CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Ridebreck · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: Effin' blue shirts...

Why do these guys have to be such pains in the asses? I swung in today at lunch to pick up a copy of DVE on Bluray since their website indicated that my local store had it in stock. Seriously, it doesn't get much simpler. So I go in and check the Bluray aisles. As I figured, not there. So I head back to the TV area since I recall seeing the DVD version of DVE years ago back there with the overpriced cables and such. Predictably, Johnny Blueshirt heads me off as I'm walking back there - "can I help you, sir?" As bad as I wanted to say "I doubt it", I hold back and just ask "where are your calibration disks". Instead of a "over here" or "let me check", I instead get "oh those don't work, so we don't carry them"

Me: "Your website disagrees with you. It's called Digital Video Essentials. Have you seen anything like that back here, or am I in the wrong spot?"

Him: "Like I said, we don't carry them because they're pretty much worthless for setting up your TV. We've gone to the manufacturers and gotten the test patterns and equipment that they use to setup the TVs in the factory and can come out to your house and set up your TV for you."

Me (seriously trying not to go off on the guy): "Look, I know what I'm doing and am quite capable of setting up my own TV. I'm just looking for the disk."

Him: "You can't really set up your TV right with those disks, since most people don't have access to the right settings."

Me: "Like I said, I know what I'm doing and I know how to get into the service menus for my set. I'm just looking for the disk. Have you seen one back here or not, man?"

Him: "No. We stopped carrying those."

Me: "Fine. I'll look up front, since your website very much disagrees with you."

So I cruise a couple of isles over until I find another moron in a blue shirt and immediately go on the offensive.

Me: "Excuse me, but I'm sick of the jackass in the back giving me crap, so can you check the computer to see if you have the disk that I'm looking for in stock?"

So he checks and sure enough, they've got them. Right when he was about to go look for it, Johnny Blueshirt shows up with a DVE box in his hand. "Sir, I think I found one." I was so frustrated at that point that I just snatched it, said a very stern "thanks" and started to walk away. Evidently, that wasn't enough for Johnny, so he has to pop off with "just be careful. You can really mess up your TV if you adjust the wrong setting." As much as I wanted to turn around and embarass the crap out that mouthy little prick, instead I very loudly yelled back "like I said twice already, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, OK?!?"

They must have a "annoying *******" test that these people have to take before they get hired on.

Almost forgot to add the best part. So I get back to my office and notice that the cellophane looks like this thing had been re-wrapped, but the security band was still intact on the top. So I unwrap the cellophane and looked closer. Sure enough, you can crack open the case and get to the disk without breaking the sticker on top. I'm starting to get really pissed until I realized that there were two disks in the box. Evidently that ol' DVE disk wasn't as useless to them as Johnny had stated, because they had been using the hell out of it and I now had their store copy as well as an extra one that thankfully didn't have finger print smudges all over it.

So F-you, Johnny Blueshirt. I've got your copy of DVE. Your fellow Blueshirts aren't going to be too happy when they realize that it's gone. Serves them right for re-packaging. Bastards.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 8:25 pm Post subject:

Burn a copy, return it. Very Happy

Mr. Green · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 12:11 am Post subject:

At least you got some attention. Future shop and bestbuy goofs only get a bonus/ commission on the warranty sales up here. There are usually 5-10 of the jerks milling around by the warehouse doors. Good luck finding anybody to help or even find out anything even on the computer for you.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 12:40 am Post subject:

I was listening to a guy try to sell an HD TV as oppsed to an SD TV to a customer. He was fumbling and stumbling about the resolutions. I couldn't help it. I had to straiten him out. Mr. Green

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

On the other hand, from his perspective, you're probably just the latest in a line of 50 dumbshits who've come in, asked for DVE because they read about it on a forum, and come back to scream at his boss because he sold them a thing that made their TVs look like a Pink Floyd concert.

For every guy like us that goes into a retail establishment, there are a hundred who are totally clueless knobs, and who should probably be kept away from DVE at all costs - just like the guy said. He just had no way of knowing that you're the one legit one in the lot.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 1:49 am Post subject:

Devil's advocate Peri?

Ridebreck · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 1:52 am Post subject:

Oh, I understand that, which is why I was patient at first. I didn't really get hacked off until he kept on even after I had explained that I knew what I was doing.

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

Brooklyn · Joined: 17 Sep 2007 Posts: 494 Location: Morgan Hill, CA

perisoft is right, a vast majority of customers would have no idea what they were doing. And the salesman is probably pressured to push the in home service. He just pushed it a little hard on you.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 4:02 am Post subject:

Ridebreck · Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 4:00 am Post subject:

I can see both sides too, but his job is to help the customer, not inject his own personal opinions when all the customer asked was where is ____? For all he knew, I could have been buying it as a gift. If he doesn't want to have people possibly coming back to blame him, then he should ask the store manager to stock the DVE disks with the rest of the BluRays up front. Honestly, this is the first time that I've ever had a problem like this with a blue shirt. It just really blew me away that he insisted on pressing the issue so far.

