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Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed
Barence writes "An undercover investigation has revealed how Dell's online sales staff take liberties with the truth when trying to sell customers new PCs. One member of staff told an undercover reporter that he would need a PC with a good graphics card to download digital photos. Another, who was more incompetent than devious, was asked how many photos could be stored on a 250GB hard disk. 'Its[sic] on average 2 MB then 1024 MB * 2,' came the bewildering reply. Meanwhile, a sales assistant at supermarket Tesco told the reporter that netbooks got their name because 'a Japanese man on a plane fell asleep with a laptop on his thighs and was horribly burned, so the industry has dropped the name laptop.'"
Q: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?
A: The used car salesman knows when he is lying.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Drones who sell stuff are prone to lie about their products? HAS THE PRESIDENT BEEN TOLD?
Life needs more saving throws.
PC sales staff are clueless droids - film at 11. It's been this way since PCs hit retail sales floors. Anybody with the smarts to sell a PC with competence has the smarts to not be in retail.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Completely agreed. The staff at Best Buy or whatever other brick and mortar store carries computers is so completely clueless that it's comical. Why should online vendors be much different?
The best part for me was seeing that they outsource their sales staff, too. Shouldn't they just be moving their headquarters to India by now? So much for the "American" company started out of the guy next door's garage.
Inf.
Reason: The type of people who have to talk to a sales person, will run windows in a single partition, and will have to reformat before filling their drive.
Storage really is cheap these days.
Undercover investigation done online? Do you actually know what "undercover" means? The "hot shot investigator" chatted online until there was enough damning text transcripts. This is a story?
Sales people LIE??? Noooo! My faith in mankind is DESTROYED!
Now I must leave this place - my girlfriend is thinking about buying a car, and I MUST STOP HER BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
The tesco one isn't so bad in fairness. The rep could well have been thinking of NOTEbook - rather than NETbook. To be honest I thought that was the reason why PC makers no longer refer to laptops as laptops, but instead notebooks - so there was no implicit liability with someone burning their special parts from keeping a hot laptop in lap.
And of course like a noob I just read the article and indeed that is what happened - the rep thought notebook - and the article takes a shot at the rep for saying a netbook is: "They're just small notebooks without word processors."
So now im really pissed at giving pcpro a page click.
I'm a Linux user. The last time I purchased a laptop, they tried to sell me a machine with ATI graphics. I told them that ATI's Linux drivers are terrible, but they said they had heard nothing about this. This was Dell, who sells Linux machines, so I figured they would have known about the problems.
After my old X1300, I would rather try and drill my own teeth than buy another ATI GPU.
I found a nice NVIDIA laptop and have been very happy with it for the past 8 months.
While we, computer elites can laugh, or cry, at some of the stupid, stupid things that come out of the mouths of the sales drones - for a lot of people they are the experts. Most people neither know nor care about computers. They just want to GET STUFF DONE. They don't know or care about Gigahertz or Terabytes: just as they don't know or care about the kilo-Watt rating of their electric kettle: it's merely an appliance - it works or it doesn't.
Maybe the IT industry should look inwards on itself and consider how we've failed to educate the public about the technology we make them use. Even worse, maybe we should reflect on how we've turned a subject that has such a huge potential for good, into a nerdy hell: full of jargon, technobabble and misinformation. To the point where the sales-staff don't even know when they're talking rubbish.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Sales people's job is to move widgets. Sell more widgets == more take-home pay.
-They aren't paid to be factual.
-They aren't paid to keep the best interests of the consumer in mind.
-The job, as designed, requires no training. In fact it rewards the absence of training.
This is the same all over. Laptops, packaged investments, American health insurance. Doesn't matter.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I think at least some of the computer salesmen know too. Sorry.
I'm sorry, but when I witness some computer store guy tell an old geezer that he _needs_ the latest top-end NVidia card to watch digital photos of his grandchildren, 'cause photos are video stuff and and a bigger video card is better for that, right?... or that buying the latest Intel CPU makes their Internet go faster... I know Hanlon's Razor, "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", but it still trips my suspension of disbelief big time. Especially when I can have a more technical talk with that sales guy afterwards and see that, well, he may not be IBM research labs material, but he's not exactly the kind who thinks that Megaherz is what happens when you stick your fingers in the PSU either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Completely agreed. The staff at Best Buy or whatever other brick and mortar store carries computers is so completely clueless that it's comical. Why should online vendors be much different?.
I think what's worse is when the sales person is actually good and can persuade someone into buying a product they don't need. I have to go to computer stores with my Dad when he tries to buy something simple like an ethernet cable or a power strip or he'll come home with a Cisco switch and an APC rackmount battery backup.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
the term "netbook" comes from the fact that because they are small lightweight laptops, they are much more prone to contamination than regular laptops. therefore, they require the use of hairnets during operation. why this is true requires profound technological expertise i don't have the time to educate you fools on in this venue, but suffice it to say that it has to do with the cube of the static charge carried by the contamination proportionate to the surface area of the hard drive
and i am flabbergasted and horrified evey time i see someone using their netbooks without the mandatory use of a proper hairnet. just one little hair sliding in a crack in between the keys on the keyboard! you fools
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
BREAKING NEWS!! Someone alert the papers! Sales people are making shit up!!!
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Although I have 512K in my IBM PC and it runs WordPerfect and Visicalc just fine, I like to upsell a bit because I've got it on good authority that "640K should be enough for anyone"
Man i'm even more pissed at whatever jerkoff/editor did this story - the boxout 'quote' is "Netbook is the new name for laptop. They're just small notebooks without word processors"
Screw those chumps, looking at the article that is not the direct quote, as he corrected himself, presumable said some other stuff, then the netbook comment.
Maybe i've just had this notebook in my lap too long.
This is news? Can anyone honestly say "omg i'm so surprised"?
I was shopping for a new laptop for my wife a year or two ago and browsing Circuit City (no intentions of buying there, I just like to get my hands on the products before I buy them online). One of the "salesmen" asked me if I needed help and I decided to play along. I told him I was just checking out a few models for an upcoming purchase for my wife.
Him: Will you need a Microsoft to go with it?
Me: A Microsoft what? It comes with Windows Vista, doesn't it? Microsoft makes a lot of software.
Him: Will she need any office software?
Me: Yeah, but I've got a copy of Office XP (maybe it's 2003, I don't recall) I don't use anymore since I bought a Mac, so she'll just use that.
Him: Oh, no, you can't do that. Office XP won't work on this computer
Me: Huh? It should work fine, it's recent enough, Vista works with just about anything.
Him: Nope, Office XP/2003 doesn't work on Vista at all, you need Office 2007.
Me: Are you sure that it's not just that Office 2007 works better than the older versions on Vista?
Him: No, it's not going to work at all.
And then people wonder why sales dropped through the floor when they laid off their best staff.
As we're speaking, I'm working on a laptop from a lady who came from Best Buy. The "Geek Squad" claimed that she had a failing hard drive, and that she would need to buy a new one, as well as a Windows Vista install. The only symptom was "My laptop is running slow"
One pass of Malwarebytes, thirty minutes later, a S.M.A.R.T. check, the machine is performing properly.
The trolls even left their stupid "GeekSquad" system checking software on my customer's machine. I checked the logs of the program, no found errors.
People disgust me.
fascinating video from inside Dell's phone sales team....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY
"netbooks got their name because 'a Japanese man on a plane fell asleep with a laptop on his thighs and was horribly burned, so the industry has dropped the name laptop."
So fires are the reason why they call Desktops PCs! ;)
Probably better explained as an example of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity") than outright intentional deception.
What I find weird is... I walk into my nearest Best Buy: Their mobile staff is really REALLY knowledgeable; their computer staff are knee-dragging morons! Is the mobile section of Best Buy a better money maker and worth having knowledgeable staff more-so than the computer section?
There are some very knowledgeable salesmen out there. Unfortunately, they are the minority. That's because being knowledgeable is not a particularly well-rewarded attribute. Take a look at the following:
1) When you walk into Best Buy or call Dell, you've already committed yourself: you are pretty much ready to buy, or you wouldn't be there.
2) Salesmen are paid on commission. The more you spend, the more they make.
3) Most people can't define the difference between a megabyte and a megahertz.
4) If you leave without buying, the salesman will lose the commission, even if you buy later based on their advice.
Put it all together, and you have a situation where salespeople are highly motivated to spout whatever bullshit they can concoct to get you to buy the more expensive doohickey RIGHT NOW, as long as they can get you to buy it. Since people typically judge the truthfullness of other people based on the confidence that they seem to have in what they are saying, you end up with a pack of know-nothing liars who make any kind of bullshit... with confidence.
It's really not much different than the techno-babble bullshiz that they say on Star Trek - the words are unimportant, but it's important that it sound real. And since any computer that anybody buys can do pretty much whatever they need, the people are typically content with the scenario because they got something that actually does what they need. They will tend to accept this as evidence that their salesman was telling the truth in the first place.
It's a sad, sad situation, and one that's not likely to improve any time soon.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
FTA: "The netbooks comes [sic] with a slower processor, lesser memory, lesser hard drive, no optical drive and it would not be possible to have any software loaded on this netbook," he stated, once again playing hard and fast with the truth.
No, he is playing fast and loose with the truth.
Me too. Makes sense as one possible explanation of the popularity of "notebook", regardless of the original invention of the term. Especially since "notebook" suggests very limited applications, and since "laptop", "desktop", and "palmtop" sound pretty good as a way of explaining different machines -- I'd expect that to have caught on better. In fact, I'd suggest that the Tesco PC saleperson should probably be earning a lot more than what Tesco are paying him/her.
I don't care enough to RTFA, but the whole summary sounds stupid to me. Recommending a good graphics card for someone interested in digital photography is not entirely wrong, since bad graphics cards can be slow (especially for photoshop etc.), poorly color corrected, etc.
As for:
I can understand that just fine, allowing that MB was said instead of KB. Big deal, I've said the wrong units myself a few times; it's easily done. Strange that it wasn't corrected, but like most of the stuff here, I think it's simply a case of relatively clued-in salespeople trying to dumb things down for clueless buyers. Something's gotta give.
Returns are more of a pain to deal with.
Of course, that's just anecdotal stuff. Plenty of stores do give out bonus goodies (or firings) based on total money made per individual worker, and there are plenty of people that just don't anything about electronics but needed a job badly.
Dell has always amazed me with the level of stupidity they exhibit when it comes to customer service. When I got my first Dell waaay back when, I could order the computer online, customize it however much I needed (within the normal restrictions Dell imposes), and so forth.
But could I make my monthly payments online? Why no. I called customer service to ask them why this was the case, and I was told that they just weren't set up for it. For all I know, they may have it now. My most recent computer, I just outright bought, rather then pay monthly installments.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Excellent point. Machines don't matter. People matter. ONLY people matter. Machines exist only to serve humans.
So, the deal is this. They paid money for your POS OS, machine or software. It had better work. Period. End of story. They don't care about closing processes, ending threads, reclaiming memory from the stack, optimizing the sorting algorithm, and so on. What they care about is the when they ask the computer to jump, the only question the computer has is "how high?"
Seriously, computers are about money, provided by users who DO NOT CARE about any of the mechanics any more than you care about the mechanics of your local sewage processing facility. Your job (and mine) as a programmer is to wipe their hineys gently and dispose of the waste, preferably without asking. You may hate it, as I do, but THAT'S YOUR JOB. Get over it. Don't like it? Get a new one.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Best Buy Sales Girl: Now you know you'll need to buy anti-virus software don't you?
Me: No, no I won't.
BBSG: But without anti-virus software your computer will {insert non-sequitor that problem mentions terrorists winning}
Me: First, that's not quite how that works. Second, I'm planning on installing Linux on this laptop.
BBSG: I see, but you're still going to need anti-virus software, I recommend you get {insert name of crappy anti-virus software}
Me: Please just ring up my computer.
Who buys a computer at a supermarket?
The mobile section is actually only half Best Buy, and half Carphone Warehouse. They work on a different bonus structure and different power structure than the rest of the store, which the Mobile Manager reporting directly to a district manager and skipping the General Manager of the store, unlike every other dept.
So I mountain bike. Turns out these bikes have become more and more complicated, with more and more features, and I'm at the point where I don't really care about the latest carbon-fiber whatsathinger I just want to get on my bike and go, and have it not break. But when I need to fix the bike, or buy a new one, I've got to talk to sales people some of whom have a clue and some of whom don't.
Computers are like most other reasonably complex products - you've got to do your homework and never, ever trust that the salesperson knows what they are talking about. Because most don't, whether we're talking mountain bikes or personal computers.
A knowledgeable computer person can probably find a better job. There's not so many other jobs for people who know about cell phone handsets...
'Sensible' is a curse word.
What's going to happen when people's bookshelvs / libraries burn down?
Thing is, we don't expect people to be able to walk in off the street and adjust a carburetor. We demand training, and credentials and certificates before we let people monkey around with car electricals. But somehow, somehow it's ok to hire clueless people to maintain and service the PCs that people's livelihoods may depend on. Sure, they may not -die- if you do a bad job, but you can end up wasting thousands of their dollars and still not fix the problem.
We don't need to educate people about computers - we need to educate people about the value of professional IT training and certification.
No, you don't have to be a mechanic to sell a car; but that's only because cars come as a prefabricated system where your only choices are what colour and what model of CD player to put in. If you were selling cars assembled from any number of subsystems you -would- need to be a mechanic to offer useful advice.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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The incompetence of the sales staff at Best Buy is not restricted to the computer department. Case in point: the other night I went to look for a cordless phone with a switching power supply - i.e. something that could run on either 110V or 220V.
Looking at the shelf of phones, none of the boxes gave any indication of input voltage or being dual-voltage capable. I asked a droid which of the phones would accept 220V and he said
"All of them."
"Are you sure? All of them?"
"Any of these will work."
I looked over the phones on display until I found one with a power brick attached. It clearly said Input: 110-120V AC.
"What about this one? It says 110V AC input."
He squinted at the brick and said
"No look. It says 250 here."
I looked where he was pointing and sure enough, it said Output: 250mW 12V DC. ..."
"Okay thanks. I think I'll do some research online or something and maybe come back in tomorrow with a specific model number in hand
If these guys can't master the simple concept of input and output voltages, there really is very little hope of them navigating the world of memory bandwidth, sockets, or video performance.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
It's not just the salesmen who are clueless. People don't know what to ask for, don't know how to describe what they want out of a computer... it's a mess on both ends.
Even worse, maybe we should reflect on how we've turned a subject that has such a huge potential for good, into a nerdy hell: full of jargon, technobabble and misinformation.
I think many "IT people" like it like that; it makes them feel superior, and gives them a weapon to "pwn newbs" or whatever. It's also popular among management, who have their own variations of the dialect that is used to shut out people and lower the discourse. I think if the IT industry looked inwards on itself, it would probably decide that things are going just as planned. After all, the industry is there to make a profit, and that's easier when you can deceive customers.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Had a bit of first hand experience with this recently. I've always known Dell has devious pricing systems, the same system will have different starting prices and instant discounts applied to it depending on how you get to it and result in systems with the same specs being priced hundreds of dollars apart from one another.
I own a business and needed some systems quick for new hires. We have a line of credit through dell which has come in handy a few times. The new hires were going to be working heavily in the Adobe suite and needed some firepower but nothing crazy. I just could not price a system with the specs I wanted. I called up sales and they told me that it was impossible to get the system I wanted with 64-bit Vista despite that, when both options were available, there was no price difference, the sales guy made some nonsensical reference to the motherboard (was getting a intel quad-core). I asked could I get the 2GBs of memory that came with the system on one DIMM instead of two, but this was not possible because the system wouldn't support it.
In the end I broke down and now and ordering three systems worth of parts from Newegg, which, of course, satisfies my inner geek but has lead to significant delays in getting the hardware I need.
maybe we should reflect on how we've turned a subject that has such a huge potential for good, into a nerdy hell: full of jargon, technobabble and misinformation.
Right. Because fields like medicine, law, automotive repair, publishing, fashion, cooking, broadcast, engineering, carpentry, literature, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, politics, banking, insurance, etc. don't have any jargon, technobabble, or misinformation.
Every field has specialized language.
You either learn enough of the specialized language to make sure you aren't being taken for a ride, or you trust that the folks you're dealing with aren't going to abuse their position of power.
The primary difference is that many people don't feel the need to educate themselves in any way when it comes to computers. Many people seem almost proud of their ignorance. They'll happily declare that they don't know anything about computers.
Sure, they just want to get stuff done. So do I, when I get in my car and drive to the grocery store. But it's still a news story when the local repair shop is found to be lying to its customers and charging people for repairs they don't need.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Well, I was more like thinking small "mom and pop" shops, where people can still tell their arse from their elbow. They may not have some deep knowledge of either, but at least know what goes on the toilet when you need to take a dump. Or back to computers, to have read some benchmark site when they bought their own graphics card.
Basically: they may not be gurus, but they know enough to know when they're lying to a customer. And that's pretty much what I'm charging them with. Being conmen on a commision, and knowing they're conmen.
And by your friend's description, it sounds like your friend and his co-workers knew when they're lying to a customer too. Your friend quit because he couldn't stand doing it, at least some of his co-workers didn't. That's how you separate those with morals from those without.
