So, in today’s rant we talk about the people that sell computers and computer upgrades at a box store. Not just any box store, but one that is the ideal or best place to purchase or buy something, if you know what I’m saying. In other words, if you were to Buy this place is suppose to be Best. Or something like that.
Any rate, with my 70 year old mother, go into $BigBoxStore where she had bought her Orbiting Object model M35X-S114 from. After the sales dude, (and I do mean dude, not man) gets through talking to ‘customer’ dude and their party plans. I tell him “Hello, we have an Japan Electronic Orbiting Object M35X-S114 Laptop and would like to upgrade the memory. “
“How old is it?”
“I just gave you the exact model number. Can you look it up.”
Much bad Google fu and some weird site (not $BigBoxStore.com) poking about later, he can’t find any info on a M35X-S114. He does ask me if we had the laptop in the car. I tell him no, but that should have been a hint. After having speaks with his boss, Sales Dude tells me that he’s sure it’s DDR2 and gives me a gig stick.
We make payment and go off to see doctors and other such like. After a long doctor visit we return to my mother’s home.
In fairly short order I remove battery and the cover over the memory slots, install the one gig stick, close the cover, install battery. I then open the laptops cover and Push The Magic Blue Button.
Button Lights. Button Goes Out.
Re-seat the battery. Push button.
Button Lights. Button Goes Out.
Plug in AC power cord (thinking battery had been drained. This has happened before.)
Push button.
Button Lights. Button Goes Out.
Unplug, remove battery, remove cover, remove old stick of memory, move new stick to old slot, replace cover, replace battery, plug in.
Push button.
Button Lights. Button Goes Out.
Unplug, remove battery, remove cover, remove new stick of memory, put move old stick in old slot, replace cover, replace battery, plug in.
Push button.
Button Lights. Button stays on. Windows starts to boot. Turn off computer, gather package parts, and sales slip. Off to see $BigBoxStore, this time with laptop. Mother stays home, given that she is, in fact, sick and just took medication. I have her debit card on me, and I am on that account’s signature page, for just this sort of thing.
Arrive at $BigBoxStore. Get tag on open memory chip package and on laptop as I tell the nice people at the front desk the basic issue. I assume they will direct me to the correct place. You know what they say about assuming.
Score now: Desk 1, people spoken to 1
I am directed to the Customer service desk, where I explain the issue again.
Score: Desk 2, People 2.
I am told that I should have gone to the Offensive Term for Computer People - Sub Unit of Platoon (OTCP-SUP) Desk
I arrive at the OTCP-SUP desk, where a nice OTCP dude in a white shirt and black tie ask me if he can help me. I explain issue.
Score: Desk 3, people 3
He directs me to another part of the the OTCP-SUP desk, where “He will do a fast hardware diagnostic to find the root cause of your issue”.
You will note, that at this time, no one, other than the front desk lady, had as much as looked at the computer.
I go see this person.
Score: Desk 3, People 4. Am told that I will have to wait a few minutes, because he has a few customers in front of me. I sit and wait.
- Side note.
- I listen to him talking to the one other customer at the OTCP-SUP desk. By just hearing what he is saying, I know that the other customer’s hard drive is cratered, most likely with a corrupted MBR, or scrambled boot.ini file. There are ways to fix this, but it’s non-trivial. OTCP dude states “I have never seen any thing like this in all my time working on computers”. Gives laptop back to other customer. I, because I’m not in a good mood, don’t say any thing to either the OTCP or customer about what I think it might be. I, however, do not have high hopes at this time for an easy resolution of my issue due to over hearing this exchange.
“Never Seen This” OTCP dude wander off. Other OTCP person wander up. “Have you been check in yet?”
“Nope.”
“Oh”. Wanders off.
Score: Desk 3, People 5.
4th OTCP person walks up. “Have you been helped?”
Score: Desk 3, People 6.
“Nope.”
“I can help.”
I explain problem. He asks, can I look at your current chip?
I nod, he flips over lap top and then does that “where is my screwdriver” look around the work bench”
I hand him my Phillips. “Thanks, That will work.”
Pops off cover. “Oh, this needs DDR not DDR2, and I think it can only take a 512 chip. Get a new chip at the computer desk then exchange it at the customer service desk.”
Off to the computer desk.
Score: Desk 4, people still 6, because I don’t want to talk to those people again.
I look over their selection of memory. They have no DDR chips, only DDR2 chips. There is a tag for DDR chips, however. Crap.
Score: Desk 4, people 7
Ask computer sales desk dude (not the same one as before) if they have any DDR memory in the back.
I am told that I should use DDR2, because it’s faster and newer.
I count to ten in German, to my self.
“Ah, no. DDR2 doesn’t work with this lap top”
“Maybe you should think about upgrading it then”.
OK, it’s 2 years old. Not cutting edge, I’ll grant, but all it need to be able to do is load $MotherHobbySite.com in Firefox with out going into swap file hell. No need to do that.
“Can you check please?”
He goes off. He and another Sales Person return with a hand full of DDR chips. They only have 512M DDR, I am informed by the other sales dude.
Desk 4, people 8.
I take 2 from him and go to the customer service desk.
I wait in line. While I’m waiting the person that I saw before on this issue leaves. Granted he is with an other customer, but still. His black/blond/white/blue and a touch of pink haired co-workers says she can help me.
Desk 4, people 9
I explain about the wrong chip, and that these two are the right ones. She nodes, takes the receipt, fires the raygun at it and the UCP thing on the old chip and starts ringing up the new chips. Ends up being 74 some odd bucks. I swipe mother’s debit card. She asks to see the card and some ID. I give her the card and my ID. I explain that it’s my mother card, and that she is home, ill. She blinks and says she can’t take this card.
Crap. I think about it. “Can you just ring up one of the 512M Chips, so that there is a 13 dollar refund instead of a charge?”
She turns to the original customer service dude, who just nodes, and does something to his keyboard. The on the charge machine changes to “canceled by clerk”, she does the raygun thing a couple of times and all is good. She staples the new printed receipt to the old receipt and off I go.
You will note, she did not deactivate the anti-shoplifting RFID tag on the new chip.
I find this out as I hit the door, and the alarm thing goes off.
Desk 5, person 10.
I show the anti-shop lift dude the red tag (put on by desk 1/person 1) on the lap top, and the two receipts and the chip. He marks something on a clip board and off I go.
After getting home, I put the 512M chip in, and lo and behold! It boots and sees more memory. I launch Firefox, and load up mother’s normal load of stuff. I also load up Acrobat Reader 7 and a second copy of fire fox. No swap file hell, snappy response. All is good with the world.
For now. Tomorrow, I’m sure, will have it’s own issues.
