Joined Feb 2007
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Forum Thread
A little story about WHY YOU NEVER CALL!
March 4, 2008 at
04:50 PM
He let the cold breeze sweep away most of the acrid stink from the caustic smoke he'd just finished. And he calculated with disgust how many of the cars in the parking lot would be hauling around the typical prick, jerk, and trumped up soccer mom bitch that made his otherwise pleasant job a pain in his ass.
"Customers.... assholes." he hissed just before shoving a mint flavored piece of gum in his mouth.
Brandon had spent too many months at his blue-shirted job now to even bother trying to fake a smile when asking the umpteenth blank-faced retard "Help you find something?" He'd always taken perverse joy in making people spend way more of their money on things they didn't really ever need, and probably were never going to use; especially if he could get them to pay more for a shittier brand. "The 42 inch Samsung is nice, but check out this 50 inch Element! Oh, totally, the picture will look much better at home since the signal here isn't distributed correctly for all these TVs."
Some wiseass always came in trying to get a price matched to some ridiculous deal on line, or at some store half way across the country. He'd given up trying to argue with these people, let the manager waffle these people. They'd always cry about the price match policy. Policies... guarantees... who gives a rat's ass. He wished for the day he could look at one of these self-preening pompous pricks and just say "Honestly, corporate doesn't give a shit about that 'guarantee', their policies, or even you! So neither do we. PISS OFF!" But he knew not to step on managements' toes; only they got to tell the masses to shove it.
At lunch he'd thrown on his hoodie and wandered across the expansive plaza parking lot to check in on his red-shirted counterparts. God damn! Some of the betties working there! Why! WHY GOD MUST HIS STORE ONLY HAVE UGLY CHICKS!!?? Brandon refused to spy on his rival store again, if for nothing else it depressed him to know they had hotter coworkers. Instead he day dreamed of the epic, video-game-like battle between red and blue that could ensue, like some scene from Brave Heart; *ring*a PCI card could be sharped into some sort of blade, and pens, *ring* pencils, and touchscreen styluses could be fired from a compressed-air-duster-powered cannon. Mice could *ring*make good maces and nun chucks if they weren't so cheaply constructed... maybe some of the heavier gaming mice... hell, just tear apart one of the shelves and *ring*beat people down with the supports like baby harbor seals.
*ring*
The ringing snapped him out of his imaginary escapade "What the f*ck?! Is anyone going to answer the damn phone?!" he snapped up the receiver, took a deep breath and spoke in a level tone.
"Customer service, this is Brandon, what the hell can I help you with?"
"Uh, hi, ya I was curious if you had any of the western digital mybooks in stock?
Clicking through the computer he noticed that yes, they did have a lot of them. Of course they had them, the moron did in fact call a computer store. Dumbass. "We do sir, can you be more specific as to which model you're looking for, we have several."
"Oh, of course. It's the seven hundred fifty gig. The ess kay you number is 8478701."
Brandon figured playing on the computer was better then dealing with someone on the floor. Maybe he'd put the guy on hold and play some soli...taire... "What the hell?" he mumbled in awe.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you."
"Oh, nothing sir. No sir, I'm sorry, it doesn't look like we have any in stock." he said starting to aimlessly hang up the phone.
"What about in other stores!?!?"
"No sir, they're sold out nationally. Good day sir...."
"But but but!" he hung up the phone as the man on the other end's protests faded from his mind.
In front of him, on the slightly flickering screen sat a set of numbers that didn't make any sense. The SKU number was legit, and showed, that, in fact there were several in stock at his store, as well as others locally, and that was all very normal. What was not normal was the last couple numbers...
Store...........SKU........STOCK......PRICE
E Venture.......8478701....12.........$299.99
West Fill.......8478701....8..........$289.99
Mormoth.........8478701....13.........$79.99
Suszan..........8478701....5..........$79.99
Brandon let a slow smile crawl across his face. Not one of grim humor or malice. But for the first time in weeks, one of absolute unadulterated joy. He had some phone calls to make. He and his friends were going to make a little extra cash flipping these little gems. His day was going to be very, very good...
~Hardwyre
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Brandon joyously waited for his 15 minute break to come so he could call Joey who was the only friend of his that might have enough money to bankroll his hair brained scheme. By the time his break had ended his friend Joey was well versed in SKU's, hard drives, clearance prices and stock locations. Unfortunately, Joey didn't even have enough gas money to get to a store let alone finance the purchase of a bunch of hard drives that he would need to sit on until everybody else on eBay was done selling them so they could actually make a profit. Brandon turned his pockets inside out and realized he didn't even have enough money for lunch. The gray, heavy clouds became thicker as Brandon started to come to terms with the reality of why he was working at Bestbuy in the first place.
I've also seen both sides. I just didn't report people for what I would do myself. I worked at Best Buy for too long and took advantage of a couple of deals. I did know of/see people stashing things, but never heard of them calling people at other stores. I think if someone calls, they have a good chance of ruining it for everyone in their area or who goes to that store.
Great story btw, OP. Best Buy took my soul for the time I worked there. I ended up getting fired for refusing to rat out my manager for letting us take unscheduled breaks. Since everyone went for 5 min "smoke breaks," which would add up to 30 mins-1hr over the course of a day, he agreed that non-smokers should get additional time. However, he apparently never discussed it with his superiors and they got P.O.'d when I took an unscheduled break, and doubly P.O.'d that I refused to narc on whoever had told me this was acceptable. In retrospect, perhaps I should've rolled over, since he didn't have the decency to come to my defense. However, that would've been betraying my own values; plus, he was pretty nice to me while I worked there--unlike the other stick-up-their-butt managers. At least he ended up giving me a good reference.
Pretty much made me realize that there's no way I'm working for some corporate P.O.S. place; it's why I'm going into business for myself.
Also, agree, never call!
Brandon joyously waited for his 15 minute break to come so he could call Joey who was the only friend of his that might have enough money to bankroll his hair brained scheme. By the time his break had ended his friend Joey was well versed in SKU's, hard drives, clearance prices and stock locations. Unfortunately, Joey didn't even have enough gas money to get to a store let alone finance the purchase of a bunch of hard drives that he would need to sit on until everybody else on eBay was done selling them so they could actually make a profit. Brandon turned his pockets inside out and realized he didn't even have enough money for lunch. The gray, heavy clouds became thicker as Brandon started to come to terms with the reality of why he was working at Bestbuy in the first place.
It was nice at Circuit City for the last month or two during liquidation because we finally could tell the customer we really don't care. There was no corporate and our managers were out of a job too, so who was to reprimand us? That time period made working there for the last year or so completely worth it.
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Edit: Best Buy has greeters?