What would you tell them if x customers bought product "foo"? Are you kidding? The illustrious corporate dingleberries I mean dignitaries of Circuit City Inc. wouldn't have the slightest idea what "foo" was, aside from it being something Mr. T used to say.
I don't see how this is any different from Circuit City and Maytag contacting customers who placed an order for a dishwasher that (for whatever reason) they could not then deliver.
It's very different. In the case of your dishwasher, the manufacturer never contacts the customer if a product is discontinued. The manufacturer doesn't see the customer's info. Ever. If a product is discontinued while it's on special order, it's the salesperson's responsibility to call the customer, let him know his SO'd doohickey ain't coming in, and let him know he needs to come pick out another one. At no point in the process will Maytag contact the customer. At no point in the process will Maytag even see the customer's personal information. It stays between Circuit City and the customer. This is not the case with the Netpliance situation. To use your dishwasher analogy, this is akin to Maytag calling up a customer and saying "Hi, we stopped making the dishwasher you ordered so we're going to send you one that's just like it" without the customer ever getting to see the dishwasher.
I'm a former Circuit Shi^H^H^HCity employee, and while I'd like to believe that this is perfectly harmless SOP, it just gives me the willies something fierce.
When I was a salesperson there, it was also SOP to get the personal info of anyone who purchased anything, regardless of how they paid--cash, check, credit, trade in first born son, whatever. In theory, anyway. In practice, we did take info for folks that used checks and credit cards (for what should be obvious reasons), and sometimes the system wanted us to take it for cash customers as well. If a cash customer said it was none of our business, I replied that I didn't blame 'em a bit, and proceeded to enter the phone number and address of the store and "Cash C Customer" as the name.
But--and here's the biggie--we didn't turn around and send that information to the manufacturers, which is what appears to be happening here. We might have told the manufacturers that x number of people bought y number of product z, but no personal information went to them. Say, for instance, you bought a boombox. Some corporate dingleberr--uh, dignitaries told Aiwa at the end of the month or year or whatever that we sold 150 of model CSDE320. We didn't tell them who bought them. That's what the product registration card in the box is for, and you have the option of tearing that up and setting fire to the bits if you so desire. What's happening here is that customers' info is being sent to the manufacturer of this product, whether the customer likes it or not. And I sure don't like that.
Since anyone who knows the slightest about computers will probably concur that the schools just ain't gonna get a drop-proof, custom-cased hack-proof laptop that's good for much of anything besides Pong for the ~$500 they're willing to spend...who's going to end up footing the bill for this, should the schools decide to go this route?
-Parents? Doubt it. Some probably would; in fact, some would probably be thrilled to. Others would raise holy hell. "You mean I have to pay $500 for a computer!?" And some can't afford new clothes for their kids, let alone a computer. What kind of help are they going to get?
-The school districts themselves? Doubtful. Now the Maine program is using "federal and private" finds for this. Bully for them. But the rest of the country? Considering how much the average teacher gets paid (or doesn't get paid), I'd be inclined to think the districts wouldn't be willing to pop for this expense. Unless it involves football, a lot of schools in this neck of the woods are very very leery of dropping a large amount of bucks for anything. Unless that can be passed to:
-Taxpayers? You bet. Hike the local sales tax up a few more percentage points, stick a few more cryptic little charges on the water bill, kick the property tax up a few more notches, and voila. Of course this means that people who don't even have school-age kids (and some who have no kids at all) will end up paying for some other rugrat's toy laptop.
-Advertisers? Possibly. Get the kids good and desensitized to those nasty ads at an early age. Parents would probably beg to differ on that, but since I'm not one, I will reserve judgement.
The point is, no matter whose pocket this deal comes out of, someone is going to bitch about it. So here's a novel idea: Forget the laptops. Stop putting so much importance on sports. Start paying the teachers what they're really worth. When teachers are getting paid what they should, they'll be more likely to do a good job. Plus the added perk of a decent salary attracting teachers who actually have a clue. Save the computers for the computer classes, but at least make sure those are good up to date machines.
Yeah, call me weird, but for the most part I loved 'em. I could not hang with the Spam slice (this one led to a lot of amusing impromptu Monty Python sketches in the tent/shop in Bahrain) or the omelet or anything a la king, but I liked the pork 'n rice 'n BBQ sauce, and the meatballs and rice (I think it was meatballs and rice).
And were we the only ones that had social castes based on what condiment came in the package for your crackers? The people who got the apple jelly were lower than dirt. Grape jelly was little better. Peanut butter was middle-class. And if you got the cheese spread, you were hot stuff.
I actually liked that "cookie bar"...you know, the one that looks like something you'd give a gerbil to gnaw on...