But unfortunately the system is set up to reward the latter, not the former.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually, that's true. Although a few quick hacks will get it to work, officially microsoft doesn't support under office 2007 on vista.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
I had to do something fairly similar for my grandmother's computer. Only problem was, the hard drive was working perfectly fine before she took it to Best Buy. I had given her a hand-me-down computer with Linux on it, and she wanted to install Windows on it. So she had to go buy a copy. Somehow in the process of installing Windows--an arduous task that involves the opening of the DVD drive--they had managed to open the case, unscrew the hard drive from the case, and then bust it up enough that it took over 24 hours for Windows to finish installing. I know this because they kindly provided my grandmother a receipt that had logs of everything they did, which I went over.
The best part is when they decided the slowness was due to the PC not having enough RAM for XP. Which is curious, because I had run XP on that PC just fine. So they tell her they need to buy 2 x 1 GB sticks. Eventually we managed to get a refund on all of that stuff after Windows failed to boot up.
After I had to head back to my home state, she was left with no computer and, even worse, no one who even remotely knows that they're talking about with computers. She went to the same Best Buy and asked for assistance on what computer to buy. They equipped her, someone whose most intensive task is copying photos off of a camera, with a quad core desktop with like 4 or 8 GB of RAM.
SSC
Best Buy is not paid on commissions, BUT each department is rewarded for having high sales, which is kind of like a commission.
Plus, the best salesmen can get on geek squad, where they can use the name to fleece more victims. :D
The guy saying that you need a good graphics card to download pictures is like going to Best Buy and the guy says that you'll get a better picture with the gold plated $200 HDMI cable.
Huh. If I had mod points today I would surely award you some.
A bit of a different field, but I know that whenever I am at Best Buy to pick up anything home theater related (I help out a lot of friends/relatives with HT setups) I will inevitably end up arguing with some moron trying to sell me a $140 Monster Cable so it will 'look better'. Being ignorant/a liar is one thing, but it is totally something else when they continue to argue with you about it. I have even, on one particular occasion, taken the time to explain to the clown how digital audio/video works and why purchasing the "better" cable is equivalent to lighting your money on fire, and had him still come back with, "Well, I'm sorry but you're wrong, this cable will make it look better." It is amazing to me that this sort of criminal fraud is tolerated -- these people get away with making provably false statements in order to separate people from their money and they don't see any consequences. The average person should be able to walk into a store and at least be confident that the person trying to sell them things will, at the very least, not blatantly lie, but this is not the case.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
there was a point when I was doing rep work in a best buy that they actually asked me to help out with the computers because their staff was so much more hopelessly clueless.
But nevermind, looks like since the OEM (probably around SP1), they officially say all are compatible now. There was a horrible time when they really did recommend only 2007.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
FTA: "The netbooks comes [sic] with a slower processor, lesser memory, lesser hard drive, no optical drive and it would not be possible to have any software loaded on this netbook," he stated, once again playing hard and fast with the truth.
No, he is playing fast and loose with the truth.
The term fast and loose usually refers to a situation where the truth is being stretched and warped, such as the cell phone data plans where "Unlimited" actually means you can use it whenever you want, whereas most would assume that to mean you do not have a 5 GB bandwidth cap. Saying that it is not possible to load software onto a netbook is an outright, bold-faced lie.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
You're not going to find any highly qualified help hanging around on a supermarket sales floor trying to sell to the lone person that actually appreciates that in the middle of all the bargain shoppers. Of course they all the right words to fool the casual customer, that's part of the job description but that's also it. That's not about computers, that's about pretty much anything. Most of them end up hiring basically nice and polite people that'll sell you on whatever you show an interest in along with whatever accessories they can or whatever has the highest margin if you don't.
It's one of the things you pay for if you visit niche shops, I'm not saying they're all saints either but most of them live off reputation and actual skills, not the goods they stock. Don't let them talk you way out of your budget, but they actually can make sense to listen to. But it all rather depends on you needing some personal advice, computer sales is way too dominated by online reviews that are valid for everyone. One round of reviews, one round of price checking, go to cheapest serious retailer, buy. It's quite different than shopping clothes were you actually need personal feedback.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
>Maybe the IT industry should look inwards on itself and consider how we've failed to educate the public about the technology we make them use.
Lets not go overboard. The problem here is confirmation bias. You only hear the worst stories. The worst 1% of 1%. What you dont hear is he guy reading consumer reports or the girl calling her mom for computer advice. Or the grandpa using a mac.
What you hear is the girl who tries to use the mouse as a foot pedal or the guy who tries to install a pci card into a agp slot.
For the most part, people get along just fine with technology. They do their research or they have someone help. Its incredible how competent non-IT people can be sometimes. But, again, we dont hear about them. We just hear the bad news.
I just bought a new reciever and I was a bit unsure if it was the right one with enough bass, but then the guy in the shop said they could modify it with a tk-421 upgrade. They gave it 3-4 quads more per channel by adding that and they did that modification right in the store.
Plus it didn't add a lot to the price.
Q: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?
A: The used car salesman knows when he is lying.
and he can drive a car.
They can have my command prompt when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Do you honestly believe that anyone who could really tell you about the innards of a PC would be working a 9 dollar an hour job working the phones at Dell?
Granted, there are a ton of fly-by-night tech institute grads who try to get anything working around computers but if they were worth the paper their certs were written on they wouldn't be there long.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
WTF are you talking about? That's absolutely NOT true. All versions of MS OfficeXP and 2003 are listed on the Vista compatibility pages :
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/Browse.aspx?type=Software&category=Business%20%26%20Home%20Office&subcategory=Office%20Suites&page=2
Perhaps you should either do some research or work for Dell.
Seems like the ignorant would be better at selling things, I'd expect sales *to* the ignorant to increase. Ignorant salespeople don't have any 'tells' to determine when they are lying - because they have no idea.
Actually, I still say that a lot of them know at least enough to know they're lying, but even that's beside the point. They should at least know they're making buzzwords up, and that it _is_ lying to a customer.
What makes it odious in my eyes is that they essentially abuse those people's trust. We may argue about how smart it is to trust the guy getting a commission to do a fair analysis of your problem, but that's essentially what those customers are doing. Some old geezer comes and explains it all to the nice sales guy, not because he just wants to give the "I'm ripe for a con job" signals loud and clear, but because they trust that they'll be given a genuine solution to their problem. Because that's how the rest of society works.
If I go to a dentist with a cavity, I expect him to tell me what's the best course of action for that problem -- e.g., just fill the hole -- not to smooth talk me into pulling the tooth out and replacing it with an expensive implant. Sure, the implant would make him more money, but the underlying expectation is that he'll solve _my_ problem not his own mortgage problem.
If I hop in a cab and ask the guy to take me to the main railway station, I expect him to take either the shortest or the fastest route, or ask which of them. I do not expect him to just run in circles for more money, although he's on a commission too.
If I call a plumber for a leaking pipe, I expect him to do essentially the minimum that solves that problem, not take it as an opportunity to invent reasons why he should replace the piping in the whole house. And if he does come up with reasons why I should replace all of it -- e.g., because it's an old house and it's lead pipes -- I expect those to be real, honest-to-FSM reasons, not made up buzzwords that just have to sound real to make a sale.
Etc.
And if your dentist, or your cabbie, or plumber, or accountant, or lawyer, took it as just an opportunity to milk the last cent they can out of you with invented buzzwords, probably most people would take them to court. Because it _is_ blatant fraud and betrayal of trust.
But somehow when a computer sales clerk does it, nah, that's ok. Sorry, it looks the same to me.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I don't mean this to be advertisement, but considering that the typical retail store and most American businesses for that matter treat the customer as some sort of nuisance, I'd like to give some good words to a company that, so far, has been treating me right. Note, as soon as they slip up I'll be the first to slam them.
Disclaimer: This is a sample of one person dealing with one store with about a dozen purchases.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
What about all of the TV adds by Mac and Windows that focus on things that are not distinct between the two: ...}"
Average looking buyer: "We want a machine with a {big screen, fast processor, vast storage,
Narration or 'protagonist': "Well, then you want a $OURPRODUCT"
Or when they focus on ideas (like "I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person" ) that are just baseless?ï
There are only two kind-of-true points I have seen in these commercials. The first is that a game machine is probably windows, since almost every game out there that the average person is talking about is released for a Windows OS. Although, I wouldn't go with a laptop like they are advertising, and you can put Windows on Mac hardware and do games (but then why not just get a non-Mac in the first place?). The second is the virus idea, that Macs are a better choice because you do not have to worry about viruses, etc. as much. Again, not quite true, but it will give you a somewhat functional bit of security through obscurity along with a false sense of safety, because it is true that the biggest security threat to a computer is probably it's users, and a Mac OS has vulnerabilities just like everything else out there.
To put all of my thoughts together, I almost feel bad for everyone out there who will not take the time to learn a little bit about what a computer really is, so that they can actually know what is BS when buying a new computer. Everyone from the top down to the bottom just wants to sell another machine.
Hacks? I've been using Office 2003 on Vista for 2 years now, out of the box, no hacking required.
Years ago, back in the prehistoric era when televisions had things called picture tubes, I can recall a time when a salescritter in a mall electronics store told me that one model of TV was better than another because it had more channels in the picture tube. Sensing that I now smelled raw meat, my wife had to drag me out of the store before I really got going in my attempt to see how stupid this guy might have actually been about the products he was selling.
Then there was the guy that explained to me and a friend that one RF amp cost more than that other one because it contained more dBs. Of course that was at a small town Radio Shack so that wasn't exactly surprising.
There will always be clueless sales people as long as there are retailers that care more about hiring warm bodies at a discount than having a knowledgable staff. Unfortunately, not all of them will see the same fate as Circuit City after they laid off all of their experienced staffers for lower paid entry level people. So we'll all have to do our own homework before walking into one of these places.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I think many "IT people" like it like that; it makes them feel superior, and gives them a weapon to "pwn newbs" or whatever.
Personally I see it this way: the vast majority of people are shit. They are clueless idiots who rather gobble down cheap shit and watch TV all day. They have the mental capabilities of a one year old. Why bother with them? They chose to remain idiots. You cannot make everything idiot-proof without making it useless.
You are absolutely right.
IMHO the tech industry should think a bit how we reached this point where there is an abysm open between tech and people. While other human tech, like cars, cameras, airplanes, music players, video/TV recorders, etc... have become easier to use with every generation, computers are going just the opposite way, they have become an absurd mess of crapware fighting each other for resources of a humongously powerful machine (compared to prevoius generations) while the poor user that just wants to do some video, or mess around with photos or any non-uber-geek stuff ends up wondering what kind of evil voodoo is running inside that stupid metal box.
I am a professional programmer, so I do know computers from a very young age (I'm not young anymore :P), and sometimes I am frankly embarrased when I have to explain to a plain normal user things about current computers, nothing has become any simpler or easier since the 8 bit times.
Has been technology advancement so absolutely geek-driven that we lost connection with the real world? Are we so busy laughing at our self-superiority that we can only design bloated software and messed up interfaces just because we can't go down (or up) to the standard user level anymore?
My 2 cents...
The majority of the people using a computer today could get by with a Pentium 3, 2 gig of memory, Windows XP, a web browser that has Flash, and a USB port. Unfortunately, these do not sell well.
In 1999, I worked sales at PCs For Everyone, a (now-defunct, mostly) whitebox dealer in Cambridge, MA. They were a big operation, with a stellar reputation and good draw. People would drive for hundreds of miles to get a PCsFE system. As New England's largest whitebox dealer, they had about 15 guys in the back room assembling computers on any given day, and the burn-in racks were usually backlogged. We were always busy - when we weren't selling systems we were selling parts, and we got so packed on the weekends that there was a numbered ticketing system for counter help. I worked my ass off there 5 and a half days a week (the mandatory sales meeting was on my day off) and brought in, by my own conservative estimate, about $2M in gross sales during my year working for them. You wouldn't believe how many Celeron A 300's we went through. Those things went out the door like you could get high by smoking them.
I know a lot about personal computer internals. I knew even more back then. I spent at least an hour every night reading up on Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, and the other big hardware sites of 10 years back. I helped set up the demos, and I never sold anyone more computer than I thought they could reasonably need. I did product research, recommended new kit for us to sell, and did basic troubleshooting with customers, spending 1:1 time. I had a base of dedicated customers who would wait for me rather than deal with another salesman.
When stumped, other sales reps would come to me for answers much of the time. In short, if I haven't tooted my own horn enough, I was the goddamn bomb when it came to selling computers and parts.
In that year, I made a little over $22,000, and was shafted out of my bonus . I was gone on day 380, off to a job that paid 3 times as much that I got through a customer.
Taking away for a minute from the fact that my boss / the owner was a crook (and he was), even when shafting me that hard, here's the thing: I brought in $2M to a business myself, and that business 2 years later wasjust an online storefront.
There is no margin in computer sales. Even with a locally-respected brand name that drew customers from out-of-state, even when the owner was as crooked as Quasimodo's back, even when bringing in gross revenues in the tens of millions, the storefront was gone inside of a few years.
The reason PC sales sucks is because the margins are 0. The average PC salesman doesn't make dick unless he's selling in enterprise volumes, and you're lucky if they've even taken an A+ course. Anyone who genuinely enjoys both computers and sales quickly moves into sales engineering, or finds another lateral move that will net some income. The margins on each part are nil, the margins on systems are nil. CompUSA is gone because the margins were too slim. The Best Buy rep and the Dell consumer reps are incompetent because they're given 2 days with a 3-ring binder of training, then set loose on the floor. Like it or not, qualified sales staff costs money, and anyone with the know-how to be an effective salesperson with computers is going to chase the dollar out of that basement as soon as possible.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
PREACH ON BROTHER MAN. READING THIS POST GETS MY L33T JEANS ALL AFLUTTER, CAN I HAVE YOUR MANBABY!!!!
It's actually "pwn noobs" Get it right!
There is a difference.
Other than hard drive failures, most computer problems are software issues. You can always grab the system restore disk and get back to square one. This is well within the capabilities of the high-school educated housewife. And if you fail, nobody dies.
More of a problem is the degree to which computers need service.
Most non-technical people expect them to work about the same as their Television. Plug it in, use it till you want a better one, then give it to the kids.
This seldom works in actual practice. You make a commitment to the computer, trusting it with way more stuff than you could possibly recreate, only to have it fail, taking with it your entire family history. (How many families will never have the shoe box of family photos to stir warm memories because of Dad's hard drive failure in 2007?)
Why should this be the case? Why should computers need so much attention?
The iconic Razr cell phone was at least as complex than your average computer, yet you turned it on as you walked out of the store and that was the last maintenance it ever got or ever needed.
Why after all these years are computers still in need of a constant attention of upgrades, service, defragging, re-installing and disk drive replacements?
I've been messing around with computers for 30 years and have been constantly amazed that every increase in performance is gobbled up by look-and-feel, and reliability improvements are marginal at best.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The people that work at these places know nothing about computers, it's useless to ask them questions, same with tech support if you ever need it, they just guide you through the useless reset everything process which if you know anything you've already done. They need to hire some people who actually know what they are talking about. But I guess if you know what you are talking about you now going to go work at Tesco or Best Buy.
This is a nasty problem because computers are not quite a commodity and not quite a geeky lab tool. People think of them as a commodity and companies try to sell them as a commodity but they require more care and feeding than say your toaster, microwave or VCR. Frankly if my VCR was as finicky and required the level of hand-holding (think frequent patching, etc) that my computer does, I'd toss it in the bin and get a new one.
It's a problem from both ends. Simple gadgets like a toaster do one established thing pretty much one way. Everybody has the same expectation of the outcome and anticipates the process pretty much the same. So we are intrinsically "trained" to know what to look for in the purchase of a toaster. Computers don't have such clearcut uses and functional pathways. This means that even tech savvy people are a bit lost in what they want from a computer (I'm agonizing on my next media server: atom or other processor, mirroring or raid 6, which case, hot-swap, etc). Combine this with sales staff whose knowledge matches their pay, and you have a recipe for chaos.
We complain bitch and moan about poorly trained sales staff, but at the same time, we want the widget at a brick and mortar store to be only ten cents more than online. We don't value well trained sales staff and good customer service. Some of us say we do, but "we" as a society feed our money to best-buy and wall-marts while many local higher caliber stores suffer and die because the prices are too high (which they have to be to cover the staff, etc). We are voting for crap employees with our wallets.
This extends to Dell online, they are leading the race to the bottom of computer sales. I suspect if you call up PSSC, you'll get somebody who knows something, but expect to pay more.
Sheldon
I remember a little over a decade ago, a Mac magazine got cross when PC World staff said that "Apple has gone bankrupt, they were bought up by iMac."
Your analogy doesn't really work. How many people, for example, go to the doctor and expect to be told about things like cytokine storms or acetylsalicylic acid? To most people, these terms are just as meaningless as gigahertz or terabytes, if not more so. The doctor is paid so that they don't have to know these things. Part of his job is to translate these terms into things a layman can understand.
I find that, in any field, you can spot the people who really understand the material because they can explain it to people with almost no knowledge. It's (obviously) a lossy transform, but they can give sufficient of an overview that the person understands the 'what' and the 'why' if not the 'how'.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And how, pray tell, would you get rid of the nerdy jargon and technobabble that lets us, the filthy computer elites, talk about computers efficiently? It's not our fault other people can't understand us. Just as it isn't the artist's fault when we don't understand his art. Ultimately sales staff gets paid to convince customers to leave as much money as possible at the shop, and that's what they do - it is their nature, so to speak.
May the source be with you.
Embedded devices 'Just Work' because they're one platform, one piece of finely-tuned software and off they go. With PCs, there's this "we'll just patch it later" mentality where bugs are ok if they don't break too much, and there's plenty of memory to leak into so don't worry if you don't clean up after execution completes.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Best Buy's sales staff are not paid on commission, as far as I'm aware.
