When in Rome..

Coffeesister is working online from home, which is sort of a dream come true for her – but she may need a new computer, and I’m trying to get her to PLEASE just shop online for one, because I hate.. no, not a strong enough word.. I DETEST dealing with computer sales reps and service people.

I’m sure they’re wonderful when they’re at a home or school, and if you happen to be a retail computer sales or service person and you’re reading this, please know it’s not about YOU.. I love you and I think you’re a very nice person because you’re reading my blog and you might go click on some ads when you finish this story.  I’d come and buy a computer from YOU, or have YOU service it, because YOU ROCK!

For that matter, the staff at Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley, California aren’t too bad either, even though they don’t read this blog (as far as I know) – but you have to brush up on your Russell Crowe impression before going in.

That’s where we’d purchased her current computer a couple of years ago, and not having been in there prior to that I was awestruck when it came to the interior décor — it’s a Roman theme that consists of huge columns and statues of warriors on horseback, which is truly awe inspiring, yet one has to wonder what Roman soldiers and Emperors have to do with plasma televisions, DVD players and computers. Mrs. RhodesTer said that all of the Fry’s stores have a theme and it’s different with each one, so I guess if you have a lot of stores you can only have so many themes that somehow relate directly to electronics before you have to resort to things that, uh.. don’t.

She selected a computer under the watchful eye of Claudius Maximus and his faithful steed, and when she got it home and all set up, it worked fine – for a while. It was a refurbished unit but there wasn’t really anything wrong with it except that the box and the salesman both said it had 512 megabytes of RAM, and it turned out to really only have 256. She didn’t notice this until she tried to download something that was memory intensive and the installation wizard or download wizard or some kind of wizard magically informed her that there wasn’t enough RAM to do what she was trying to do. So she checked the system information in control panel and sure enough, there it was- 256 megabytes of RAM.

As I was lugging the box back into the store with her close behind, I was going over in my head what I was going to say to the guy when he tells me that they will add the extra memory to make it 512 megs of RAM and only charge us fifty dollars, or they will just offer to refund the original price and we can pick out another computer and pay more for it, or any other number of related scenarios because there was no way he was going to say, “Gosh, sorry about that! Here, let me add the extra memory you need to bring it up to what it says on the box and what our salesman told you, which won’t cost you anything and it’ll only take a few moments.”

Some years ago when the Internet was still in it’s infancy, I had bought her a computer for her birthday that had a certain modem speed that was (at the time) REALLY fast. It said so right on the box. It also said what speed it was, but I’ve since forgotten how those old dial-up modems were configured and what speed increments they came in because now that the Internet is a teenager, I’m too busy loaning it my sports car and worrying about it late at night when it’s past curfew and it’s still out cruising around with its pals high def TV and satellite radio, but I do remember that the box said what speed it was in great big letters right there on the front.

When we got it home it turned out that it sent information at the speed advertised, but it received information at a slower speed – or vice versa. The bottom line was that it didn’t operate as fast as the box and the salesman said it would, so I took it back to the store. I ended up bickering with the department manager over it, and he said that since it did indeed SEND information at the advertised speed (or received it, I’ve forgotten which) then the box and the salesman were correct, but I told him that I had called the manufacturer, who told ME that the faster speed only applied to fax transmissions and that any internet activity operated at the slower speed. I pointed out to the Manager that the box didn’t say that, and the salesman hadn’t said that, and so he needed to have their service department put in a modem that would operate at the advertised speed, sending AND receiving, while on the internet. He said that if he put a faster modem in he’d have to charge me fifty dollars, and I said that he was full of crap, and he told me to leave the store and so I shot him.

NO, I didn’t shoot him – I just wanted to see if you were paying attention – I forgot what it was I did but whatever it was it was insufficient because I didn’t get the faster modem, so for a while Mrs. RhodesTer had a slow connection until we got her upgraded to a ( hold on to your seats) blazingly fast 56k modem.

So, ten years later we’re standing in line at the service department at Fry’s and I’m reflecting on those previous events and thinking about what tone of voice to use when I say, “that’s unacceptable.” Then, as I looked around at all of the soldiers on horseback and the huge columns, it occurred to me what this particular interior décor theme was all about..

Intimidation.

Who in their right mind is going to argue with the service guy while all of these Roman warriors are milling around brandishing their swords, shields and various implements of torture? No doubt they would be on HIS side, since they work there with him all day and he probably upgrades their RAM for free, so what chance do I have of getting a fair deal out of this?

I decided to go with a different tactic – instead of coming across right away as the upset customer who demands satisfaction, I’d lighten the initial encounter with humor, thus breaking the ice right up front whereupon the service department guy would be so relieved to have somebody NOT demand anything, but who makes him laugh instead, that he’d be willing to do what it takes to make us happy in return! So when it was my turn and he called me to the counter I asked him if he’d ever seen the movie “Contact,” with Jodie Foster.  Surprisingly, he said no (a computer geek who doesn’t watch sci-fi?)  Okay, so this was going to be a little tougher than I thought, but I continued anyway..