And most army surplus stores do get them. I was waxing nostalgic a while back and grabbed one. One more tiny Tabasco bottle for the shelf. ^_^
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What would you tell them if x customers bought product "foo"? Are you kidding? The illustrious corporate dingleberries I mean dignitaries of Circuit City Inc. wouldn't have the slightest idea what "foo" was, aside from it being something Mr. T used to say.
I don't see how this is any different from Circuit City and Maytag contacting customers who placed an order for a dishwasher that (for whatever reason) they could not then deliver.
It's very different. In the case of your dishwasher, the manufacturer never contacts the customer if a product is discontinued. The manufacturer doesn't see the customer's info. Ever. If a product is discontinued while it's on special order, it's the salesperson's responsibility to call the customer, let him know his SO'd doohickey ain't coming in, and let him know he needs to come pick out another one. At no point in the process will Maytag contact the customer. At no point in the process will Maytag even see the customer's personal information. It stays between Circuit City and the customer. This is not the case with the Netpliance situation. To use your dishwasher analogy, this is akin to Maytag calling up a customer and saying "Hi, we stopped making the dishwasher you ordered so we're going to send you one that's just like it" without the customer ever getting to see the dishwasher.
I'm a former Circuit Shi^H^H^HCity employee, and while I'd like to believe that this is perfectly harmless SOP, it just gives me the willies something fierce.
When I was a salesperson there, it was also SOP to get the personal info of anyone who purchased anything, regardless of how they paid--cash, check, credit, trade in first born son, whatever. In theory, anyway. In practice, we did take info for folks that used checks and credit cards (for what should be obvious reasons), and sometimes the system wanted us to take it for cash customers as well. If a cash customer said it was none of our business, I replied that I didn't blame 'em a bit, and proceeded to enter the phone number and address of the store and "Cash C Customer" as the name.
But--and here's the biggie--we didn't turn around and send that information to the manufacturers, which is what appears to be happening here. We might have told the manufacturers that x number of people bought y number of product z, but no personal information went to them. Say, for instance, you bought a boombox. Some corporate dingleberr--uh, dignitaries told Aiwa at the end of the month or year or whatever that we sold 150 of model CSDE320. We didn't tell them who bought them. That's what the product registration card in the box is for, and you have the option of tearing that up and setting fire to the bits if you so desire. What's happening here is that customers' info is being sent to the manufacturer of this product, whether the customer likes it or not. And I sure don't like that.
Since anyone who knows the slightest about computers will probably concur that the schools just ain't gonna get a drop-proof, custom-cased hack-proof laptop that's good for much of anything besides Pong for the ~$500 they're willing to spend...who's going to end up footing the bill for this, should the schools decide to go this route?
-Parents? Doubt it. Some probably would; in fact, some would probably be thrilled to. Others would raise holy hell. "You mean I have to pay $500 for a computer!?" And some can't afford new clothes for their kids, let alone a computer. What kind of help are they going to get?
-The school districts themselves? Doubtful. Now the Maine program is using "federal and private" finds for this. Bully for them. But the rest of the country? Considering how much the average teacher gets paid (or doesn't get paid), I'd be inclined to think the districts wouldn't be willing to pop for this expense. Unless it involves football, a lot of schools in this neck of the woods are very very leery of dropping a large amount of bucks for anything. Unless that can be passed to:
-Taxpayers? You bet. Hike the local sales tax up a few more percentage points, stick a few more cryptic little charges on the water bill, kick the property tax up a few more notches, and voila. Of course this means that people who don't even have school-age kids (and some who have no kids at all) will end up paying for some other rugrat's toy laptop.
-Advertisers? Possibly. Get the kids good and desensitized to those nasty ads at an early age. Parents would probably beg to differ on that, but since I'm not one, I will reserve judgement.
The point is, no matter whose pocket this deal comes out of, someone is going to bitch about it. So here's a novel idea: Forget the laptops. Stop putting so much importance on sports. Start paying the teachers what they're really worth. When teachers are getting paid what they should, they'll be more likely to do a good job. Plus the added perk of a decent salary attracting teachers who actually have a clue. Save the computers for the computer classes, but at least make sure those are good up to date machines.
Yeah, call me weird, but for the most part I loved 'em. I could not hang with the Spam slice (this one led to a lot of amusing impromptu Monty Python sketches in the tent/shop in Bahrain) or the omelet or anything a la king, but I liked the pork 'n rice 'n BBQ sauce, and the meatballs and rice (I think it was meatballs and rice).
And were we the only ones that had social castes based on what condiment came in the package for your crackers? The people who got the apple jelly were lower than dirt. Grape jelly was little better. Peanut butter was middle-class. And if you got the cheese spread, you were hot stuff.
I actually liked that "cookie bar"...you know, the one that looks like something you'd give a gerbil to gnaw on...
And most army surplus stores do get them. I was waxing nostalgic a while back and grabbed one. One more tiny Tabasco bottle for the shelf. ^_^