The Aerie

How Does Best Buy Survive?

Took my brother out electronics shopping last night for Christmas. Well, actually, for Christmas I gave him the latest Doctor Who on DVD. What's that you say? They have another new Doctor Who? Is it Tuesday already? Well how about that.

Unfortunately for my gift, I discovered that he did not have a DVD player yet. And then it turned out he only had a miserable little 20-inch television in the giant TV-hole in his entertainment center. His caseworker (my brother is developmentally disabled and has a social worker) had gotten him a TV, but hadn't measured the entertainment center first, so the tiny TV sat awkwardly in the entertainment center, to the umbrage and fury of our mother.

So at Christmas I promised to put things right.

Now, normally I do not shop at Best Buy for a variety of reasons, including the time they told me my warranty was 2/3rds up, or working at Best Buy corporate for six months and watching their management flail around like a fish on dry land. However, given my brother's circumstances, I felt it would be best to go with a nearby provider, easy to reach in case of problems, with a known service center.

So off we went to Best Buy. Then we drove back to measure the entertainment center. Then we drove back to Best Buy. There we located a number of tube-televisions, relegated to the Crusty Old Technology corner behind the plasma displays and the flat-panel rear-projection home-theater monstrosities. With a little input from a perky little salesperson we had narrowed the TV choice down to an 27" HDTV Digital tube. Then for the DVD player.

This department was much shabbier and the DVDs were not all connected to screens: some DVD players were not connected, some screens were blank. I had brought a DVD with several different video formats on it in order to ensure that burned DVDs would work. When I found the DVD player I wanted to check, I disconnected a cable from one of the blank monitors and connected it to the DVD player.

"Uh, sir," came a surly voice, "did Ken authorize you to do that?"

I looked around to see a young man in a blue Best Buy T-shirt.

"No," I said, "I don't need authorization, I'm a customer."

"Sir, you can't do that."

"I seem to be doing it. My brother an I are planning on buying a DVD player tonight, and I want to see it work on this DVD first."

"You can't reconnect equipment sir."

As he spoke the screen flicked to life. He glowered and stalked away. I checked and managed to determine that yes, indeed, the DVD would work in the player. Hooray!

About that time blue-shirt returned with a maroon-shirted middle-aged guy who I assumed to be Ken.

"Can I help you sir?"

"We'd like to buy this DVD player."

"I understand you've been reconnecting the equipment."

"Yes, but I'd like to buy this DVD player."

"You can't reconnect the equipment sir."

"Where's the sign?" I asked.

"What sign?"

"The sign that says 'Please do not reconnect the equipment.' When I walked up this monitor was blank, and there's no sign saying I couldn't reconnect the monitor, so I did. My brother and I are going to buy a new TV and DVD player tonight, should I buy it somewhere else?"

"You can't reconnect the equipment sir."

Meanwhile Blue Boy had been rooting around, and approached with a box. "Here's the DVD player you wanted." I inspected the box: the product number didn't correspond with the product number on the shelf, and when I looked closer, the image on the box didn't look like the DVD player we were considering. I looked around: Ken and the Blue Boy were gone. I searched the shelves under the display, found the model I was looking for, and returned to the TV section.

Perky Miss Sunshine was gone - in her place we found some odd squashed-nosed fellow who sniffed and stammered and told us to wait ten minutes while he went out back to get the TV we wanted. We waited, and as we did so I looked overhead, and there was a box labelled with the image and product number of the TV we wanted. Finally after about 15 minutes of watching the promotional videos, Sniffy returned.

"We're out of stock in those."

"How about that one," I asked, pointing.

He looked up, "Oh, that's not the same model."

"Yes it is, I can see the code, it's right on the box."

"Just a minute."

Sniffy disappeared, and ten minutes later returned with a guy driving a forklift. Forklift guy raised himself up on the fork, slid the box into place, and lowered it to our level.

"Oh, there's a problem," he said, "This box has been opened."