True. Most stores do not have commissioned sales staff these days, including Best Buy.
However, I believe that Best Buy people (and Circuit City people to an even greater degree, before CC imploded) are required to meet certain performance targets. I believe one of them is the number of extended warranties they sell. They may also be expected (and even trained) to up-sell from the low-end advertised models. If they don't meet their targets, they may be denied raises or promotions.
Sears, Roebuck salespeople are on commission, at least in the appliances and electronics departments. If anything, I think you get better service from them, but they definitely try to steer you to their highest-margin stuff.
The mark up on computers usually really sucks for brick and mortar stores, to stay competitive with online stores. The only thing they make money on there is the services, so it begs the question why don't they have better technician at the store.
And yeah, cell phones make them a lot better money; again it's a service contract thing. Usually any service contract makes pure profit because even if you buy them most people never come back to use them because they are upgrading by the time it breaks or in the case of cell phone contracts the make the money off of someone else's product and service without the overhead of upkeep.
The mobile section is actually only half Best Buy, and half Carphone Warehouse. They work on a different bonus structure and different power structure than the rest of the store, which the Mobile Manager reporting directly to a district manager and skipping the General Manager of the store, unlike every other dept.
I have no idea what you think you're talking about, but that is absolutely not true. Mobile is treated just like every other dept in the Best Buy stores. The only that is any different at all is the Magnolia sections, which work off of commission.
Why even talk to them? They can only distract you from what you're trying to achieve. A simple "no, just browsing" is usually enough to put them off. If not, try the guaranteed slam-dunk "don't have the money right now".
If you were selling cars assembled from any number of subsystems you -would- need to be a mechanic to offer useful advice.
I think this is an excellent point, if cars were designed and built like the common OEM computer a "car OEM" would outsource the job of creating a "cool" (most likely garish and absolutely tasteless or incredibly dull if the average computer case design is anything to go by) body design that could be adapted for anything from small trucks to a compact electric car, then they'd shop around for parts to build the car from by looking for the cheapest high-performance parts possible that actually fit into the car. Also, every couple of months when they run out of parts they'd go shopping around for new parts so a 2009 Ford Taurus could actually have any of three or four different engine models, two different models of suspension, any one of six different exhaust systems and so on in an almost infinite number of combinations.
And you know mechanics and driving instructors would scream in agony when if heard car salesmen go "Well, the suspension isn't that important, what you need to be looking for is a small steering wheel so that you can make tight turns, and you definitely need the double battery model if you plan on having the lights on a lot, like if you do a lot of night driving..
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Listen you want good service, quit villifying comissioned sales. I worked in my youth at Circuit City (RIP) and when someone returned something I lost the money. If I sold a customer something I wanted it out the door and to stay out the door. No way in hell would I want my TMI (Total Margin Income) battered to hell by return and get the Nasty-Gram from some CSR (Customer Service Rep) who processed the return.
If I made $20 commission on something and someone brought it back my next paycheck (if this spanned paychecks) they would deduct $20 from the commissioned I had earn up to that point all the way down to base pay. Too many returns = unemployment at the very least.
I would take it a step further and take an additional 10% of the commission value (so in this example rather then -$20 you would -$22)
But in the end we come back to : "You get what you pay for"
Don't like idiot boobs selling you crap, buy from a competent boutique seller that knows their shit inside and out until they get borged by incompetent boobs with big wallets...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
You know, I think it would be better if IT were a profession, requiring a doctorate degree.
I hope you didn't actually go back there to buy. It would have been better to point out his incompetence, and say "I think I'll do some research online or something and go somewhere else with a specific model numer. Tell your manager that your stupidity as lost the store a sale."
That salespeople lie either deliberately or unintentionally is no news. But why they lie is always the interesting bit.
- Self interest: Here the liar is lying because it will net them some gain. Be it them keeping their job or making more money at the job or whatever. Or even, say when someone like Bill Gates lies, the results of the lie might not be any sort of immediate gain but rather part of a larger plan. (But we can't remove IE from Windows...because...because...)
- Ignorance: The person does not know the answer and is just making shit up. Saying, "I don't know," on the sales floor never looks good.
- Bad training: The person honestly believes what they are saying is true because their training was wrong, be it by design or honest mistake.
- Dissatisfaction: This is a rare occurrence but it is worthy of note. Sometimes there will be a person in a sales job who knows exactly what is going on but out of spite for their employer or some such motivation they are out to mess with people. ('Short timer' sales persons often can do things like this.)
Also keep in mind that none of these reasons are mutually exclusive. So when you get the ignorant salesperson who is highly motivated to keep their job you can really get some whoppers.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
About 10 years ago I bought Sony VAIO laptop, err, notebook. My first and last. It ran so hot that it was uncomfortably warm on my legs when wearing shorts, and I was concerned that something was wrong. I called Sony's tech support and told the woman that my laptop was running very hot and was burning my legs.
Her response was basically that they don't call them laptops any more as they are not designed to be used on the lap.
I'm sure it wasn't only Sony who engaged in this product renaming. It's one way around a problem.
www.clarke.ca
my husband works with a man that used to work for geek squad. He was fired after reporting that fellow geek's were stealing memory and hardware from unsuspecting clients. According to his departure paper, he was fired for not being a team player. Best buy and the geek squad are a bunch of thieves.
For 90% (heck, probably 99%) of computer users today, they could walk into any electronics store, buy the cheapest computer available, and come away with a computer that would meet all their needs. They don't need to go to a specialty store. They don't need a super fancy graphics card, or a multiterabyte hard drive. It's no different than buying a toaster or a washing machine. Yeah, I know, WE all think that one OS is better than all the rest. Or that this processor is better than that. Or whatever. But WE (the denizens of slash dot), are truly the elite. We know more about computers than 99% of the rest of the planet. We do more with our computers (both in breadth and depth) than 99% of the rest of the planet. So, no, we wouldn't be thrilled to talk to same salesman selling a commodity simply because he needs a job. The best sales people go where they can make the best money. Same as us. There ain't no money selling a $600 computer. The salesmen doing that are far from the best [Okay, there are no doubt some decent computer salesmen, but they are rare enough that we can ignore them]. If you walk into a store with the intention of buying something about which you are ignorant, you will probably not get the best deal possible. That is not the fault of the salesmen, nor the fault of the store, nor the fault of the government. It is YOUR fault for not doing your homework. Too bad for you.
linquendum tondere
I heard one salesman tell a customer who didn't want Vista that Windows XP was no longer sold or supported on PC's, this happened before the June 2008 cut-off that was ultimately extended.
Just the other day, another guy told me that he couldn't check inventory at other stores, so I had to choose from the memory they had on hand...I ordered from Newegg and got what I wanted for less $ in ~48 hours(ordered b4 noon, ground shipping). A couple days later the same kid was helping me find a motherboard and went straight to the computer and told me their Vegas store had one and he could have it in a couple days. I asked him if he could get the memory he denied he could get previously, he gave me the "deer in the headlights" look. I ordered from Newegg and had it in
Fry's is getting more and more like the Rat Shack, even the "deals" that aren't garbage product blow these days. Their website leaves outdated, unavailable product in the lists to make it look more populated...until you go try to buy online/in-store. Am waiting for a delivery today, 3-4packs of 8mm case fans for the price of 1 @ retail. Good stuff.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
I'd love to see undercover IT workers be introduced in the workplace. So many IT workers are as clueless or more so than these people. So many companies are being taken for a ride and wasting tons of money due to sheer incompetence. This has a bigger impact on prices and wage than any of these cases by far but goes on in virtually every company. Without tangible products and management with some sort of tech background it all goes on unchecked. I'm so tired of this commonality that I may look to change careers rather than suffer through more of this.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Though to be fair, a quad core desktop with 4 or 8GB of ram is only $500 to $600 now. Anything less than that cost I wouldn't recommend to anyone. The cheaper you get the vastly more questionable hardware is used.
Walked in to Radio Shack for a few TOSLINK cables. (Stop me if you've heard this before.. ) Salesdrone spots me, swoops in. He's probably all of 17.. Say he: What can I help with. Just a TOSLINK cable, please, Say I. Oh we have a nice Monster cable here.. replies the Salesdrone. I see the price, close to 50.00. Says I: Why so expensive, it's just a TOSLINK cable. Drone replies: Well, it has best in class insulation AND gold plated connectors.. Says I:. it's just a TOSLINK cable. Sales drove just states at me. Says I: A TOSLINK cable.. Drone still just staring, and apparently does not know a TOSLINK for a LM317 VReg.. Oh. Bad example.. Says I: So; tell me; what are you insulating the signal from? Salesdrone replies: Well, electromagnetic interference!. Electromagnetic interference? In a TOSLINK cable? says I... Yes, replies sales drone. So; I string him along for a couple of minutes, and actually have him pull one of the sample cables from his demo system so we can look at it. I ask him to look carefully at the business ends of the cable and point out the "Gold plated connectors" he described to me.. Learning occurred. I walked out with a few 1.99 generic TOSLINK cables.. Kids these days..
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
I had a similar experience with a friend of my wife's not too long ago. I came up as somebody who may be able to get data off her hard drive so she brought it to me. She had taken it to a place called Data Doctors here around Phoenix. I had heard of them but never dealt with, so I looked them up. They seem to be a franchise based chain. Reviews from Google maps were mixed...I am worried. She tells me that she took her laptop in after it failed to boot. They had it for 3 days, charged her something like $150-250 for their diagnosis and finally tell her they have to send it to "their outside data recovery service" to get her data. This is what many of the the reviews I read had been like.
She brings over the drive, now out of the laptop, and leaves it. I tell her I'll do my best but not to expect anything. She leaves. I plug in the drive to my laptop via a USB/SATA/IDE adapter and it instantly shows up and is fully readable/writable. I call her cell phone and leave a message saying it looks to be perfectly fine. This took all of 30 seconds to complete.
I also told her she should go back to Data Doctors and demand her money back or take them to small claims court for it. They, quite obviously, never even attempted to look at her drive.
OK- give me a break- Malwarebytes sucks. It picks up half the *(#@*@ and you just find out days later. It may be better than Norton and some others- but they all pick up a subset of the (#*(@)! floating around. While most of those at BestBuy, Staples, and other store are incompetent trying to suggest all you had to do was spend 30 minuets running Malwarebytes is a crock of *(@*. The only right way to do a "virus removal" is check for tell-tale signs of spyware and the likes- then boot GNU/Linux, backup critical data, wipe (partitions included) and reload. A high percentage of people just need more ram though... so first thing I'd do is check that-then ask if they have come across pop-ups, fake anti-virus, or been redirected to advertising when surfing the web.
Frankly, it's naive to believe any sales person has your best interests in mind. If you amble through life being a rube, then that's your curse. At the end of the day, every purchaser has a series of lies they need to be told to complete the sale. And the big lie ill-informed people want to hear is, "No sir, you are not fucking this up."
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Your analogy doesn't really work.
My analogy? What analogy?
I pointed out that other fields have technical jargon as well.
I pointed out that people seem almost prideful of their ignorance in regard to computers. Which strikes me as odd.
And I pointed out that in any technical field you have a choice of either educating yourself or trusting the folks you deal with.
The only bit that was even vaguely analogous was when I pointed out that in any field it is a news story when people are taken advantage of.
How many people, for example, go to the doctor and expect to be told about things like cytokine storms or acetylsalicylic acid? To most people, these terms are just as meaningless as gigahertz or terabytes, if not more so. The doctor is paid so that they don't have to know these things. Part of his job is to translate these terms into things a layman can understand.
All very true.
But that doesn't change the fact that you have to either educate yourself, or trust that your doctor knows what they're talking about.
And it is still news if some doctor has been misleading patients.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Hell, that drama happened over the baby MBP because "zomg it doesn't have dedicated graphics" - except the 9400m and 9600 are almost the same power and a 4GB of RAM have the same amount of memory addressed and about the only application that can benefit from either is Motion, it's not supported by Adobe's crapware, and even the most "rah rah dedicated" benchmarkers have to stretch it a lot to make what is hardly a 10% difference into an enormous advantage to rule them all.
I've worked in retail selling computers for two years now, and i've seen quite a few ignorant people selling computers in my day.
The biggest problem I see is that the associates who usually know the most about computers (myself included) are the worst at the retail side of computers. I.E. making yourself clear to the customer, figuring out what they want/need, etc.
The associates who get the most accessories, services, and compliments are the personable ones, your knowledge is really secondary and can even sometimes hamper your sales ability. I find myself having to use gross exaggerations and generalisations to be able to get customers to understand what i'm talking about (a multi-core processor is like a multi-lane highway...)
Retail has never been about your product knowledge, its about your personality. As long as you know more then the customer (which is so so very little...) they think you are a computer expert. There are very few times in a work day I have to actually think about what i'm saying, its always the same responses and the same questions. I don't even remember the last time I talked to someone who knew what a front side bus was (can't people understand there is more to a processor then just the clock speed?).
Doesn't matter what industry your talking about, welcome to retail.
But that's true of just about any field. When's the last time you cared whether or not a blanket used a cross-stitch, chain-stitch or overlock?
Or whether the food you buy is flash pasteurized, irradiated or high pressure pasteurized?
Does it really matter? Maybe, maybe not. But every field has its own jargon and technobabble. People need to make the effort themselves to learn enough to make a qualified decision but the truth is a lot of times we just don't. It's easier to blame the sales person or the tech expert (in any field.) It's harder to blame ourselves for not making the effort.
The mobile section is actually only half Best Buy, and half Carphone Warehouse. They work on a different bonus structure and different power structure than the rest of the store, which the Mobile Manager reporting directly to a district manager and skipping the General Manager of the store, unlike every other dept.
I have no idea what you think you're talking about, but that is absolutely not true. Mobile is treated just like every other dept in the Best Buy stores. The only that is any different at all is the Magnolia sections, which work off of commission.
Carphone Warehouse is a European company. They announced a merger with Best Buy in May. Your info may be either out of date or country specific.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Maybe the IT industry should look inwards on itself and consider how we've failed to educate the public about the technology we make them use."
What makes you think the public wants to know? Trust me the public doesn't want to know, it's partly a generational thing and partly a personality thing (for the younger generation).
Most young kids have to know something about tech in order to use it for purposes (games, texting, art, tablet drawing, whatever).
Anyone from the boomer and part of the (earlier born) x'er generation doesn't really want to know and could care less about tech unless it effects them in some way.
There's just too much distraction and overwork in people's daily lives to want to waste what precious little free time they have already on things they just don't want to know.
Now I admit there are some people out there a part of those generations that want to learn and those people I commend but they are not the majority.
Part of it is certain people come to believe that they just aren't smart enough to handle it and part of it I believe is belief in their lack of ability to learn, and also perhaps half consciously they want excuse to be lazy and have other people do the hard work without them realizing it.
For example in my famnily all my family members come to me for advice on what they should buy and what they shouldn't buy, so we geeks/nerds tend to act as a specialist, thinking about stuff so they don't have to.
But mostly I believe its a generational thing, the more you grow up around technology that has been with you since birth you aren't intimidated by it since as children we tend to forget we just asborb a slurry of new stuff a lot easier then many adults and plus we have oodles of free time, energy and motivation to do so.
We don't need to educate people about computers - we need to educate people about the value of professional IT training and certification.
Mod up!
I just can't imagine how much it would cost to have certified technicians repair computers rather than high school kids at Best Buy.
>>>Somehow in the process of installing Windows--an arduous task that involves the opening of the DVD drive--they had managed to open the case, unscrew the hard drive from the case, and then bust it up enough that it took over 24 hours for Windows to finish installing.
>>>
They probably got confused when they saw Linux.
I think I would file fraud charges against this company. If they are doing that to your grandma, just imagine who else they are screwing.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Sounds about right. I went into BestBuy for a long CAT5 cable (I needed it that day). I looked around for a bit and they didn't have anything longer than 12ft. I needed about 50ft. The salesperson there told me "They don't make cables that long, the signal gets poor above 12 ft." Being a network admin and knowing the truth I continued on and asked him for a solution. He took a couple of the 12 ft cables + some CAT5 extenders (just cable extenders) and he assured me that they "bumped up" the signal to go the extra distance. The price for everything was about 4X more than I was willing to spend (imagine that!). I drove back to my home in the next town over and made the cable myself. I do not buy anything there anymore. Buyer beware!
What is this VCR you speak of? Is it better than Blu-Ray?
It's pretty much the same in all stores. For example in my local Walmart the cellphone area is almost-all AT&T sales employees.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I looked where he was pointing and sure enough, it said Output: 250mW 12V DC. ..."
"Okay thanks. I think I'll do some research online or something and maybe come back in tomorrow with a specific model number in hand
Maybe?
Wow...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not that they would be trained in any specific area, although the burned lap response is quite impressive (sounds like a retail worker chinese whisper to me). It's a supermarket - the consumer does the research. It's not a specialist retailer who should know the answers and find the device ideal for you, but at a higher price.
Same here, and the worst part is, my dad was a CAR SALESMAN for 25 years (both new and used). You'd think he could recognize the smell of bullshit.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
The problem here is that computer use is a technical subject.
You reminded me of something I've said in the past.
Computers are an immensely powerful tool/device. They are also in their infancy, and/or perpetually changing so that the day they become easy to use is far, far off in the future. I posit that placing someone with little to no training in front of a computer and expecting them to use it properly while avoiding pitfalls to accomplish their task is similar to placing an untrained person in a fighter plane, and expecting them to enter a dogfight and win. I wouldn't expect them to get off the ground, let alone win a dogfight.
