I went shopping for a replacement ps2/usb adapter today, and on the way I swung in to Hess to fill my tank. The Hess station had worn-out instructions and labels on the pumps, so it was hard to tell which way the credit card slot wanted me to position my card from the partly-worn drawing. The "start" button I was supposed to press had been completely erased and looked like a bullet hole in a plastic square. More than once the pump speaker has blared out at me "Other way!" but this time I was unmonitored. I looked up.
"Wrong way," the lcd said. "Insert card again." I did, another possible way. "Card inserted wrong" the lcd said. The pump wasn't going let me use my credit card, telling me instead to "pay inside." I didn't want to pay inside. I wanted to pay at the pump, as I'm used to. But I went in, got in line behind another guy, and waited my turn to pay in advance. No clerk in sight.
"He's coming right back," the other guy said. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Five minutes later. "He's coming right back," the other guy said again. After ten minutes, I decided he wasn't 'coming right back,' so I left and drove to another pump. Same message: "Pay inside." I decided to drive on.
Office Depot didn't carry my adapter, but they thought Walmart might, so I started for there. Then I saw the Big Beautiful: the new Best Buy was now open, right across the street! I jockeyed my way into the newly-paved lot and entered the Promised Land: Best Buy of Coral Springs!
Before I was halfway through the door, the deep boom boom boom of the car stereo gear's bass amplified speakers which bounce customers of most electronics stores these days rhythmically along the aisles assaulted my ears and vibrated my knees. "WELCOME TO BEST BUY!" a kid barely out of high school wearing a Best Buy Blue teeshirt shouted over the din, thrusting a sale flyer at me as a winsome, matching-teeshirted girl in a ponytail gyrated to the beat and smiled like Vanna White as she worked a cellphone display, blocking my further progress. "Welcome to Best Buy," she mimed, though I couldn't hear a word. I tried to work my way to a section with shelving high enough to block the bass. There was none to be found.
Yep, it's a Best Buy alright, I marvelled, borne by each beat further along the aisles, scanning for the cables and connectors section. The new store was filled with eager young helpers who typically clustered themselves around computer islands in small groups and talked excitedly. Finally a manager, or at least a young fellow who seemed to be at least twenty-one and who wore a tie, asked "May I help you find something?" I showed him my broken adapter. "Mm, this isn't good," he said, pulling it apart. "I don't think we carry anything like that by itself." It was what I expected, so I reached out to take it back. "Wait," he withdrew my item," I'll check with the Geek Squad." The Geek Squad are the Green Berets and Navy Seals of Best Buy and other such stores, the creme de la creme of techies; they actually know something about computers and parts. So elite are they, in fact, that even my presumed "manager" dared not interrupt their commisserations around a computer register. So I waited some more.
Finally one tall geek squadder turned his head, flipped away my manager after a disdainful glance at my lowly broken adapter, and returned to his cybercrowd. My manager handed me the pieces and announced triumphantly, "I was right. We don't have it." with a wide smile.
So I marched out of Best Buy to the boom boom boom of the thousand-watt trunk speakers and headed for Walmart. On the way, however, I was able to fill my gas tank at the 7-11 across from Hess (and to use my card!) Of course, I now had to add my zip code at the pump, "for protection against unauthorized use," the lcd said. And surprise surprise, Walmart didn't carry my adapter either. I finally found it online for $2.50, but had to add $3.45 for postage and another $4.00 handling fee for "orders under $10." Wonder if that guy ever came back to the counter at Hess.
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3 comments:
I don't shop at Supposedly Best Buy any more, after having been escorted out of the store by security for writing prices down on a notepad.
It is what it is. I love BestBuy... but they're not going to have everything. You gotta sorta know that you're more apt to find that part at a Radio shack. Bestbuy is a high-end electronics store...not a parts warehouse. I think your expectations may have been too high. As for the gas station... it's a gas station. You're probably shopping at the cheapest one which is going to have the cheapest pumps. Exercise your patience and lower your expectations and you'll feel like your getting the royal treatment (or you could just spring for the expensive establishments)
While I agree with big penguin that Radio Shack is the place to look for the sort of adapter you want, I have to disagree with his support of Best Buy.
Best Buy advertises that it has the lowest price on any item it carries and even makes a guarantee to that effect. But I don't take any retailer at its word. Pat and I were comparison-shopping for a VCR-DVD combo, and while both of us have very good memories for details, there were too many details about the many models available and the price and features of each model. So we were writing the details on a notepad, so we could go over the information later at home and decide what model we wanted to purchase, and where we could get the best price on it.
We were approached by a store security guard, who told us we couldn't take notes while we were in the store. It apparently violated some sort of security policy.
Now, if I were on the perimeter of a military base, looking into the secure areas with binoculars, and then writing things on a notepad, I could see that my activities could be seen as threatening. But taking notes in a retail store for the purpose of comparison shopping is not something that threatens security in any way.
I will not shop at a store that is so afraid of comparison shoppers that it escorts them out the door. If the store personnel don't want me to comparison-shop, that's a clear indication that the managers fear the store doesn't have the best price and they don't want me to find that out. If Best Buy really did have the best price, the store personnel would welcome those of us who shop with notepads, because they would know that we would come back once we had verified that Best Buy really did have the best price.
I do not like the humiliation of being treated like a criminal when I haven't done anything wrong. Therefore, I do not shop at Best Buy.
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