"Is it the right model?" I asked, pointing at the TV we wanted.

He inspected both, "Yeah, but this box has been opened."

"Well, let's check it out, is everything there?"

We opened the box and checked the parts inventory. All present and accounted for.

"Great, well, we'll take it."

"Prob'm is, we'll have to give you the open-box discount. They'll give you a $45 gift card when you buy this."

Best Buy started to make more sense to me when I realized that what they called a 'problem' I called a 'discount.' Pleased to have gotten a break, I started to wheel our trolley away when Sniffy returned. "Do you have a cable?"

"A cable?"

"Yeah, to get the *sniff* full HDTV quality, you have to have an HDMI cable."

"What about these that come with it?" I asked, referring to the standard red, white, and yellow RCA cables I had seen in the box.

"Those are just good for standard TV quality, you'll lose the HD."

"Well, how much are these cables?"

He led me over to a display: HDMI cable, four feet in length... one... hundred... dollars!?

"Are these braided from the hair of Hollywood virgins?" I asked.

Sniffy looked at me as if I'd just made a completely incomprehensible statement, which considering the audience, I probably had. Eventually with some hunting we found an off-brand three-foot length for $45 dollars. Considering it a break-even with the gift card, we took the three-footer.

Checkout went well - the girl behind the counter didn't mind us doing two transactions (one to buy the TV and get the gift-card, the second to use the gift-card to buy the cable and DVD). She rolled her eyes in a conpiratorial fashion when I asked why it was necessary to do two transactions and generate and discard a gift card, rather than just issuing a credit and debit on a single transaction. She didn't even ask us if we wanted the extended warranty.,. YAY!

Finally we rolled the TV out to the car... and the box was too big for my sedan. I could have taken the minivan, but noooo.... While I was kicking myself, their helpful door-warden stepped up.

"No problem," he said, "We'll take it out of the box."

'Taking it out of the box' was accomplished by, literally, kicking the box to pieces. They opened the flaps, handed us the loose contents, and then hooked their legs INSIDE the box and crushed and kicked the cardboard off of the styrofoam TV bumpers. Finally they lifted the TV and with great difficulty fit it inside the back seat.

Door-guy tipped my brother's seat back, "You're gonna have to ride gangsta'," he said apparently referring to the posture, "so your seat can hold it in place."

The new TV, sans box, made its careful way to my brother's apartment, with my brother staring disconsolately at the roof of the car and getting rapped on the head by the TV case at every stoplight.

Once there we ran up against the next obstacle: my 40-year-old brother is 'way out of shape. I thought I was out of shape, but this kid, oh my. By the time we lifted the TV up to his third-floor apartment he was wheezing and squeaking, and as soon as a corner of the TV's weight was resting on the floor he collaped, panting like a bellows.

But eventually we wrestled it into the apartment, and I hooked it together in true Engineer fashion - sans instructions.

Not only did it work, but when I put my DVD of test videos into the player they showed up with crystal clarity on the new digital high-definition screen. Hooray!

There will be obstacles ahead. I'm not sure the complexities of DVD-plus-VCR-plus cable on a single remote control will be easy for him to grasp. Still, I've taught old Professor Barker how to use his DVD-VCR-TV combo, I suppose I can handle my brother.

Headed home feeling like I'd accomplished something in the day. Despite all the obstacles I'd managed to get my brother set up with his new entertainment system, and I was once again reminded why I don't shop at Best Buy when I can avoid it. The TV commercials make it look like you're going to have a slick, professional, exciting experience - the reality, with the exception of the two female clerks, was like being waited on by hostile, knuckle-dragging proto-hominids.

Meanwhile the job front is gloomy - there's no chance of my getting into the other department at my client site that I'd been recommended for. So I'm dead in the water job-hunt wise. Hopefully I can come up with something before we go totally broke...

Posted by Albatross at January 16, 2007 4:21 PM | TrackBack