I don't have any insight or answers tot his problem that I'm confident with. It's just an observation I've made and something I tell people when they want to know why I think a typical computer user has so much trouble using one.
In the investigation they even found some Dell outlets were selling computers to pimps and prostitutes, even after they explained that they were going to use the computers to keep track of illegal alien prostitutes.
They're random people who sell stuff, some might be technological/savvy but since we're dealing with average people here most can't critically think their way out of a paper bag, let alone tell the different between volts and milliwatts. Before I talk to them I audition them, I ask a few quick simple questions I know someone competent should know, if they don't know that's ok, the good ones will say "I don't know, let me get bob.." but if they try and blag their way I simply say "you're wrong, is there someone here that knows about this?" which actually works sometimes. If you can't find anyone competent well then it's time to browse.
I'd be willing to bet pretty much everyone reading this routinly overhears clueless sales goons spewing creative nonsense in their favorite computer/electronics shops.
Its a pandemic scourge right up there with plauge, ebola and swine flue. A universal problem fuled by lack of technical knowledge common to most sales goons. It seems to me that most people with half a clue don't want sales jobs.
SMART does not catch all failing hard drives, not by a long-shot. Try Hitachi DFT or similar on the drive, or the manufacturer's real diagnostic tools.
Wow, what a revelation! Dell has some sales people who don't know everything about their products, are not technical experts or use "tricks" to close sales! Revelation!
Welcome to the real world.
This isn't anything new and this kind of thing occurs everywhere. I could call HP, Lenovo, Walmart, etc etc and have the same kind of thing happen. Dell has thousands of sales people on the phone.
I'm not saying it's right, it's not "right" to make mistakes or mislead, but I really don't think this is some kind of "omg EXPOSED" news story.
Unfortunately, those in IT can not command the salary necessary to make the due diligence and care commensurate with that of a doctor a worthwhile endeavor.
Those that do - are not talking to customers (unless they are *big* customers - e.g. other businesses).
I just love the way technology is so frigging critical to businesses and people - and yet they grouse about paying for it. You get what you pay for. If you're not paying for it, someone else is footing the bill.
In the immortal words of Robert Heinlein, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." (TANSTAAFL)
Wattage. Voltage. Its just numbers on the box, man. You shouldn't be so picky, God, I hate these customers. Oh well, time to go on break and smoke a fatty behind the store with Tim from stereos.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
We all talk about the features that a computer has. That's wrong, the users don't care, they want to know how it will improve their lives: make things easier, let them do things cheaper or faster or better. So instead of a salesperson saying "this computer has a 1 terabyte hard drive and a quad core I7 processor" and expecting the victim^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomer to understand how that helps them, we should know what their goals are and explain what model will best suit them. Even a car salesperson can do that (though soe might choose not to, they could if it pleased them.)
Plus all this garbage about compatibility just shows what an immature industry we have. We're at the same point the car (american: automobile) industry was at when they were still trying to decide whether to have a steering wheel, and which position the various pedals and levers should be in.
Most industries: medicine, law, engineering etc. use jargon as a way of excluding the general public. It acts as a barrier to entry for their arcane knowledge and practices - thus preserving jobs and keeping fees high. That only works when an industry regulates it's own people with professional qualifications, guilds that enforce standards and legal obligations that they have to comply with. When you're trying to sell commodity goods at knock-down prices; especially when customers don't actually need to buy them, this doesn't work. They just spend their money on beer, or something else.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
1. The laptop still has 200+ days of warranty. One part of the site says it has none, the other shows how much is left.
2. Talked to tech support. What was supposed to be a specialized XPS support group was nothing more than a guy who didn't listen or speak English.
3. He told me that the hard drive was not bad but I had a virus on it. I also just got done reinstalling Windows. I'm not sure how hardware diagnostics can even detect a virus. (I know Windows is prone to viruses, but come on a fresh load and I have a virus before I do anything.)
4. This isn't the first time they gave me hell. The first laptop I had to have them service, they sent to the wrong address when shipping it back. So they had to send me a refurbished unit because they lost mine.
In a tax free day recently, I cringed as the sales guy talked an old couple buying a 20-something" lcd tv for $350 into $1,500 more money.. everything from selling comcast (bleck), installation, warranty, monster power, etc.
how many databases could fit inside that RF amp?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The 9400m is a lot better than the Intel GMA integrated graphics, especially when you consider that most Mac games were written expressly for ATI and nVidia chipsets. But the 9600 is 50 to 100 percent faster than the 9400m. I suppose that it doesn't matter if you don't play games, or play only relatively undemanding games that "take advantage" of the smallish 1280*800 screen.
If any apps you use are rewritten to take advantage of OpenCL, the 9600 will run them faster.
Does anyone recall the lawsuit from 2006-ish from Sysinternals against Best Buy/Geek Squad for pirating software? Yeah, I'd say they're thieves from one end of the spectrum to the other.
@pete-wilko: "The tesco one isn't so bad in fairness. The rep could well have been thinking of NOTEbook - rather than NETbook."
When I think of Tesco I think of Food Market, but they can sell whatever they want, so that's fine. But the problem I have with your statement is right on its face, when I go to a vendor who sells something, anything, I expect them to know what it is they're selling, period. If the Tesco's computer salae sperson is on break and the Mgr asked the cosmetics girl to pinch-hit, that's not my problem. There's way too much getting by, faking it, and out and out ripping off of the consumer out there. I'm so embittered by the service I've gotten lately that I avoid sales clowns altogether. I buy as much as I can online and have it delivered to my work. No mess, no hassles. Rarely.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
we live in a world where someone somewhere sells stupidity like this, and someone somewhere buys stupidity like this:
http://www.seen-on-tv.ws/mail-order/hd-vision.html
i'm really pissed because the sunglasses i bought are only 4:3 aspect ratio and 525 scan lines ;-(
i'm waiting for the progressive HD sunglasses to come down in price though. all these suckers are buying interlaced HD sunglasses
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I once was handed a hard drive that would work fine when first plugged in, and then fail after 10-20 minutes of use when it heated up, and then work again after cooling down. I set up a fan to blow over it and copied off all the data in several short bursts and told my friend to buy a new drive. I can see how lazy technicians at a chain might quickly give up when handed something like that.
I was in a Radio Shack a couple of years back, buying some batteries, and I watched a salesperson tell an old woman that the laptop he was trying to push on her had a "2.5 gigabyte processor with a 320 mega-hertz hard drive."
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I second the Linux confusion thing. They probably had MBR problems and had no idea what to do.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Great advice! Being a dick really makes the world a better place.
Years ago, when to walk into a store and buy a computer meant you were going to drop at least $1200....probably closer to $2000, having someone to walk you through the buying process seemed pretty natural. Computers were high ticket items. You probably wanted to make sure you were getting the most for your money.
Nowadays, when it is actually pretty silly for an average user to spend more than $400 on a desktop or $600 on a laptop (TOPS) for everyday use, how necessary are "Sales Staff"? At what price point will places say screw it and just toss the stuff out on the shelves like coffee makers and toaster ovens?
They sell wiring kits which is a 'spool' of 100 feet, 10 ends, and a shitty crimper for about $125.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Depends by "questionable", I've had many bottom-line computers keep chugging right along while I've had high-end systems fail quicker. In fact, I prefer buying the cheaper hardware because there is usually less proprietary crap and components are usually a lot easier to swap out.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
as a friend was told at Future Shop that she should get a router instead of a switch because you would manually have to switch between which computer you want to talk to your cable modem.
We don't need to educate people about computers - we need to educate people about the value of professional IT training and certification.
Like those oh-so-valuable Microsoft certifications? I think this idea might backfire on you, given the nature of the industry.
... and then they built the supercollider.
>>>I think many "IT people" like it like that; it makes them feel superior, and gives them a weapon to "pwn newbs" or whatever.
Ditto lawyers.
That's why the law, which is supposed to serve the people, is incomprehensible and the People can not read it. The lawyers use jargon to obscure the meaning and protect their existence.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The primary difference is that many people don't feel the need to educate themselves in any way when it comes to computers. Many people seem almost proud of their ignorance. They'll happily declare that they don't know anything about computers.
This applies to everything that advances technology. Look at the VCR. Computers is just the latest ignorance fad. When it comes to technology, even the brightest minds suddenly become anti-intellectual. It's as if by magic, mentioning technology makes people want to be dumb.
It bothers me when renowned so-and-so starts waxing philosophical about kids these days, but doesn't know how to use a computer or uses a typewriter only or whatnot. Sure, computers may not be relevant to what they do, but then they probably should lay off the social commentary and go back to doing what they're good at, whatever that might be. And I could say the same about policy makers, but that they should just retire.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The real question here is: Why didn't you hook up your own grammy properly? After all of that you couldn't have her send you a $800 money order and her copy of XP so you could build a suitable comp from NewEgg/TigersDirect and then mail the completed system to her? For shame. Being across state lines is no excuse when it comes to your grammy.
"...he'll come home with a Cisco switch and an APC rackmount battery backup."
Sounds like dad is the alpha geek of the family.
You've obviously never attempted to buy an accessory at any of these stores. Compare online prices to your typical 'store brand' prices.
This isn't limited to cables, its endemic in brick and mortar stores. Anything other than your baseline items are so heavily marked up that only the uneducated or the desperate would purchase them.
Add on top of this the almost pure profit of their Customer Protection Rackets, and it's not hard to see why they might skimp on the 'pay premium dollar for employees who can provide premium service' plan in favor of 'pay shit for teenaged con-artists who'll scam the rubes for every penny they've got' plan.
Nothing of that sort happened though. I was copying data off the drive for over an hour with no hiccups of any kind. I continued to play with it after getting all the needed data off by moving folders around and creating text files and such. Again, never a hiccup.
We don't need to educate people about computers - we need to educate people about the value of professional IT training and certification.
We have those things. The problem is that once you have a certification or two under your belt you can find far more lucrative jobs than selling or repairing PCs in shops. Anyone who is good/knowledgeable about PCs will move on to bigger/better/more interesting things in the IT field, while the guy who has been selling PCs at Best Buy for 5 years will continue to do so, not because he's good at IT, but because he's good at sales.
People don't value technically skilled sales staff (or technically skilled people in general...how many neighbors/co-workers have asked if you'd fix their PC for free?). They want the cheapest PC that they can find. I remember buying a custom built PC back in 1993 or 1994 that cost almost $2200. It had 8 MB of RAM, a 1 GB hard disk, a 486DX2-80 MHz CPU, 4MB video card, 2x CD-ROM, and OS/2. That wasn't even remotely high-end back then (that would have cost more like $4000). Back then the sales staff actually had to know what went together (no putting a Pentium in a 486 mainboard), and they were paid a reasonable commission for what they did. Nowdays, people balk at spending $600 for a PC (myself included) and they want it to do everything. By the time you've taken out the hardware and software costs there's not much room left for profit, but they still have to pay someone for selling it to you. So you get cheap labor hawking pre-built boxes of questionable quality. It's not surprising.
Of course, nobody would ever think of paying a car salesman or mechanic $8/hour. One of the biggest problems is that people don't think of PCs as complex, while other technical products they do think of as complex. Sure, they don't understand them. But they can turn it on, point and click, etc, so it must be fairly simple. Surely it must be as simple as my DVD player or TV, right? Except that it's not. People want PCs to be easy to use and understand. They want the simple answers. The reality is that I've spent 25 years of my life acquiring the technical skills that make me good with IT systems. No matter how concisely someone explains it to the average PC customer (or salesperson), they will never be able to acquire a working knowledge of a PC in the 15 minutes it takes to sell them a computer.
And more to the point, they don't really want to know. About 10 years ago one of my friends worked in a shop selling PCs. I was there talking to him one afternoon (slow day, apparently) and a customer came in and started asking questions. So we chatted back and forth, and by the time 15 minutes had passed he was so befuddled that he left the store without buying anything. I felt bad because my friend lost a sale, and all I was doing was honestly answering questions. But that customer didn't want to understand technology. He just wanted a PC. He wanted someone to make it simple for him and say "buy this one." In the end, that's all any of the PC shoppers really needs. Just nudge them in the right direction and make them feel good about their purchase. There's too much analysis paralysis in computer buyers. They walk into Best Buy and see 35 PCs from 6 different manufacturers that are basically the same 4 computers being sold with different brand labels. I'm no Mac fan, but if you don't know anything about computers their sales model of having only three options (cheap, middle of the road, or expensive?) makes a lot of sense.
Now, the same can't be said about PC repair. There is some seriously fraudulent activity that takes place in those shops. I'm all for an honest repair person.
They equipped her, someone whose most intensive task is copying photos off of a camera, with a quad core desktop with like 4 or 8 GB of RAM.
So they were getting her ready for doing the same task on Windows 7? I would thank them.
Yeah the tesco guy was definitely confusing notebooks with netbooks... I am positive that the shift to "notebook" was because "laptop" implies you can keep it in your lap, but they really get too hot for that, especially considering all the burn stories such as the one the tesco guy described.
As far as "without word processors" goes, maybe the rep meant they don't ship MS Office on their netbooks but many of their notebooks tend to come with it? I'm just trying to make his statement make SOME sense in his defense.
Hence why I went home. I'll be damned if I'm paying $60-$70 USD on a cable that can be made (or bought elsewhere) for less than $15 USD.
>>>Although a few quick hacks will get it to work
Oh noes! Who let the best buy employee through the slashdot front door? Hmmm. Well I put Office 97 on my brothers Vista PC, and it worked just fine. No noticeable bugs.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Umm, you're not much better. A "switching power supply" does not mean one that works on 120 or 220. This is what "switching power supply" means.
Indeed. I've found that a Windows user is far more likely to bungle up their system to an usable state purely through incompetence than for cheap hardware to actually fail. Since some people are actually buying replacements for machines now that have nothing wrong other than spyware infestations, it's probably best that they buy whatever is cheapest so that they minimize their (repeated) investment.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The only right way to do a "virus removal" is check for tell-tale signs of spyware and the likes- then boot GNU/Linux, backup critical data, wipe (partitions included) and reload.
That works fine, but most people don't have a clue what is critical. The times that I have done that I either get "I don't have anything on that computer", "Just keep -these- 3 files" or some other form of that and when the data is wiped I get a call 3 days later in a panic because they didn't tell me that they needed X even though I told them multiple times to look for -all- their data, or better yet their "backup" that they told me they had is... wait for it... on the same HDD.
In most cases wiping it is too much trouble than what its worth.
high percentage of people just need more ram though...
Depends, a lot of people just need a new computer. By the time you buy expensive RAM (yeah, DDR2 is dirt cheap but DDR and earlier start to get expensive), a new HDD (eventually the old 15 gig HDD is too large for their music collection), etc. It comes pretty close to $300 when you figure in all the components, labor and the general pain of the computer.
A lot of the time you will see ancient computers with many viruses and other pieces of malware.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Same here, and the worst part is, my dad was a CAR SALESMAN for 25 years (both new and used). You'd think he could recognize the smell of bullshit.
Don't you realize how our senses work? For the most part they pick out contrasts. This is why camouflage works. It's also why you can walk into the kitchen on a cool day, and know where the stove is, just by the radiated heat. If however, the room was on fire, that trick wouldn't work.
In other words. A used car salesman's BS detector is so saturated with internally generated noise that he has little chance of ever detecting BS around him.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
"...he'll come home with a Cisco switch and an APC rackmount battery backup."
Sounds like dad is the alpha geek of the family.
Yes, it would be absolutely awesome if he did, but it's shit he doesn't need. I'd find a use for it, but for his SOHO application a catalyst switch is unnecessary.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Hard to smell something in which you have been steeping for 25 years. It's like visiting old people. Their houses have that odd smell, but they'd never know about it.
Oh, and kudos for getting the car analogy in the discussion ;)
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
I happened to be over my gramma's house when a window sales guy was there, so I sat in. He was pushing very hard on a price, about $4000 for all windows in the house (was about 20 years ago), but he'd "knock off a thousand" if she signed right that instant.
I pointed out how an honest organization would be capable of knocking off that much tomorrow or the next day, too.
High pressure tactics on old people is an ancient right of dishonor among the fraudulent.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
AT&T employees are morons though. Ask them about a phone other than an iPhone, BlackBerry or their "special" and they don't have a clue. I asked them the features of phone X was and the most they could tell me was just their spec sheet. And the phone itself was just a dummy phone so you couldn't turn it on and see. They only have 30 phones at most, and the average employee can only tell you anything about 5 of them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Windows will kindly nuke the MBR and install its own without even so much as Clippit popping up
Well, being nerds, the Geek Squad didn't have too much success in the usual department for house-visiting "delivery boys", if you know what I mean. So might as well steal stuff, I guess.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Clearly my blue polo shirt is waiting!
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The easiest person to sell to is another salesman.
Exactly. I knew this guy who owned a car dealership (this was before all the American car companies started failing and demanding taxpayer funds) who had about 10 Sony Vaio laptops (between him and his family of 5) over about 3 years. And several high-end HP desktops. The guy didn't need them, he replaced them because they "broke" by broke they just started going "slow" and he in all of his wisdom thought that that was simply going obsolete and making them slow. Of course the guy didn't bother getting a decent enough virus protection or bother scanning his machines... Because the 30 day free trial of Norton is enough protection for anyone, right? Of course this was also when getting Linux to work on a Vaio required black magic, so basically the guy kept spending money every 6 months for computers he didn't need. The guy's computer needs were simply A) Browsing the web B) Checking stocks C) E-mail. A basic, cheap, low-end laptop could have worked just fine and the guy would have had $10,000 or more still in his pocket.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
People can be idiots, and salesmen try to sell things.
