I’m going to Best Buy tonight to try to order a computer. An iMac. Using a gift card as part of the payment.
Yeah I know! Crazy!
Everything about this I know is setting off alarms in my head. I have become so cynical towards customer service from past experience (and not just from Best Buy), that I am not putting a lot of faith in this foolish endeavour. At the first sign of stupidity I will throw my hands up in the air and run from the store in tears, sit on the pavement outside the store and light my Best Buy credit card on fire like some well meaning Vietnam Buddhist monk.
I know what you’re thinking – Why not just go to the Apple Store? Due to the impending cruise our cash has been vented to the vacation, meanwhile our Best Buy card has been gathering dust since our TV purchase. My need for a new computer outweighs my desire to keep my sanity intact, it seems.
Yesterday I tried calling around to various Best Buy stores to see if they had the particular iMac I wanted – the BB site sucks for inventory reporting. After calling a couple locations I knew the sequence of buttons to get to the Computer Hardware Department line but apparently at the Downsview store, pressing the same sequence of buttons lands you in some freaky alternative universe of goatee-wearing Best Buy employees:
BB Girl: Thankyouforcallingbestbuy. How can I direct your call?
Me: I’m calling to see if you have the 21.5″ iMac in stock.
BB Girl: Is that… pardon?
Me: The Apple iMac…? 21.5″ model…?
BB Girl: Is that a computer? I guess you want a computer!
Holy crap. A Best Buy employee that didn’t know what an Apple computer was? Meanwhile, she transfers me to a dead line.
If I walk out of the Yonge and Dundas outlet with nothing more than anger I will utterly gobsmacked. Stay ‘tuned!
Happy Dead Robot
Update: We walk into the Y&D Best Buy store and after trying hard to wave someone down we hung out near the staff door near the back. We flag down a woman going off the floor and she calls on her headset for a manager to come by to help us. The manager is not really interested in helping us since he has no more iMacs in his store. Can we purchase it now and wait for it to be shipped? No. Can we purchase it now and have it shipped from another store? No. Can you tell us the nearest store that has one. Sigh. From his terminal he finds one out by the airport. Thanks buddah!
However, the staff and service out at the Etobicoke store was polar opposites. We got help within seconds, we fixed our BB card with the CSR within moments (apparently they changed finance companies that day – hence the inability to purchase the computer online last night) and had the iMac in my hot grubby hands within 15 minutes. Night and Day, my friends.
8 thoughts on “God Help Me”
And here’s where you can get your info: http://na.aiononline.com/
You’ll need a windows emulator then. It’s PC only as of right now.
Welcome *back*. My first computer was an Apple Performa.
I’ll look into Aion or whatever it is you’re squandering your life on these days.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Apple.
Yippy! I’m green with envy.
I’m sitting in front of a brand spankin’ new 21.5″ iMac. Of course we had to drive nearly out to the airport to get it after berating the manager at the Dundas store to find out which store in the city had one left.
I again, have to tell you all how much I love Sharkboy. I will update it later when I have it all set up.
It’ll be fine. They LOVE gift cards. One swipe and money comes off your total!!
Have fun with your new mac!!
I bought my iMac at Best Buy. Some advice:
If you want any more than the stock memory, they’ll want to charge you $100.00 or so to install it in addition to the cost of the RAM. If you tell them you’ll install it yourself (something any idiot, even a Canadian one, can do) they’ll try to instill panic in you, telling you that touching the case the wrong way will void your warranty and cause puppies everywhere to come down with cancer. Don’t listen to them. Live with the lack of RAM for a week and buy the memory on-line for much less. If a Best Buy Monkey can open the little door and snap in a DIMM, so can you.
They’ll need about a half hour to “configure” the computer for you. They’ll name it “Ted’s Computer” or some such. Don’t let them touch it.
No, you don’t want to buy a service plan. Really, you don’t. Yes, you’re fully aware that it’s possible you could get some mayonnaise in the Superdrive, rendering it useless, but you’re willing to take that risk. Yes, you know if it breaks ten years from now the service plan will entitle you to a full replacement. Still, though, you don’t want the service plan. Really.
If you know exactly what you want, have NO questions at all, don’t let them do anything to your computer other than handing you the big white box, and you don’t let them up-sell you anything, then Best Buy is a perfectly fine place to buy a computer.