Brian Hampton · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 1173

Brian Hampton · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 1173

akajester · Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 934 Location: Wisconsin

I'm not an expert, but even I have had problems at BB and CC. I was shopping for one of the CRT tv's that could do HD a few years back at BB, and I kept asking to see an HD source on the tv. Clearly it was SD material because it didn't look good. The guy kept telling me, "it'll look much better in your house". WTF does that mean! I ended up buying the tv thinking maybe I could tweak it once I get HD connected to it. The next day I returned it because it had blue spots all over and it was so bad even my wife noticed it.

At CC, I went looking at a Sony TV that had just come out. I believe it was a RP LCD tv, something like that. I heard it was better than the DLP RP tv's. Anyways. I'm just walking around looking at tv's and he starts asking me what I'm looking for. No problem. I answered his questions. He starts trying to sell me LCD's and I told him I don't like the look of them. I didn't want to get into it, but he starts an argument with me in the store! The whole time I just pointed at the screen and said, it looks like junk! Can't you see that?
To twist the knife he starts asking me what type of cables I have, and that I should buy Monster cables. Where did that come from? I told him my cables were just fine. He said that he did a test for the other staff that proved good component cables were better than a bad hdmi cable. Wow, what a genius. I told him that TV's and DVD players rate differently depending on the input and output electronics used. I told him to check the dvd player benchmarks online, it's clear as day. His response was that he doesn't like being wrong and he continued to try and argue with me as I walked out of the store.

I understand the sales person thing. But would you start an argument with a customer? If I say "I don't like the look of an LCD tv", isn't that a statement that you can't disprove? I mean, I just don't like the look of it. Do I need a technical reason to not like it?
If my kids weren't with me at the time, I'm not sure what I would've done. It took every ounce of control I had in me to not punch the smug (probably 18) year old in the face.

Anyways, I feel your pain. Buy online, do in-store pickup and get it at the service desk. You avoid all the sales BS then. Smile

PS. Brian I'm jealous, I love Pink Floyd and have never been able to go to a concert. The best thing I could do was the PBS HD Pulse concert. woot!

Brian Hampton · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 1173

Thread Hi-jack...

Here are some of the concert tix I have...

The little ticket on the bottom right is an example of what tix look like in USA... See how the Euro tix are much nicer.

I never got to see Pink Floyd consisting of both Roger Waters and David Gilmour (except the live8 telecasts and dvds) or come to think of it... I never got to see the Syd Barrett days of Pink Floyd.

I did see Roger Waters 3 times on his own though.. Never pass up a chance to see anything Floyd related.

-Brian

akajester · Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 934 Location: Wisconsin

Very cool, yeah those tix look awesome. You suck! Smile

lexx21 · Joined: 10 Oct 2008 Posts: 119

Once in BB, one of the sales guys was trying to sell me pirated software that he had been downloading...LOL. I should have said that I was a fed and freaked him out.

Many years ago I worked in CC as a tech. It was my first "real" job out of school. Anyway, I would have to deal with customers quite a bit and one day I had a line of folks waiting for me to look at their equipment. This one guy had bought a JVC cd player. Back then, they had shipping screws that you had to remove plus an internal locking screw for the head. You put a screwdriver in a hole, turned the screw 1/4 turn, and you were off to the races. Anyway, this dweeb says that his cd player won't go past 3 minutes of play time (which means the locking screw had not been turned). I asked if he removed the packing screws and put a screw driver in the hole and turned the screw located there. He replied in a VERY snide tone "I don't arbitrarily put screwdrivers into high tech pieces of equipment." I asked if he had read the manual. He replied "cover to cover". So, I flipped the unit over and removed the packing screws and turned the internal screw, hooked it up and started a cd. I then opened the manual to the FIRST PAGE and showed him where to stick his screwdriver.... LOL. There were these two HOT women in line that just burst out laughing.

We had a lot of dumb ass customers come through there that had absolutely no clue what so ever. Every once in a while though you would get someone in who actually knew his butt from a hole in the ground and understood what you were talking about. Those customers were an absolute pleasure to work with. It sounds like you ended up with one of the sales people who knew just enough to be dangerous, but should still be classified as "special" and ride a short bus to work.

phishin_ca · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 64 Location: Salisbury, MD

The best is when you walk in wearing a Cisco shirt and they try to sell you a linksys router.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

Just got to looking through a junk mag I picked up at Best Buy a month ago...

First Glimpse

http://www.firstglimpsemag.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2f2009%2ff0606%2f05f06%2f05f06.asp&guid=22838DD2E10C4E79A58478CDC92FAACA

Got to the page on calibration and I quote:

Dave Lister · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:08 pm Post subject:

I like telling sales people when they are wrong, I do it in a polite way so it is harder for them to counter me telling them that they are wrong, though some still try. Laughing

You have a golden opportunity to wipe the snide smirk from his face, you take the good DVE disk and put that in a 50 cent DVD case and keep it then take the used disk back for a full refund and make sure to talk to someone in management about being sold the store's calibration disk after being made out to be an idiot by the blue shirt and point out which one he is, he probably won't lose his job but will get a talking to by his boss which should make him feel about as small as he was trying to make you feel. Wink

You could even tell the management to put the disks on the shelf where they should be instead of hiding them in the back storage room, which would have avoided all that mess in the first place.