Particularly when on commission playing a little hard and fast with the truth is common, and not in the least limited to the computer hardware industry.
Even when not on commission many times employees are pressured to sell by not making quotas and have to face cut hours or termination.
Heck it isn't just limited to shady 19 year olds at best buy trying to pull a fast one. Companies actively advertise inaccurate, misleading, or just down right wrong stuff all the time for the sake of sales. Every single time it is them taking advantage or someone who doesn't know any better, and misleading them.
Two of my favorite examples:
One was a local computer hardware seller, it may have even been MGD, can't remember now. In any case they were advertising some pretty stupid clock speeds, which I new very well were impossible outside some OC freaks with LN2. Anyway what they were doing is selling a core 2 duo and adding up the cores, which is absurd in every meaning of that word. So a Core 2 Duo with a 2.5Ghz clock they would say has a 5Ghz clock speed. Dumb. However would my dad know the difference? Probably not.
The second one is from Futureshop. I noticed the other day that they are STILL doing it. I even complained, and they had the gall to defend their advertizing methods. Basically they would sell netbooks with either Linux or Windows XP installed. Yet in the actual photo of the computer it would show a screen with Windows Vista installed. Misleading to say the least. However these are netbooks with 1.6Ghz Atom and 1GB ram. So not only are they misleading about what is installed on the product, but about what is appropriate to install on the product. How well do you think Vista is going to run on that kind of machine? Bad is how. When I wrote futureshop about this practice they defended their methods saying they were stock photos, the specs are listed elsewhere, and that technically that software could be installed on the machine by the owner of they so choose. All of which is BS. It is blatantly a way to mislead the unknowing into making a purchase based on false information. At the very least underhanded and sneaky.
This kind of thing should be reported to the Better Business Bureau. Regardless as to whether or not you were able to catch them at it and resolve it yourself, if they did it to you (or tried to) they will do it to others. If Best Buy is presenting the Geek Squad as a qualified repair shop, then their personnel should be properly trained. What makes Best Buy immune to fraud?
Did he get the optional undercoating on his computer chassis? I've heard you might get some rust if you don't get that.
For some people, Best Buy -is- the only electronics store for miles around. Yeah, you can buy online, but you pay $20 for the product, $10 for shipping, wait forever for it to come, and hope that your order isn't messed up.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
That's funny because I don't think this problem is a Dell-specific one, I think it's systemic across the industry. I was once told by a Futureshop salesman that a particular brand of DVD player supports playing back WMA content and that I would need a WMA-Writer to make use of that feature. A WMA-Writer? What's that? Often I come across sales guys that regurgitate something technical that they've heard said before but screw up in it's delivery making them in turn sound like complete retards such as this gem, I was in the market for a decent laptop so another Futureshop sales guy told me that I could upgrade my laptop's graphics card (and that in fact all laptops graphics cards were upgradeable), as he pointed to the shelves in the far corner containing PCI-Express graphics cards. /facepalm
The problem is these guys aren't technical at all and just need a job to pay some bills or get them through college/university and unless they have a vested interest in computers they're not going to be all that clued up, it's just a fact, but it's bad to have these guys selling stuff to unsuspecting consumers that don't know a lot about computers. That's the part that grinds my balls.
-Zero Tolerance for Zero Intelligence-
Hassle (i.e. driving to store, product overload, vulture-like sales people, etc)
A better (maybe easier, and certainly more satisfying) way is to search Google for reviews/specs of the product, then visit your fav online retailer and easily search and buy (most likely Newegg.com), and then wait for it to be delivered right to your door.
Good grief. Didn't anyone ever tell him about using his Windows CD to do a clean install???
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>> According to his departure paper,
You mean his lottery ticket. Unjustified dismissal is still a crime in most states, and he should file a lawsuit for lost wages, plus emotional distress, plus whistleblower protection, plus whatever else the Lawyer can squeeze out of Best Buy/Geek Squad. He should take as much money as he can from this soulless corporation.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How is this any different than the Housing Market Bubble or Tech Stocks before that???
You have to always assume people are out to get you, that is the only way to protect yourself this day and age. Always do your homework and always come prepared. Salesmen/Realtors/Priests will always upsell, oversell, and screw you for every penny because that means a bigger bonus for themselves.
Some of these excuses were pretty funny, and I understand why this article is on slashdot, but News? not to me.
Your comments reflect the malignant attitude of ignorance and anti-intellectualism that will become the downfall of our society. If people don't want to know how the machines that make their daily lives go by smoothly, then they should go live in the forest and sacrifice goats to the nature gods to bring them more berries. It is perfectly reasonable to rely on experts to maintain the various and increasingly complex constructs in our lives operating them, this is the basis of civilization, but everyone should have at least a basic understanding of how a computer works, and how waste is processed, instead of leaving it to esoteric circles of wizards in lofty towers to keep the evil gods of blue screens of death and smelly shit at bay.
I walked in looking for broadband deals. Comcast usually has a free money deal going on or something. I walked past the mobile phones and some teen asks me what I need. Why not? "I'm looking for in-home broadband."
She replies, "Oh, right this way!" and shows me to the mobile broadband cards.
"Oh, no. I don't want mobile broadband. I want wired broadband into my house. Comcast, you know?"
The reply, "Oh, this is broadband. It's super fast."
"No, I've got mobile broadband and I'm disconnecting it becuase I have no use for it. I want in home, wired, not mobile broadband."
After a very confused look she said, "I'm sorry, I don't think we have that."
Then I walked into the computer section. I expected nothing less than gross incompetence from Best Buy. It's what I got.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
When I see that crap, I don't just stand idly by. I go to the customer and say, "Excuse me... I'm an electrical engineer. Would it by okay if I gave you some advice?" If they say yes then I explain to them why they don't need all the crap the sales-shyster is trying to sell them. (1) The LCD already has a warranty. (2) It doesn't need a power strip. (3) You don't need to buy Comcast HD to enjoy your new LCD.
I'm still angry about the Kmart person who told my brother he needs to spend $400 for an "HD TV" when all he really needed was a $70 cathode-ray tube, since he just has regular analog cable.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
My friend works at tesco at the electronics section most of the time. I was there looking for headphones and this woman came up to him and asked him what the difference between a netbook and laptop is. He told her it was a computer mostly designed to browse the internet. After the explanation she thought it could only surf the internet and do nothing else.
He swore that it was the hardware becoming obsolete and it wasn't the software. Because we all know that you need state-of-the-art hardware to check e-mail!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Depend on your ethic.
Look at it this way. The company wants you to make them money. And 99 percent of hardware failures are power supply or hard drive. If it's the power supply, you tell them the power supply is bad, the mobo was fried, the video card was fried, and that maybe they can recover your hard drive data with their "tools". But you need a new hard drive too cause it going to go soon. And then say you're looking at $300 at least. Or the other option.....
If they're busy they might tell you to buy a new computer and then pay them $150 to Transfer all that data.
Then when they buy the new computer (cause they're a retard) you tell them the extended warranty would have covered all those problems the old computer had and now they feel smart that they're "protecting them self from a future crash like this" so you get a few more hundred out of them. Of course you can recover their doc files but because you're buying a new computer. They'll need office and antivirus. There a few more hundred. But you only do that when you still have a shred of self respect. Because!!!
Now let's say that they don't want a new computer no matter what. Well let's see.
$40 for the hardware install (power supply that shitty and $100 plus part )
$40 for the hardware install (mobo also at least $100 plus part)
$40 for the memory install (at least $65 part)
$40 for the video card install (shitty $100 that is slightly better than the onboard)
$40 for the CPU install ($200 plus for any duel core )
Of course now windows won't even boot into safe mode. Hope they paid you for that data backup ($100). And you will have to reinstall windows from scratch ($100) and it doesn't matter that you got that windows key on the case and there a FUCKING stack of OEM windows XP edition CD's under the counter. You need the customer to "PROVIDE OWN SOFTWARE MEDIA". And now that you have a new mobo, your compact/HP or dell restore CD doesn't work. So you'll sell them a retail box of Vista even they the customer said they hate vista because "new hardware lacks XP drivers" ( lol) . Now you got them way over $700. Finally, one of their old apps doesn't work. You'll charge them a configuration charge ($40) for right clicking on their old app and choosing to run in legacy mode. They need new printer drivers for vista. You won't be able to "find them" so you push a printer sale. Get it and the extended warranty, And hey there a coupon if they get the HP/DELL/Epson wireless edition. And you'll send a tech to their house for $135 to set up that wireless printer. And then when the tech gets there, the problems the router is too old. But hey you got a spare in the car for $99. Real cheap you'll tell them. What another hundred dollars to "do it the right way" when their in the hole for over a thousand.
On the software side of things. A virus is fixable for $100 and for that you'll run malwares byte anti malware in safe mode (it cost you nothing) if you're in a good/nice/ feel sorry for the poor basterd.
Otherwise you tell them a story about how the virus is embedded and really infected. So the OS need to be reinstalled. (100 plus OS if they don't have media CD, and of course you'll recommend Norton cause the company pushing it that week. And of course you'll install that for $40. And of course office is gone. They have the CD right? No, there another hundred, how about Photoshop? Or anything else. Not your problem...... this post is way to big.....
Basically if you work at geek squad, after a few weeks if you haven't gotten use to ripping people off for hundreds of dollars. They terminate you at the 90 days evaluation.
and my captcha is feeling
>>>I continued to play with it after getting all the needed data off by moving folders around and creating text files and such.
Was one of those folders named, "MyNudistVacation"? ;-)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Untrue. A PC is an appliance, like the kettle and TV. It's no different for most people. Unless you're a developer you shouldn't have to worry about computer jargon. Unless you're a doctor you shouldn't have to know anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, physiology etc. You have a problem, you explain your symptoms to the doctor, he asks you some questions, examines you, runs a test or two and should give you a diagnosis and various therapeutic options - all explained in language you understand so you can make an informed decision about your treatment or at least know what's going on with you - that's the way I see my patients anyway and that's the way medicine is taught outside of the US anyway. There's no reason why ordinary computer users should learn about dialog boxes, radio buttons, flags, variables, registries, bits, hertz, worms, bad sectors, kernels etc. That's all just nonsense and worthless jargon. A person usually buys a PC to do something with it, not to learn techno babble - I guess that's why Macs are so much better for non-technical users and technical users with better things to do than mess with worthless Windows settings.
My neighbor still pays for AOL Dial up even though she hasnt connected to it in 3 years... Same sort of thing. People are idiots.
Although I've never tried 2003, I know for a fact that office 97 and 2000 both work in Vista, I don't understand why xp/03 wouldn't.
Working retail for one of the biggest, it does have its challenges. Going to Tesco's for a laptop and expecting answers worthy of certifications you hold....theres your first mistake. You most likely hit up the location on the weekend, where some part-timer that works electronics had the misfortune of feeling like a pile of crap because they did not have the answer for the customer. Don't take into the consideration that this individual could be completely talented in knowing the latest games or systems or has crazy music knowledge. He was answering questions to the best of what he knew or what he was told (or possibly bs'ing). At the end of the day he was still there to assist you. What makes the writer of an article such an ass, is the fact that buddy knew his stuff and was purposely wording an article around computer service at a Tesco's. Why not do a review on getting your engine rebuilt from a Mr. Lube or A Penn-10.
"Teenager," I think.
Haida Manga
Yea I saw that too. I went to a hardware store and bought a spool of 1000ft of plenum rated cable (required by the fire code for the house i was wiring, only way to run cable from the attic was through cold air returns, and runs 2-3x more than normal cable) for the same price BestBuy wanted for 100ft of regular cable
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Having installed XP over Linux a few times, I can tell you that it's little more than deleting everything in the installer. It's definitely not more confusing than installing it on a blank slate or an old Windows installation. If they couldn't manage to wipe it and move on, there's something wrong.
Yeah my sister got a virus on her new PC and brought it to the Geek Squad. They told her she needed her hard drive wiped, but she had already spoken to me and I told her to hand them this piece of paper with the name of the virus on it- and for them to get the proper removal instructions and clean it off- no formatting the HD! (I didn't have time to do it).
They came back to her afterwards and said "Gee, that was easier than we though it would be!". *face palm*
Do netbooks really not have word processors? I thought that was one of the things they were used for. Email and web browsing you can do on your phone nowadays. If I'm carrying something big enough to have a full keyboard, I want to be able to type things on it.
At Best Try...getting a replacement headset.
"That is a nice headset!"
"Yea, broke my old Panasonic."
"That sucks, Dolby makes good stuff."
"Yea sure..."
The box said Dolby 5.1 larger than the company that actually manufactured the product. Seriously though, that ignorance spans 3 departments...
I worked at Best Try, long ago, and actually in the PC department. I would consider myself somewhat educated in the workings of general PC components, and now the amazing things customers argue about/say. Wow! Compaq is better than HP, 'How many Megaflops does this flaptop have', and the all time favorite/most common..."How many UPS ports does this laptop have?" 5 times a day... (Atleast the last one is close, also UBS/USP came up alot)
I'm not going to say it is all customers either. Supervisors who do not know capacity, at all. kb/mb/gb. Have no idea what DVI is let alone how it works. Thought minimum req. for XP was 4gb ram (They sold them preaching that!). Praise employees who sell computers that are equipped w/ flux capacitors.
Employees at Best Try, specifically PC department, are there for 2 reasons. 1) Face every aisle all the time - everything needs to look nice. And 2) Talk about something profitable - (Geeksquad/cables/UPS/software). If an employee sold that $399 sale laptop...harassed. Didnt sell a cable w/ a printer...harassed. Didnt attach Geek Squad service...harassed.
Overall, the sales staff is made up of 340 high school students and one geek going w/ the flow to collect a pay check.
Side note, ask a manager what customer demographic you fall in, and what name they apply to that demographic. You will get a good laugh.
D
The reason I believe that all the knowledge ends up in departments other than computers is that computer sales is not profitable for a store. I used to be a computer salesman while I was going to school, and the commission on a full system is something like $25 bucks for a name brand, $100 for a off name system. Best buy is profit driven, and even though Best Buy sales people don't make commission, I can see why Best Buy would want its best people in the most profitable department. To be honest effective sales of PC has inverse correlation with demonstrated technical knowledge. This is not anecdotal, this is plainly stated by the very successful computer store I used to work for. (I sucked at sales but that is not the point) Techie buyers don't buy spend much at Best Buy, so Best Buy isn't going to target them.
It certainly wasn't $500 or $600 when she bought the computer, especially when even the weakest of netbooks has more than enough power for her needs. She'd need a bigger screen, but she already has that. All she runs is Internet Explorer and.....well....Windows Explorer? I don't remember if she has Office or not.
SSC
What I find weird is... I walk into my nearest Best Buy: Their mobile staff is really REALLY knowledgeable; their computer staff are knee-dragging morons! Is the mobile section of Best Buy a better money maker and worth having knowledgeable staff more-so than the computer section?
Money. Good sales people cost money.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Man, 15 years ago, had to pick up some of those purple 3v Apple clock batteries. We'd order a bunch every quarter but I got caught out when a lab of Macs started acting up. Freaking CompUSA weenie physically tried to block me from going past him after he told me they didn't carry Apple stuff (before Apple ghettos showed up there). WTF?!!! Just get out of my way, I know your store layout better than you.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Hmm...most states I know of, are 'at will' states, where you can quit or be let go for any reason shy of federal discrimination laws, without notice.
Good luck proving anything in those states...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I used to work at an office store doing printing and copy work, sometimes a little graphic design, photos etc. When I had nothing to do at my counter I would wander the store and talk to people. I'm a horrible salesmen, and my managers know it, because I don't try to push the expensive crap. I tell them what they need and the cheapest way to do it. Often times I've sent people out of the store with a notecard giving instructions on how to find some opensource app, especially if it is something not stocked in store. Printers can be pretty fun to sale, because most people really have no idea the difference between inkjet and laser (hint, its in the name) and most of what I do "selling" is really giving a tutorial on the technical functions and options available. Rarely do I try and push any particular model, although I tend to steer towards HP units.
:D
Selling computers on the other hand, SUCKS. There really isnt much of a valid selling point to a "better" computer to most consumers. Rule of thumb, if you have to ask what one is the best, you dont need that one. The only things I really talk about are screen size, weight, hard drive size, and battery. Other than that, any computer is going to work for most people just as good as any other. They aren't going to fill their 500gb hard drive, even if they ask how many photos they can put on it. They aren't going to tax the 2.0ghz dual core, even if they ask if it is fast. 3gb ram is plenty unless you are going to be gaming. Yet I still have people who are worried about if it is a good deal (another hint, you are in a RETAIL store buying a computer. Its not a good deal.) What they do with it after they take it out of the box affects how fast it is way more than the technical specs on the box. The only thing I try to push are netbooks. I've found customer satisfaction is usually a lot higher with them, because you are only getting what you need and nothing more.
As for BestBuy, we recently had two new hires who came from there. One is our new tech manager and the other does the same stuff I do. Both are really good guys, not the sterotypical geeksquad loosers. I asked them once how in the world they could stand working at BestBuy when they really are geeks, not just wannabes. They both looked at each other, laughed and said in sync "Employee Discount". Turns out, their discount is 5% over stock price on EVERYTHING. That is an amazing deal. They told me about getting $1500 TVs for under $600 and computers for almost nothing.
To sweeten that, their standard policy is like a 60 day probation period after hire before you get the discount. Not a bad idea all considering. However, that probation doesn't apply to seasonal workers, they get it from day 1. If you can take the abuse, not a bad idea to swing over for a few weeks/months, get a seasonal christmas job, load up with everything you wanted to buy all year, then after Christmas you're done
But this one isn't even coherent!