“Well, in “Contact,” they pick up these transmissions from a distant galaxy and it turns out that it’s a race of alien beings who are millions of years more advanced than we are, and they’re sending us signals which turn out to be instructions to build a spaceship so that we can visit them.”

He was looking at me like there were snakes crawling out of my nose. I imagine he was wondering at this point what this had to do with our computer problem, so I continued..

“The thing is, we keep getting signals on this computer and I think they’re coming from a galaxy in the left quadrant over by the Pleiades system, and we really don’t want to go there since it’s just too darn far and I have to work all next week..”

The snakes must have sprouted wings and were now flying out of my butt too, because his eyes were as big as flying saucers and his mouth was open as he stared at me for a few moments before saying..

“Sir, what is problem with computer?”

He didn’t say what is THE problem with THE computer — he said “what is problem with computer,” because he was Asian and they seldom use the word “THE” in sentences if English is their second language. They also never seem to get my sense of humor, so the initial contact didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped. I had noticed that pretty much the entire staff were all some subspecies of Asian, consisting of a delicate mix of Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai, none of whom seem to ever laugh at anything I say except when they’re just being polite, which is most of the time. At Fry’s the majority of them seem to work in the computer department, because although they are not blessed (or cursed) with the same sense of humor that I have, they are extremely bright and they take to computers like sushi takes to a bed of seaweed on a platter at Tokyo Joe’s. If you listen carefully while standing in the aisles at Fry’s Electronics, you can hear them converse with each other in binary code.

I showed him where the box said the computer has 512 megabytes of RAM and told him that it’s not true, that it has only 256 megs of RAM, whereupon he removed the side panel and hooked the computer up to a monitor right in front of us. He booted it up and went to the part that tells you what all of the hardware gizmos are, and sure enough there it was, 256 megs of RAM. He puzzled over this for a few seconds before grabbing some tongs and removing the actual memory chips from the computer right there in front of us, and after puzzling over them for a few seconds, he held them up for us to see as he said, “this wrong RAM.”

“I know, that’s why we’re here.”

He scurried off and left us standing there for a good long while. I didn’t know where he went or what he went to do, because he didn’t say anything as he was leaving, but I hoped he was off looking for “RIGHT RAM.” About ten minutes had passed before I noticed him standing at the end of the counter conversing with a man who appeared to be a supervisor – they rapidly discussed our situation in binary code, and every now and then they’d look over at us with furrowed eyebrows. I was really hoping that he wasn’t telling the supervisor about my opening joke, because the supervisor was also a subspecies of Asian and I’m sure he wouldn’t get it either. Mrs. Rhodester was the only one in the vicinity who had gotten it, and SHE didn’t even think it was funny. That’s bad.

The service guy returned a few minutes later as the supervisor went off to furrow his eyebrows at someone else, and he said that there was one of two things he could do..

“What’s that?” I asked

“I can give you refund on computer.”

“or..?”

“I ship computer back to Compaq – they put right ram in it – take six to eight weeks.”

Okay, here we go! I had rehearsed this, and I was ready – I took a deep breath and this time it was MY turn to furrow my eyebrows..

“That’s unacceptable.”

He stood for a few seconds as he contemplated this, and then he asked the magic question..

“What you want I should do?”

“Make it right. You’re in an electronics store the size of the Roman Coliseum – go over to the gladiator section and get 512 megs of RAM off the shelf, put it in this computer, put the side panel back on, put it back in the box and we’ll take it home.”

“I cannot do that.”

I stood a little taller and puffed my chest out a bit.  Russel Crowe would have been impressed.

“You’ll do something to make it right.”

I was beginning to feel like a schoolyard bully. I was about two seconds from slapping him upside the head and stealing his lunch money, but he ran off again.

This time I saw him over in the corner talking on the phone in binary code, where he stayed for about 15 minutes before hanging up and disappearing for another ten minutes. Finally he returned carrying a cardboard box which turned out to have an identical computer in it, except that the insides of this computer were a little better. Not only did it have “RIGHT RAM,” but it had a bigger hard drive. As he pulled it out of the box to show to us, he explained that he had been on the phone with the salesman who’d sold the original computer to Mrs. RhodesTer and that the salesman was very apologetic and had instructed the service guy to swap the first computer with this one.

“So it’s going to cost us more for the upgrade on the hard drive, right?”

“No, it same price.. he very sorry.. you get 512 meg RAM and bigger hard drive same price.”

Well, that was more like it. We both thanked him very much and asked him to thank the salesman, before taking the new and improved computer around the store with us as we shopped for other stuff, which we certainly wouldn’t have done if we’d been forced to settle for either of the two options he’d originally given.

She spent most of that evening hooking up and configuring her new machine, which I have to admit has run pretty smoothly since then, so maybe we’ll keep it for another couple of years.  If you see her online, be sure to compliment her on her RAM. I’m even a little envious because she has a bigger hard drive than I do too – interpret that any way you’d like.

RhodesTer on Twitter/Subscribe to this blog

Tagged as: Asians, computers, electronics, Humor, sales