and you're met with the cold, unblinking wall of corporate policy. "No external USBs," they say. They treat you like a biological hazard, a digital terrorist carrying some devastating network-killing virus on a plastic thumb drive. It’s infuriating. It’s the kind of low-grade modern friction that makes you want to scream into the void.So you walk out, defeated, and drift over to FedEx, bracing for more of the same corporate misery.But then you meet Tristan.In a world of automated phone menus and dead-eyed retail workers, Tristan was a goddamn oasis of sanity. The man was calm. Cool. Utterly unbothered by the chaos of the day. He didn't quote a rulebook; he just saw a human being who needed to get a job done and said, "Yeah, I can help with that."He didn't just point to a machine and walk away, either. He took the questions, got the system up and running, and actually checked the damn USB to make sure the scans took. That is called craftsmanship. That is called caring, even when the job description doesn't demand it.Look, I get it. I understand the corporate anxiety about malware and digital contagions. Facilities have to protect themselves. But FedEx proved to be the path of least resistance, and Tristan was the guy who made the gears turn with absolute, beautiful efficiency.Thank you, sir. Men like you keep the wheels of civilization turning when everything else feels broken.
CM
Calvin McWilliams
Sep 17, 2026
I explained to the dude in the tie that I just needed to print an Amazon label and I would rather not have to jump through the hoops of paying 5 bucks and logging into the copier and all the things. He then proceeded to explain the thing about the 5 bucks and how it was just a deposit that wouldn’t be spent unless I exceeded it, as though I was a 6 year old woman who just didn’t get it. I then walked past him directly out of the store, back to my car and left. If he’d have said, “Dude, that’s policy, I wish we could do it differently” maybe attempt to sympathize, that woulda been fantastic and I’d have done the thing and I’d have an Amazon label. Absolutely terrible, basically zero customer service, basic bad customer experience shaming. Dude saw me as the problem with how his store operates.