$ make available
You know I run into your attitude a lot in the geekdom. So tell me, could you get a sewage plant running in a hurry if you had to? How about a nuclear power generation facility? How long would it take you to make a light bulb, or genetically engineered bacteria, or a car, from scratch?
The answer to the above would be, "quite a while, if at all." At a guess, the set of all of these things is NOT within your immediate area of expertise. The fact of the matter is that we can't all be experts in everything (Hint: one subset of everything is "computer operation.")
I'm guessing you experience a smooth, mindless day-to-day enjoyment of automobiles, electricity, disease resistant wheat products, antibiotics, surgery and toilets without a great deal of detailed knowledge of their operation beyond "where the levers and buttons are." My guess is that you wouldn't buy a car that demanded too much operational knowledge of its circuitry, hydraulics and software. Or a toilet that required intimate knowledge of sewage flow rates during autumnal rainstorms.
So what, computer technology is "special?" I think not. I think software company CEOs are cheap, and that programmers like myself tend to be lazy and that so far, we've been able to get away with it. I also think that this happy little situation is unlikely to continue forever.
Cheers!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Actually, I find quite the opposite. I order online, get either free or something like $1.99 shipping, but, usually free. I don't have to pay sales tax, and it arrives in a few days.
Unless it is an emergency thing I need THAT day, the only thing I use Best Buy for, it to check out the item in person, and then I go home and order it online.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I was shopping for a new laptop for my wife a year or two ago and browsing Circuit City (no intentions of buying there, I just like to get my hands on the products before I buy them online).
Let's see - you go to a store, have no intention of buying and tehn complain about the sales staff? I understand wanting to see something before you buy; but how can you expect a store to have good staff if there's no money in it?
I used to buy all my video games at a local mom and pop store - great service, great owner. yes, I paid retail but the service was worth it. Wanted a PS3 when they first came out? No problem, and no markup - MSRP. Thinking about a game - if it was crao he'd say so - and generally didn't stock it because he didn't want to have unhappy customers. A staff that was knowledgeable about the games and customer oriented - check. unfortunately he went out of business because most people want to save $5 on a game and go to a big box or online.,/p>
To quote Pogo - "we have met the enemy and he is us."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that all ATT sales people are so dumb. My ex-wife worked for ATT while we were married and she knew more about cell phones than I could ever hope to know, and I was the techno-gek in the relationship. She worked for a fairly low volume store in an area with lots of high-end companies. When people came in they would normally have very specific questions they would ask looking for the best phone for their needs. She had to learn everything about every phone ATT sold, as well as all of their other services.
Sales people are like everyone else, there are good ones and bad ones. The good ones make money, the bad ones tick people off until they quit or get fired.
--Forest C. Adcock--
My wife's Aunt Betty calls me on the phone the other day. Frantically, she asks me where the "print queen" is on her computer. It seems that when she asked the "Staples Man" why her photo kept printing over and over he told her to empty the "print queen" (his spelling). I walked her through the steps and got off the phone as soon as possible.
I agree that the specialization of tasks is necessary for our complex society and admit that I couldn't build my own lightbulb or start my own sewage treatment plant. But most middle-class americans spend about as much or more time in front of a computer as they do driving a car, but when they car runs out of gas, they know to put fuel in it, and if the tires are low on air, most know to fill that too. Yet for some reason their eye's glaze over when you try to explain that their hard drive is full because they have too much pr0n or too many mp3s. They know the difference between a windshield and an engine, but don't know the difference between a monitor and a cpu. For some reason they are actively scared of or resistant to learning about PCs, more so than almost anything else. Anyway, the essence of my previous post, is that geeks are curious about the world around us (in general) and the unwillingness of the general populace to learn about technology seems to be symptomatic of an incurious, stubborn attitude. That is all.
They just want to GET STUFF DONE. They don't know or care about Gigahertz or Terabytes: just as they don't know or care about the kilo-Watt rating of their electric kettle: it's merely an appliance - it works or it doesn't.
And it's bullshit that more often than not that's ok. We'd rightfully laugh at some moron who went to buy an automobile but didn't know if s/he wanted a subcompact, sedan, coupe, minivan, full size van, conversion van, cargo van, pickup truck or SUV. We'd laugh at the moron who didn't know if s/he wanted stick or auto. We'd laugh at the moron who didn't know if s/he wanted gasoline or diesel.
Maybe the IT industry should look inwards on itself and consider how we've failed to educate the public about the technology we make them use.
No one is made to use anything, at least not by the IT community. For example, my grandfather is 71 years old. He knows squat about computers, has no desire to learn and thus will not get one.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You may hate it, as I do, but THAT'S YOUR JOB. Get over it. Don't like it? Get a new one.
Not quite. My job is to give the client what they ask for; more precisely, what they pay for. What they want is irrelevant.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A friend of mine was looking to replace his Acer laptop a year or so ago. I'd been talking to him about operating systems, Windows vs Mac vs Linux. Anyway, he is thinking outside the box a little and heads to the local Apple store. The Mac genius (or whatever they're called) chats to him for a while and my friend asks how the MacBook he's looking at will compare against a Dell running Vista or Linux. The Mac rep then tells him that OS X is based on Linux, so it has all the power and security of Linux but with more software, bells and whistles.
My friend relays this to me and I set him straight about the basis for OS X. He decided not to shop at that store anymore and bought another Dell laptop.
The BIOS was probably not set up to check the optical drive for bootable media first. So they insert the CD, boot up and stare at GRUB. Given what I heard about those guys, it probably didn't immediately occur to them that the bootable media order is not fixed and so they decide it must be a hardware problem. They probably tried to hotplug the hard drive before ever checking the BIOS.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Fashion doesn't belong with the rest. At all.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Hmm...most states I know of, are 'at will' states, where you can quit or be let go for any reason shy of federal discrimination laws, without notice.
Good luck proving anything in those states...
IANAL and all that, but my understanding is that it is a bit more complicated than that. I live and work in California, which is an at-will employment state. So yes, my company could let me go for any reason at any time (and I could quit for any reason at any time). However, as soon as the company says something like "You are being fired for x reason," then you can in fact challenge your dismissal over that reason. If the company told this person they are being fired for "not being a team player", then even in an at-will employment state like California that person could probably file a lawsuit and the company would have to show evidence supporting their claim or be subject to paying damages for wrongful termination. This is part of the reason that people are not usually actually given a reason for their dismissal, unless their conduct was especially egregious. You can be terminated for any reason, but you can not be terminated for a fabricated reason.
Meh - I see it as a minor error, which in the (crap) article the rep actually correct straight after he said it - so if a rep makes an error and corrects it I don't see the problem.
The definition of netbook is also quite varied - the rep's wasn't great, but the general gist of what was being aimed at wasn't far off.
Yeah, but the guy at the HP Store showed me the cool proprietary coffee cup holder that only HP machines have!!
"Nature bats last..."
I think the rough gist was that netbooks are generally underpowered and you wouldn't look at running productivity suites on them - web browsing etc fine, etc, etc.
;)
This of course is referring to modern bloatware suites, as opposed to stuff like WP5.1 which i'm sure my 701 could run
Y'know, I've always thought of things this way : either the Salesman knows his stuff, or he doesn't. If you had researched what you wanted, and know what you're going for, then a salesman who doesn't know his stuff is a pain/deterrent to be avoided. A salesman who knows his stuff is mostly irrelevant.
:p) .
If you haven't researched what you want, and/or don't know what you're going for, then a salesman who doesn't know his stuff is dangerous for you, and a salesman who knows his stuff is someone who can very likely take you for a ride (Yes, I'm sure my prejudice is showing
All in all, to me, a customer, a salesman is of no use unless I've not researched what I want, the salesman actually has relevant knowledge, and is actually not a person who would take me for a ride. What that means is that I avoid salesmen, period.
In "Arnold's" defense he did not lie, but just damn. I do not know what to say. This is from 2006, enjoy!
10:33:52 PM System Welcome ____ _________ ...
10:33:52 PM System Connecting to server. Please wait...
10:33:52 PM System Thank you for using Dell Chat, a representative will be with you soon.
10:33:52 PM System Initial Question/Comment: What is the e1405 (integrated video card) external monitor max resolution?
10:39:20 PM System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
10:39:20 PM System Connected with CU_Rep_Arnold
10:40:02 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Welcome to Dell Sales Chat. My name is Arnold. I'll be your personal sales agent today. Give me a moment to review your concern please don't go away.
10:40:16 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Hi ____.
10:40:27 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Are you planning to purchase online today?
10:40:39 PM You Perhaps
10:41:02 PM CU_Rep_Arnold What's the starting price of the package?
10:41:42 PM You $679
10:42:00 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Do you already have an online account?
10:42:47 PM You What is the max external resolution of the Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 on the e1405?
10:43:16 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Let me check for it.
10:43:23 PM You thank you
10:44:07 PM CU_Rep_Arnold You re welcome.
10:44:13 PM CU_Rep_Arnold One moment pls.
10:44:47 PM CU_Rep_Arnold By the way, do you already have an online account?
10:45:14 PM You answer my question first please.
10:45:31 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Ok.
10:47:05 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Ok, the maximum resolution on the WXGA is 1280 x 800 at 262,144 colors
10:47:42 PM You That is the resolution for the LCD on the laptop, what about the external monitor resolution?
10:48:13 PM You For instance, if I hook up a Dell 2001FP to the VGA out on the laptop, what is the max resolution supported by the laptop.
10:49:08 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Oh, that depends on the resolution of the monitor.
10:49:24 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Could you tell me what are you using this computer for?
10:49:51 PM You I understand that, but what is the max resolution that the video card on the laptop supports for an external monitor?
10:52:46 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Still checking.
10:53:13 PM You thank you...
10:56:18 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Yes, I'm pretty sure that the resolution depends on the screen that you have.
10:56:41 PM CU_Rep_Arnold I mean it depends on the monitor you want to use.
10:57:00 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Will you be using this for multi-media purposes? Like digital photography, downloading music & burning CD's, watching DVD's, video editing, and gaming?
10:57:08 PM You I know that it depends on the monitor.
10:57:12 PM You But for instance...
10:57:37 PM You Imagine I have a monitor that has a max resolution of 2400x1600
10:57:45 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Yes.
10:58:04 PM You Can the e1405's video card support that resolution?
10:59:14 PM You so it can support 2400x1600?
11:01:09 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Ok, to sum it up the standard video card accelerator 950 is just the basic which only support regular flat panels.
11:01:38 PM You no offense, but do you understand what I am asking?
11:01:47 PM CU_Rep_Arnold If you want to use a digital monitor try to upgrade the video card ____.
11:02:03 PM You No, I have a Dell 2001 FP
11:02:18 PM You which supports a max resolution of 1600x1200
11:02:30 PM You It is a "basic" flat panel
11:02:59 PM You I want to know what the MAXIMUM SUPPORTED EXTERNAL RESOLUTION is of the Intel video card on the e1405.
11:03:41 PM CU_Rep_Arnold Ok.
11:03:46 PM CU_Rep_Arnold One moment pls.
11:03:58 PM You thank you...
11:05:38 PM CU_Rep_Arnold It sounds like it could be one of several issues, but I am unfortunately not equipped to diagnose the problem you are experiencing. I think the best course of action is to call Dell Technical Support at 1-800-6249897 Extension 726-9219 or you can also chat with them thru this link, use this link to chat with out Tech Support:
11:05:51 PM CU_Rep_Arnold http://support.dell.com/support/
PC sales staff are clueless droids - film at 11. Anybody with the smarts to sell a PC...has the smarts to not be in retail.
This attitude isn't helpful when you need the salesman to make the sale.
It might just explain why no one is busting their gut to push OEM Linux in big box retail.
Which is where you need to be if you want Linux to win more than a fractional 1% share of the consumer desktop.
Same here, and the worst part is, my dad was a CAR SALESMAN for 25 years (both new and used). You'd think he could recognize the smell of bullshit.
Ask your dad which is more honest, used or new car sales, you might be surprised.
You also can't be fired when you're trying to report a crime (theft of customer property). That's why I mentioned the whistle blower law that's supposed to protect employees when they report illegal acts performed by a company.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"I made 975,000 dollars last year. How much did you make?"
Enough to fill my car with gas, drive to your funeral, and laugh as they lower your rotten corpse into the grave. Because you see, no matter how much money is made, eventually we all end up in the same place. You, me, everyone in this building.
We all end-up as worm food, even rich bastards such as yourself.
(smiles)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That depends a lot on the sales staff. In some places I've been to, it's more likely he'd come home with a USB extender cable and a package of AAs.
It's also worth noting that your second example may not be entirely bad. If he went in looking for a simple, basic power strip for sensitive and power-hungry computer equipment ("Hey, I need a power strip for my $2,000 laptop, my desktop, and my wife's desktop and laptop"), a perfectly competent and honest salesman may end up convincing him on the merits of having battery backup power. And seeing as he's making a lot of off-the-cuff estimates on power draw under varying and unknown circumstances, if "dad" is looking for how long this battery thing will keep his equipment running in a blackout, the APC rackmount battery backup may only be slight overkill.
In my living room, I have a 1500VA APC unit providing backup power to a router, switch, cable modem, and HTPC. Why so much? Because it was on a ridiculous sale (model was being replaced) and I had gift cards to that store. In the end, I only paid about $60 for it. I'll probably swap it to the home servers whenever I get around to building them, but for now, I could probably run all my networking and internet equipment for several hours in a blackout.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Though I have no doubt about the lack of competence of the local Geek Squad, my experiences with newer viruses has been that if you're paying hourly for the repair work, it's cheaper just to replace and reinstall the drive.
Some time ago my wife managed a small live theatre venue, and they had a computer with a virus. I volunteered to clean it out, and ended up spending probably 20 hours working on it, as the virus was dug in deep, I couldn't get the automated repair tool on to the computer, and had to dig the infected files and reg entries out by hand. After all that, I still couldn't guarantee that the machine was virus-free.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
My experience with Dell is that they are completely dishonest and mostly incompetent. They are the online Best Buy.
Visit your local pcworld store to gain your own personal IT salesman horror story.
My favourite personal ones include :
No, you're wrong. Apple macs are notebooks; PCs are laptops.
Of course you need Symantec antivirus; it's only 59.99 (No mention that it's just a one year subscription fee.)
Your computer is infected. We'll need to re-install Windows.
I'm not kidding. I've heard all of these from the unqualified people they employ at pcworld but still, poor souls are duped into trusting these liars.
The easiest person to bullshit is a bullshitter. The best ones think of their lies as truth, so they become unable to spot other peoples' lies.
My experience has been that low-priced accessories like cables, blank media, and the like are marked up, and the higher-priced electronics like cameras, computers and such are sold at paper-thin margins. I even recall a model of laptop at the Radio Shack I used to work at that landed in the store priced at a small loss.
The retailers don't actually make their margins at the store level, they take their cut at the distribution centre. A company like Best Buy gets to control the retail price and the "wholesale" price the store pays, meaning that the store itself often gets hosed at the expense of the corporation. Salesmen have to hustle to sell the high-margin, low price items, so that they don't lose their shitty, minimum wage jobs. It's the shareholders, and the upper management, who are laughing all the way to the bank.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
I bought a 1200$+ laptop, a dell 15 inch machine. After 60 days, i noticed some of the components started failing. I called Dell support to return the whole thing. I asked - since the 60 days period had passed, could i still return it. I was also ready to buy another dell product in exchange for this. I was ready to lose upto 2-300$ on this exchange too.
I was haggling with them for a long time , and finally this guy on the other side told me that he had spoken to his manager and everyting was good. I would lose 150$ in the exchange.
I return the machine, i get back 400$. i lost over 800$ in this transaction. I call them back, and they tell me that not only is the transaction final and binding, but they have put a hold on my card, which means till that hold is cleared, i could not buy anything from Dell online.
Moral of the story - Dell products are good, used them personally for years. Its the support staff that lets them down. Just try to call their tech support line to resolve a tech issue.
That TruCoat, you don't get it and you get oxidization problems....
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Yeah. Good thing he's the consumer, going into the store hoping to find more information, and not the subject matter expert who is selling the apparatus. Just because I can't remember the thing that recharges the ADP back into ATP from biology 101 from 7 years ago doesn't mean that I can't call creationism bullshit. Likewise, I don't need to know the function of a catalytic converter to know that a mechanic is going to bend me over a barrel for a new one.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Had he not proven to me how dumb he was with those statements, I would have considered buying there and paying a little extra for the convenience of getting the system on the spot and walking out the door.
But why should I reward them for gross incompetence/ignorance like that?
I feel compelled to side with my fellow geeks on this matter of misguided tech-geek-salesmen... but... seriously I think we are taking stabs at a dead horse.
OK, let's morph this discussion to other fields of interests. Do you believe that Doctors and Lawyers lack in elaborate stories of sheer idiocy from their clients? "Doc, I think I have a pulmonary endema! Need helps!" And everyone has their own divine wisdom of the law... I don't need to remark on this. A real lawyer is probably chalk full of reasons to believe most people are complete idiots.
Now, we geeks are paid to do the geek thing. And we want to joke and giggle at the efforts of a salesman hired to sell computers; when really they are simply hired to sell merchandise. Different words, different meanings and to the owner of the store they really don't give a hoot if it's computers or socks; after all, if it were legal, they would have call-girls services in the back. On second thought, some establishments actually do... anyways.
The biggest tech-idiot with the most charming smile will make the most sales, and as a result be rewarded for it. Sorry, but don't toot the capitalism trumpet and then demand honesty *and* expertise. So, if the budding salesman can charm his victim into purchasing 1,500 dollars in added services for a 350 dollar LCD TV and then probably pay an additional 15-30% in interest due to using a credit card... well, that's capitalism, the very thing many of you endorse.
Regardless of our philosophies on capitalism or any other economic model. The fact is, well skilled people will be employed at places like NASA, and the rest will be distributed out and about all other fields and applications. And, remember it's not really their job to be computer savvy, it's their job to sell merchandise. Be honest with yourselves, if you did find a computer savvy salesman, he's really only using those skills on a *very small* portion of clients. Here's a twist, since it's harder to bullshit those informed, he might not want to talk to you anyways.
Having installed XP over Linux a few times, several versions of the XP installer do not deal well with an MBR that is not Windows-centric. This stopped being an issue with Windows 2003, but definitely happened with slipstreamed XP, sp1, and sp2 (what I'd do was pull out a Windows 2003 install CD, repartition using that, then swap out the CDs and be on may way).
It doesn't surprise me at all that the Geek Squad didn't know that.
Perhaps Ignorance is also Sales.
A friend recently gave me a dead external USB drive to look at. The drive wasn't recognized at all by the system, but upon cracking the case open and mounting the bare drive via the IDE interface in my box, I found the drive itself was 100% functional, and it was just the USB interface in the enclosure that had failed. I called him up and told him the drive was fine and he could just plug it into his desktop to get what he needed from it.
Took 5 minutes, and I'd hate to think what he'd have been charged if he'd actually taken it someplace to have it looked at.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Drones who sell stuff are prone to lie about their products? HAS THE PRESIDENT BEEN TOLD?
Yes, and re-elected in 2004 to boot. (And if you don't keep an eye on them, I'll be using this cheap joke in 2013 too.)
While in general I agree that people are convinced to buy things they don't need, store-warranties are useful *depending on the store* if they will do equivalent-same-day replacements, and not just facilitate your shipping it to the manuf (Guitar Center is a good example of this, where they'll swap out a piece of equipment on the spot if you have their "performance guarantee" for many years after the manuf warranty is expired, *and* you get it that day instead of having to ship it out to wherever). Also, never hurts to have a surge suppressor. And finally, if you're wanting to watch programming that isn't OTA and want to actually *use* an HD for HDTV, Comcast HD isn't a bad choice (though DirectTV is probably a better choice).
Seems that electrical engineers aren't particularly good at sorting through consumer electronics choices, either.
Vista, you mean. Windows 7 is the first windows I've used (at work, I'm OSX and Ubuntu at home) which is faster than the previous version. I'd put it up with XP for speed, if not quicker on the same hardware.
$4.43 for a single 50' Cat 5e cable at Monoprice. Markup on cables of all sorts is just ridiculous, and the vast majority of people have no idea how much they're getting ripped off.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
So that was YOUR dad that I talked to? Small world, huh?
Where I work, when I get handed an infected machine, I have a set time limit that I will spend trying to disinfect it. Generally, if I can't get it totally clean in 2 hours or so, I pull off the data and re-image the laptop and I'm back up and giving it back in another 2 hours.
Came to that conclusion after years of working where sometimes I'd luck out and in an hour it'd be back in their hands, sometimes it would take days.
Keep that disc. It contains a utility for removing Windows passwords.
Thank you, sir. I was a computer technician at Staples to try to make some money to get through college as a computer engineer, and this exact thing happened in my store. One of our shyster salesmen (the sales manager, no less) was trying to sell a customer who needed to do email and use MS Word a bundle for over $1500. The second, educated customer stood in such a way to block that a--hole from the conversation and explained exactly what everything on the spec sheet meant and why she was paying way too much.
Manager's response: "You don't work here!". Helpful customer: "You shouldn't."
I swear, I wanted to hug the man. Working with those snake-oil salesmen is enough of a burden that it should come with hazardous duty pay.
I purchased an "open box" projector from Best Buy for a company that I worked for and upon opening the box and found a decent amount of marijuana sitting at the bottom of the box. It was an embarrassing situation for both me and my manager who saw me open the box. We called the store and corporate who in kind words didn't believe me and told me to return the box (with the pot in it?) or to call the police. In either case, it could have been a bad day had I gotten pulled over and a real case of, "I didn't know it was there officer, I swear!"
'anyone with brains could get a better job'..
oh then the recession hits.
then you are stuck with your masters in CE, working at radio shack. then a bunch of hipster 20 somethings come in look at you, and think 'if he was smart, he wouldnt be working here'
I was at a CompUSA. I asked one of the employees there if the computer cases all stacked on the very top of the shelf were all ATX. He didn't know what ATX meant, then he looked at the price labels and noticed that CUSA was written on each one of them, and so he said: "I'm not sure what CUSA means." So at that point, the more evil part of me took over, and I said: "Well, I'm pretty sure what CUSA means. It means CompUSA" and using my most condescending voice, I said "Thanks for trying anyway..."
On a side-note, I was at a Radio Shack more recently. I had done my research, or so I thought. I got in a technical disagreement with the salesman. I left the store thinking that the salesman was a complete idiot (and how Radio Shack had changed over the years), and when I got home and verified what the salesman said, it turned out he was right, and I was the complete idiot this time (so ignorance can certainly goes both ways).
And it's funny, the CUSA incident happened a long while ago, and I remember every detail, but the Radio Shack incident happened much more recently, but for some reason, I can't even remember what I wanted in that case (may be some cable or something). It's either the fact that cables don't make a memorable impression on me, or perhaps, much more likely that my memory is selective in the incidents I want to remember. The only thing I remember about Radio Shack is that I avoided going to that particular store, fearing to run into the same salesman, at least six months after the fact.
When I worked at Circuit City, they stuck me in the Cell Phones/PDA sections even though I was a Computer Science undergrad. The other guy working in my department was a Computer Science graduate! They don't want knowledgeable people working the computer area, they want Sales people, which obviously hurt them in the long run. You can only screw over your customer so many times.
So now im really pissed at giving pcpro a page click.
You might want to get that checked.
Several years ago, I was working in computer repair at a locally owned business "competing" with the Geek Squad and a few others. And by "competing", I mean we were the place people came to get their computers fixed after the Geek Squad fucked them up even more.
During my time working there, I had written several custom diagnostic tools, and eventually a handy front end for them so we could have a single disc with most of what we used daily on it. The front end was configurable to some degree, so we could add new tools without having to recompile the front end as well. Unfortunately, as tends to happen, periodically some of these discs would get left in a CD-ROM drive when a computer went back out.
A few months after I originally created it, we got a computer in from someone who had recently taken it to the Geek Squad. In their CD-ROM drive was a utility disc from there. Upon further investigation, it was a CD running my front end that had been slightly modified to make it look like their own software. In one part of the program that doesn't get used frequently, it even still had the name of the company I worked for. So, as many others have said, they really are thieves.
If you got screwed at Best Buy, knew you got screwed at Best Buy, and then WENT BACK TO BEST BUY, the problem isn't Best Buy.
I just went a tried out the DEll online sales chat and I asked about getting a computer under $1000 that surfed the 'net and would be good for music downloads.( I set the price so high to present myself as a sucker) Fifteen minutes later and I had a cart full of desktop with 8gb RAM, VISTA! of all things, a terabyte HDD, and a quad-core. (which I specifically asked if a quad-core would be overkill for just surfing) Dell flat out lies about every aspect of purchasing a computer.
Time Warner thanks your neighbor for their positive impact on its bottom line.
I've always wondered why anyone wants to buy a phone at Best Buy. All they do is resell AT&T phones and service, obviously at a mark up. Just go to the carrier's company store and cut out the middleman (and usually get better service).
While you are technically correct, most switching (we tend to call them switchmode) power supplies tend to support a wide range of voltages these days, while analogue power supplies are made for one voltage, by their nature. (I've even heard reports of issues where an analogue power supply rated for 220-240V causes under-voltage problems on 220.)
So, if you are looking for something that will run on 110 and 220, then the first thing you look for is a switchmode power supply. Then you check it's ratings.
I have heard people say that 'switchmode' means that it has a voltage switch on it, though, which is rubbish, of course.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Reminds me of a time when I did a wipe-and-reload on a friend's computer:
- First thing, did you save your stuff? ...wait, didn't you say you had saved all your stuff?
- I have all my documents in this pen drive.
- Okay.*wipes and reinstalls* There you go.
- Hey, where are the cool wallpapers I had before?
- Must be... *checks the pen drive*
- No, I said I had saved my DOCUMENTS!
See, to her, "documents" implied Word/Excel/Powerpoint files. You know, "documents" in the sense of work-related paperwork -- not pictures, videos, music, or anything else.
Circumcision is child abuse.
It's also why you can walk into the kitchen on a cool day, and know where the stove is, just by the radiated heat. If however, the room was on fire, that trick wouldn't work.
I don't know, I think the reason I can't tell if the oven is on if the room is on fire is because I'm usually running from said fire. Nothing to do with contrast. ...slashdotters, resist the temptation to test this theory in your own kitchen...
One of the lawyers at the firm I work for was having issues with his home PC.
Geek squad was out for 4 hours, but only charged for 3 because they couldn't fix the issue.
What was the issue you ask? Computer wouldn't DHCP an IP.
I removed and reinstalled the TCP/IP stack the easy way, and then the computer could magically ACK an IP.
I didn't know what to do for the next 58 minutes they'd paid for.
I wouldn't trust most computer shops -- including the Geek Squad -- with washing my car. I think somewhere "loser" means a person in a low-wage, low-skill job with no future. Some of the stories I've heard -- about people who actually think an A+ is something to brag about -- make me sick. There is no honor to be had by a loser taking advantage of the clueless, and it's painful to watch.
I've always made it a point to torment them whenever I could. Too bad CompUSA and Circuit City closed, they often provided me a laugh if I stopped by there on the way home.
No such luck.
Best buy and the geek squad are a bunch of thieves.
I'm on the extreme low end in computing knowledge on slashdot. With that admission I have to ask, who SHOULD I take my computer to if I have a problem with my home PC that I can't fix on my own. Let's also assume I don't know anyone personally who seems capable of fixing it.
The Guitar Center warranty of which you speak is remarkable compared to all other warranties I have ever purchased. The Wal-Mart electronics warranty covers only manufacturer defects, not accidents. It specifically does not cover if you drop your iPod Touch for instance. The warranty I purchased for my 2 videocameras I bought at J&R was not honored when my ex-wife dropped one of the cameras and the "on/off/play/record" switch broke off, rendering it unusable. We spent quit a bit of money and effort on that one, shipping it back and forth and talking to foreigners in India. Most warranties are little more than a source of additional income for retailers.
Consumer-grade surge suppressors are little more than outlet duplicators. Clamping time and total suppression ability make most of them totally useless, yet Monster Cable et al will gladly sell you a $50 piece of junk that isn't worth more than $2.50. Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot etc will all sell these devices to you that do absolutely nothing other than duplicate the outlet. Yes, outlet duplicators have their purpose but giving people a false sense of security is foolish.
Selling an HDTV to someone in the market for a new TV in itself isn't always a bad thing, but the salesperson needs to make sure the customer understands they won't be getting HDTV quality without HDTV service. Often, picture quality of standard def TV on an HDTV set is terrible (which is one of the reasons I went with a $350 tube RCA HDTV from Wal-Mart 2 years ago -- both standard def and HDTV display well).
But he did say K-Mart, and it's one of the lowest of the low-grade bargain bin stores. I would be surprised if the salesperson had any training at all. You have to pay someone more than $10 an hour for them to care.
The notebook was as much of an incremental size difference to a laptop as a netbook is to a notebook today. That's why they were called notebooks. You literally needed a lap (or a pull-down table larger than the ones on airlines) to operate one outside of the office. When notebooks first came out, they were actually thought as being "hardly" bigger than a notebook. Granted, the screens then were smaller (my first notebook had a 13" B&W LCD screen), so they were smaller than many of the notebooks on the market today, but they were a quantum leap size-wise when they first hit the market.
Correction: You literally needed a lap (or a pull-down table larger than the ones on airlines) to operate a lap-top outside of the office.
my technique is boot from UBCD , choose HDD , Diagnosis , then choose the manuf tool - do a full check and then zero the drive.
might take an extra hour , but gives you an idea if the whole job is worth doing.
...I obey the laws of physics....
This will undo some mods I've made on this topic, but oh well. Ask a linux geek, online, or at LUGs http://www.linux.org/groups/ Most linux people know hardware due to having to figure out how to get stuff to work, and what scams people try. They may try to "upsell" you to linux, but if you say you're fixing a gaming rig or somesuch, they'll help out ;)
Besides, most computer savvy people I know like to help people out, as long as it isn't a long term commitment. Most of us have figured it out on our own (best way to learn). I'll help as long as it doesn't take too much of my time. And all bets are off if it's a pretty girl :)
(disclaimer: married to female geek)
Just do what we all do, Scroogle it!
Failing that, don't authorise any repairs until you have asked (us?) someone on IRC if the proposed fix sounds right.
Pro tip: Use Linux and people on IRC will be falling over themselves to diagnose your problem. We love to help.
Small caveat: Free advice is worth what you pay for it.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
It sounds like an unfair dismissal lawsuit waiting to happen.
And you ought to have filed a police report, regarding the theft, if that is what happened, including your boss' complicitness. Last I checked, stealing is still a crime.
Ok, now I'm curious. Does she do it "just in case she needs it", or does she think she NEEDS to pay it for her phone/cable/etc to keep working?
A2: Most used car salesman know how to drive a car....
Yes, it would be absolutely awesome if he did, but it's shit he doesn't need
No, NO!
...you luddite. !
Sounds completely cool to me!
He could very well be on his way to a Beowulf cluster! Don'r discourage this behaviour!
-
Extracting sunbeams from
It could be Karma!
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Why would someone mod you flamebait?
my husband works with a man that used to work for geek squad. He was fired after reporting that fellow geek's were stealing memory and hardware from unsuspecting clients. According to his departure paper, he was fired for not being a team player. Best buy and the geek squad are a bunch of thieves.
Assuming you're Anna, Morgan's lady, the geek squad team was not stealing computer hardware, they were trying to rebuild the Intersect, which was destroyed after one of their clueless member tried to run Windows Vista on it.
A used car salesman knew about cars, knew what to hide and what to talk about. The way it works for computer retail sales is quite simple, you see, there are quite a few people who are very knowledgeable about and understand computers, they of course need to be paid quite well and in fact they need to be paid even more to have to work in ugh 'retail sales' as for that group it is a very unpopular segment of the employment market. On the other hand you have a whole group of people that work the counter at junk food outlets, they are very cheap, minimum wage in fact, they will say exactly what they are told to say and sell exactly what they are told to sell, they neither know or understand computers but they are cheap and thus more 'profitable', so smile, be polite, say what you are told to say, make everything else up and try to survive for as long as you can before ending about back behind some fast food sales counter.
Quite some number of years back most computer retail outlets simply sacked their expensive staff and hired new staff for about a third of the prior wage about the same time as computers shifted from technical market to consumer market.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
To be fair pretty much every US households incoming power supply is 220 Volt, and they should all work with that just fine without change. Just because the Europeans don't make their transformers keep the rms voltage at 110 from ground, so you can't always find a 110 Volt tap to use isn't the reps fault is it ;)
But since it seams less than 5% of Americans know that one leg of our 220V at home is at the same peak voltage to ground as the 110V wiring, I doubt that's what they were describing.
[Citation Needed]
Do you have any benchmarks showing performance improvements over anything but Vista?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Somehow in the process of installing Windows--an arduous task that involves the opening of the DVD drive--they had managed to open the case, unscrew the hard drive from the case, and then bust it up enough that it took over 24 hours for Windows to finish installing. I know this because they kindly provided my grandmother a receipt that had logs of everything they did, which I went over.
I've actually managed to brick a few hard drives with WinXP, when they were fine before, even passed an chkdisk and such. As for Linux, i'm glad that my local Best Buy employs geek squad agents who aren't dumb (although several of them are downright rude when you tell them exactly the problem and exactly how you want them to fix it)... however central offices not so much, since over heating problems are not caused my bad hard drives. Needless to say i purposely bought my netbook directly from Dell because i've been dis-satisfied with recent Geek Squad services, and they no longer carry Linux-based eeePCs, so i got a Dell Mini.
Step away from the wood chipper. (sorry, I already burned my mod points today)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I recently decided to try and validate my years of experience on computers, by taking some courses and getting some proof that I know what I know. But there is a maze of options out there and I needed some help from someone who understood all the options. So I applied to a company called Skills Train (amongst others) for some information on what they could offer in the way of distance learning. I first received a phone call from a sexy sounding woman, whose soothing voice promised me that they were sure they could help, and that they would have an expert call round to my house and discuss the options in person. The alarm bells started ringing right there. But I accepted her offer to see where it would lead.
The next day while driving, I received another phone call, this time from the expert that was assigned to my case. He proceeded to embark on a lengthy sales pitch about the different options they offered, even though I said I was driving and could he call back. He was trying to enrol me on a course as a computer technician, something that I was doing as a business 10 years ago, and for which there is very little market these days, at least not if you want to make a living. I told him I wasn't interested, and was there anything else that was more knowledge based rather than practical. So he then tried to get me interested in web design, something I was also doing commercially 10 years ago. I let him blabber on because it became truly amazing the things I didn't know about computers.
Apparently, HTML (according to this "expert") stands for Hyper Text Multi Lingual ! I laughed and ignored him. He then tried to tell me about a more complex course where if I passed, I could earn 100k working for the National Health Service. Apparently the NHS uses software called SQ and L which only runs on Cisco servers ! At this point I was in danger of crashing, so I told him to put his proposals in the post, and hung up.
Of course, they wanted 1000s of pounds for each of these courses, which could be paid back in "easy instalments" and they could even help find me a job afterwards ! So I am slightly perturbed when ever I see one of their TV ads where they promise the earth to people- earn while you learn - utter shite. If the guy selling the stuff can't even get his shit right, how good are the courses going to be ? He even told me that he had done the web design course and had ended up working for the training company. It saddens me to realise that there are probably many many people enrolled in their stupid schemes, who went there to learn, and are being made to pay for useless dreck.
On another occasion, I applied for a training course as an energy consultant, which exist because of government mandates that require all home being sold to have an energy efficiency report available. Apparently there is a desparate need for these consultants, with unlimited earning potential. So I arranged an interview for the next day, and sat back feeling like I was going somewhere. But me being me, I decided to learn as much as I could before I attended the interview. What I discovered on the internet was that not only was this the worst training company in the whole UK, charging the highest fees and responsible for the most malpractice, but also that the market for the consultants is dead, there are probably 3 times the number of consultants needed already trained and they are mostly out of work ! This company is still pushing this course in the job centres and newspapers. I have complained already, but to no avail. As far as the government is concerned, if you are training, you are not unemployed, and therefore you don't show up on their figures. No matter that you will show up there later, now is all that matters.
Technically I'm not against people buying current PCs even if their needs are alot less than what a current PC can do, but I wouldn't presume that everyone wants the latest and greatest just so that it's future-proof and would last longer than a cheaper system.
Was she bamboozled? maybe, but with the windows world as it is, a 4 core system means she'll at least get 1 core for herself and the other cores can happily chug along with malware and antivirus programs without unbearably bothering her and her scanning/emailing needs.
I usually build my own or work with a local shop when I need a new PC. Early last year, the motherboard failed on my main desktop, I was leaving town on business, and needed to make sure I could get back to work immediately when I returned. I turned to an online purchase from Dell, and had them customize an XPS420. My first --and many times repeated-- requirement: "I need a video card that has a dual DVI output".
"Oh, yes, sir, it's got that".
Of course, it arrived with a DVI/VGA output.
To their credit, when I complained, they shipped me an upgrade card at no cost. Worked out OK for me...would not have for somebody not willing or able to install their own.
Sales staff lying to customers...shocking!
I have to agree there. The Linux channels on irc.freenode.net are a treasure trove of considerate people who bend over backwards to help anyone who is worth helping. By that, I mean the people that have tried to fix the problem themselves and don't ask really dumb questions(where's the any key) or in a demanding selfish way.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I've probably heard some of the most outrageous exaggerations coming from the Apple store. "Now, the Mac has everything you need for digital photos. Just plug in your camera and they automatically transfer. PCs don't do that". Yeah, right.
www.itjerk.com
I have found when required to do a 'wipe' that including the cost of a new hard drive (or other backup medium(or even keeping a copy myself for months)) works wonders for those 'OMG why did you wipe that file? YOU iDIOT' type moments. Because even if they claim to have backed up all their important data they never never never have.
Install the new hard drive(backup medium) make it invisible to the system and when the SHTF log in remotely, fix the problem, and profit.
I don't really profit very much at all as my new lifestyle doesn't have money as an important part of it. My payment comes from the joy on those little users faces (I install trojans and spy on them via webcam and surely that's enough payment for anyone?)
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
There is a store in Australia I worked for selling computers. It is a large chain that sells furniture, white goods, and lots of other products. I am always stunned by the lack of knowledge amongst their staff these days.
When i worked there i was being paid a $550pw retainer and 10% of gross profit commission (commission was on top of the retainer. the retainer wasn't paid back from commissions before your wage increased).
I worked in many of their stores around Australia but my name is now mud after some serious accusations and threats were made to me by management(totally without any basis in reality) and I was fired whilst seriously ill with hepatitis (and my job also went to the brother of the boss). I made the best salary nearly EVERY WEEK out of all of the computer staff at every store I worked at. The reason i suspect I was fired is that i wouldn't tow the line and sell stuff to the customer that they didn't need(or was just unmitigated crap. Having previously worked as an analyst I always made sure that the customer got what they needed and not one of the hundred or so bargain boxes out the back that made the company much money.
If this was Jeopardy the answer would be "Who is Harvey Norman"
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I second the Linux confusion thing. They probably had MBR problems and had no idea what to do.
At that point they should return her system to her and tell her they have no idea how to load XP on it. Better yet, they could restore it to its original state with the drive image they should have created beforehand. Instead they commit fraud.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I'm not saying it's a valid excuse, but places like Geek Squad have a couple of problems, training and volume. The folks they hire are not really well trained, and the service counter has to get through a lot of PCs in one day. It's a lot easier to do a fresh install of Windows (most of which you can leave unattended) than it is to diagnose, hunt down and clean off a virus.
My own tech support horror story involved a bad video card, specifically the fan. It's my fault for being greedy, I suppose, since I was hoping these guys (not geek squad, Microcenter) would replace the card with a new one for me. Not only did that not happen, but they insisted that I give them all my passwords and leave the PC there for 3-7 days, not including the weekend. To which my response was, "wait a minute. You can fire the pc up and see the fan is not working. And you need my PC for up to 7 days AND you need my passwords? I don't think so!" I got into a bit of an argument with the staff, finally just left, got a fan, installed it myself and fixed the problem.
We've had a few contractors come in where I work. Every one of them has tons of MP3s, movies, etc. Where did they get that, I wonder? Why, working the tech support desk at some chain! All you need is a USB drive and inattentive management! No, I'm not giving my passwords to some support desk schlub, thanks.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
You know I run into your attitude a lot in the geekdom. So tell me, could you get a sewage plant running in a hurry if you had to? How about a nuclear power generation facility? How long would it take you to make a light bulb, or genetically engineered bacteria, or a car, from scratch?
Way to miss the point. His/her point is surely that if most people's attitude to computers was replicated with cars then they would buy a new car every time they ran out of fuel or got a flat tyre. Or they would constantly ignore the fuel gauge and have to call a garage every few days when they ran out. I'm sure some people do this but they are rightly derided as idiots.
I worked for a top ten PC company and we were specifically told that the company no longer referred to laptops as laptops, but instead to always use the term notebook computer. We were advised to specifically tell customers not to use the notebooks on their laps because this generated excess heat which shortened the life of the motherboard and the battery, and if you have it on your lap you block all the vents and sometimes block the cooling fan. Our documentation specifically stated that customers should always use the notebooks on a hard flat surface.
Not that the perp from best buy would know, but if you're going to be smarter than them, you want to be accurate.
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Warning: I brake for chachalacas!
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
While other human tech, like cars, cameras, airplanes, music players, video/TV recorders, etc... have become easier to use with every generation,
Please engage brain before posting.
Most of these things have become much more capable, but much more complicated to use.
The first TV set (black and white, analog of course) I used had four channel selector buttons, volume, brightness and contrast and an on/off switch. The most recent (cheap, small, basic) LCD TV I bought has a remote with about 50 buttons (many with tiny little near-meaningless symbols above them) and a menu system with probably 50-100 settings on it. Yes, it's true that you can ignore most of these settings but you may well end up with (for example) a widescreen picture squashed or partly off screen, and your channels will slowly disappear unless you know how to retune (Freeview UK - retune required tommorrow). My first TV 'just worked'. It didn't do much but it was simple and obvious. My current one is a fairly crappy locked down computer.
Cars: The last time I drove it was a 1983 model. Current cars appear to have about four times as many controls at least.
Cameras: Twenty years ago I had a fully automatic camera with essentially one control - shutter. And a pop up flash. Today's equivalent has 10 buttons and a complex set of menus.
Music players: Sony walkman: insert tape, press play. Current mp3 player: Need to understand computer basics just to load it up. Confusing multi-function buttons.
Video recorder(no timer use, immediate record): Power on, Slam in any new VHS tape, select channel, press record.
DVD recorder: Power on, wait for boot sequence, wait for 'no disc' recognized, eject tray, insert disc, wait approx 30 seconds, answer format disc? question, answer 'which format' question, wait 1 minute for formatting to complete, select channel, press record. This assumes you bought the correct disc type of course - DVD+,-,or -RAM without going into R or RW. With video tapes in 99% of shops the most difficult choice was VHS or Betamax, and if you got it wrong they were actually different sizes.
Video playback: Half way through film, eject tape, record other program, replace film and continue watching. DVD playback: Half way through film, eject disc, record other program, replace disc, watch compulsory pirating warning etc., spend 5 minutes navigating back to where you stopped watching.
Easier to use with each generation? Occasionally yes (e.g. onscreen programming for video/DVD recorders). Often no.
Some companies do something even worse than pay by commission: they punish workers with the lowest sales figures. Now I'm not talking about meeting a certain minimum, it fact it doesn't matter how great your sales were but if you were the worker with the lowest figure that month (per hour) then you get chastised and or written up. I don't know if Best Buy does this greedy practice but you can certainly mark Victoria Secret for being guilty of this. So now, as a customer, you get all the same pressure to buy, but the worker doesn't get a single penny of the sale, and that really pisses me off as they're enslaved to pressure/annoy you with no benefit at all.
It's true that the GC warranty is, indeed, exceptional. Though I've been told the Microcenter warranty is also pretty darn good.
I suspect that the reason the salesperson was able to sell the customer the Comcast HD setup was because of the SD-crappiness issue on HDTVs. I don't see any real ethical problem there.
You're correct, though, that the salesperson was probably untrained, but I didn't see anything really wrong with that particular sales transaction (unless they sold them a Monster cable surge suppressor, then we'll need to get some oranges and a sock and meet the salesperson out back).
Sounds like a lot of work, when a quick format as Windows 2003's install will take about 15 seconds.
Somewhat irrelevant now, of course, since Vista and Windows 7 handle foreign MBRs just fine.
Not true for Sprint, all of the phones for Sprint at my BestBuy are almost ALWAYS cheaper than a Sprint store. In fact, most of the phones at my BestBuy are cheaper than any of the carrier stores. Also, the do not do mail-in-rebates anymore, that many carrier stores still do, BestBuy already has the mail-in-rebate equivalent discounted in the price or more.
Maybe AT&T is different, but damn, I would never go to a Sprint store to get a phone... EVER. If AT&T is better in that regard, great... still doesn't make up for the fact their connection quality and reliability is SHITTY and OVERPRICED.
So I've always wondered at the warranties from say, UPSs or many of the cheapish ($30) surge protectors that supposedly will cover equipment damaged by a surge. I suppose these probably work because they are secondary, so they don't actually do anything in almost all cases (home owners insurance?).
That said, I am interested in what specs would be necessary to actually do something to protect against surges. Do the Tripp-Lite ISOBars work?
I figure that the UPSs that will cut over to battery power if there is a line spike help, but maybe other surge protection (lightning) is impossible for any reasonable cost anyway.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
and into sub-prime mortgage brokering. In part because he couldn't stand all the lying required.
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I make people cables for free and have them return the one they just bought at best buy. It costs me next to nothing, but best buy looses a fortune.
Why? He made it all up.
she wanted to install Windows on it. So she had to go buy a copy.
At least with desktops, you can usually buy a new hard drive and an OEM copy of Windows for about the same price as a stand-alone copy of Windows.
See, that's something that should be taken to the local news at least. Then it may be picked up by mainstream, etc. Make the suckers hurt.
They equipped her, someone whose most intensive task is copying photos off of a camera, with a quad core desktop with like 4 or 8 GB of RAM.
To be fair, it probably also had vista, norton and some OEM management program on it. That's minimum spec, baby.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
This will stop me from moderating on this discussion, but my brother and I won't let our Dad do any computer component shopping (not that he would try if we let him; he'd probably come home with a typewriter). That, and our Mom won't go computer shopping without us.
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
Actually, the $500 retail for a quad core with 8GB of ram is pretty questionable. Once you deduct the costs of the processor, ram, and the Windows license, you don't have a whole lot left for things like the graphics, power supply, and motherboard.
you shop at horrible online places. 90% of the time I can get something off of Amazon.com or other place that is 2-% less than the best price Best Buy can hope of offering and get either free shipping or "super saver" for very low shipping.
My 22" monitor got ran over by UPS, yes there was a actual tire tread in the middle, box was smashedto 1/2 inch thick in the middle, and they delivered it anyways. When the driver said, " want to inspect it for damage, I looked at him like he was insane", I refused shipment, and informed the store. I had a replacement in my hands 3 days later at no cost to me.
Honestly, a Brick and mortar store had better offer me better service than online. THAT MEANS WELL PAID EDUCATED employees, bend over backwards for the customer policies, and make me want to come back.
best buy tries their hardest to keep me out of their store, In fact the last time I bought any item in a store was my 42" plasma. I went to sears and paid a little more because the sales guy there bent over backwards for me. At Best buy they would not let me inspect the set before I purchased it. (there is a very high breakage rate with flat panel TV's) Sears took two employees and they carefully carted out the set, helped me unpack it and even plugged it in.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And then they'd get ripped off for fridges and coffee machines.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why didn't you (or your former employer) sue theeir sorry ass? That's clear copyright infringement, and the disk itself is pretty good evidence.
Oh, I know. Because you totally made it up.
Bollocks. You can train someone to do a simple task like data entry in a few hours. It would take more than that to learn to use one instrument in an aircraft.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ditto everything, except for what it is that I do. There should be a name for it, the syndrome whose main symptom is "can't you just..." or "all you have to do is...".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have to go to computer stores with my Dad when he tries to buy something simple like an ethernet cable or a power strip or he'll come home with a Cisco switch and an APC rackmount battery backup.
That's the good part. On the switch though, make sure to get the shiny ones with a support contract, otherwise wiring the house with 40Gbit redundant etherchannels will be easier than getting new firmware for the damn thing.
MMO Vampire Role Playing
The breakdown here is that the jargon and the technobabble is partly due to geeks, and partly due to the people who "neither know nor care about computers". I deal with this sort of thing constantly since I'm the "expert" that my friends and neighbors ask when they have questions. The biggest problem I've run into is that people jump into the technobabble willingly, to the detriment of actually understanding what stuff they want to get done. "This machine has a jillion gigasquat processor and fifteen megawillies. This other one has a jillion point two but only ten megawillies. Which one is better?" I can only respond by asking, "Better for what?"
It's easy to blame the PC sales guy for feeding them these meaningless numbers, but it's as much their fault for not thinking about what they want before they dive in. Nobody goes out looking for a car without considering a number of things, all of which have to do with how they'll use the car. Does it have enough seats? Does it get good gas mileage? Will it handle the driving/towing/carrying that I want to do? Then they go looking for a computer, and they won't ask such simple questions as, "Will fifteen megawillies allow me to run these programs that I use every day? Will ten megawillies? If both of these machines will do what I want, why buy the more expensive one? What am I getting for the extra money?" If they'd stop trying to act like experts and simply figure out what they want to do (or at least formulate sensible questions about their needs) they'd have an easier time getting what they need without being rooked.
Virg
See, this is the problem. A computer is only an appliance if "the kitchen" is an appliance, because most people don't use a computer for a single narrow function. They use a kettle to hold and heat water, but they're not going to use a kettle to grind the coffee beans. They turn on a TV and watch the pretty pictures, but other than that it's not useful for much of anything. Then they sit down in front of the PC, and they expect to play games, check their email, maybe watch a video, store pictures from a camera, play some music, and so on, all from one machine that's got to be capable of doing it all. A kettle's "jargon" needs only consist of capacity and suitability for your stove, because that's all it does. Since the computer needs to do more, more jargon is necessary. There's a limit, of course, but the limit is far higher than the necessary jargon for a TV.
> Unless you're a doctor you shouldn't have to know anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, physiology etc.
You do need some basic knowledge in this case. To take an absurd example:
Patient: "Doc, I'm in pain!"
Doctor: "What hurts?"
Patient: "I don't know anything about anatomy! Just fix it!"
You say there's no reason why ordinary users should learn about lots of computer terms, but you include terms that ordinary users need to understand for ordinary use, like dialog boxes. The fact is, because a computer has to be complex enough to handle a pretty wide range of tasks in one device, it behooves the user to learn at least a little about the machine so they can understand how it will handle the tasks they want it to perform. Nobody would buy a kettle without asking if it will hold enough water for their needs. Nobody should consider buying a TV without making sure it can be hooked up to their antenna/cable/dish. So, why shouldn't I be able to expect someone to research whether the computer they want can do what they want it to do, or at least ask directly, "Will this machine be able to do W, X, Y and Z?" When the "Everyman" is shopping for a car and the salesman says, "This baby gets 300 horsepower!" they respond by saying, "That's great. Is that enough to tow my 800 pound boat?" When the salesman starts barking jargon, why do they play along instead of just asking whether a particular feature is required for a particular task?
Virg
At least doctors have a code of honor and actually have to study to obtain a license.
None of the above. She simply can't figure out how to cancel. Every time me or my dad try to talk to her about it she gets angry. I would gladly charge her a $7.50 monthly fee to manage all AOL associated cancellation duties as might arise.
Because there isn't a "-1 cunt" mod.
No, the only question it has is to which address. *ducks*
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
That's where Ma' and Pa' shops come in. Problem with the auto industry is that they have no equivalent.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
$)*&^$%&&$#*!!
(Curses and spits and says rude things in binary...)
Your dad sounds like a child.
He must be quite stupid.
I was cremated, you insensitive clod!
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.