My old printers definitely did not come with a parallel cable. I’m pretty sure that my recent printers did - in any case anyone older than a teenager should have plenty of printer cables around. Printers die long before the cable.
Not anymore up here. They now have minimum wage young’uns who don’t know a screwdriver from a hammer.
We have to go to a small hardware store with high prices if we need any actually knowledge about doing stuff.
When I want to buy big things I can actually take a look at, I check both BB and Frys. Frys is cheaper for small things, but they have weird off brand merchandise, usually ok.
Frys has a reputation of obnoxious floor staff who like to intimidate shoppers - but when I go I wear my old Intel sweatshirt, so I can intimidate them. 
I’ve never done service at BB. I have done it at Frys under warranty. They are the people, who when I had my laptop in for overheating, called me up to get permission to reinstall Windows (for $100 or so.) Taking advantage of the gullible must be the way they make their money.
Well, if the OP is like some older people I know, the conversation could have gone something like this:
Old Person: “I need a new wire for my Canyon jet printer, model 110V-2A”
BB Employee: “??? Um, let me connect you to parts…”
Just because someone thinks they are being coherent, it does not mean that they actually are.
Not at my store. Plenty of intelligent laid off high-tech workers to fill the void.
They’re not great, and I’m sure the entire staff isn’t knowledgeable about everything, but the guy/gal in the HD gardening department will be of more help to me than anyone in the computer department or TV department of BB.
However in this case, I was. I asked a question, had the correct model number etc as I already explained (reading comprehension down?). And it turns out all I needed was a very basic and standard printer cable, which was beyond their comprehension for a printer they sold.
But hey thanks for the snotty, idiotic and worthless reply. No worries, you have plenty of company in that regard. You guys should be working at Best Buy, you’d fit right in.
:rolleyes:
I think I know what your mistake was oreally…you are under the mistaken impression that Best Buy is a place you might want to shop.
When I can’t avoid the store I avoid any meaningful attempt at conversation with anyone employed by the store…this has been an effective strategy for me.
Gotta second Dewy Finn. That’s not a mistake; it’s a very deliberate strategy, including making sure the employees are not informed of all the currently advertised sales.
They got sued for that one.
They had a fake internal web site that purposely showed different prices from external.
I think most of the snark you caught was because you seemed utterly clueless about the lay of the land in shopping at big box retailers. Best Buy is paying as little as possible to be competitive with internet sites. Occasionally you will luck onto a floor person that is tech savvy and knows their business, but most of the time you’re getting people for whom this is just another retail job. Most people know this and do not try and interact with Best Buy over the phone.
Beyond this you’re being kind of baby helpless here re the printer cable. It’s a standard USB A-B cable. They’ve been around for over 10 years and are the default USB cable for printers . Drug stores sell them they are so common. This is kind of something you should already know as a modern adult.
I’ve buying printers since my first 386 computer; and I don’t ever remember printer cables coming with them.
I think the Internet put Circuit City out of business. It’s busy doing the same with Best Buy, too. (it’s taking longer than we thought!)
My Best Buy sucks for them story is when I ordered a 32GB iPod touch to pick up at the store and when I picked it up they handed me a 64GB.
As long as their prices are in line with anywhere else online I’ll buy from them since they’re a 10 minute walk away.
I could say the same thing about 90% of the computer questions in GQ. Would it be better if I instead just went around making fun of people for not knowing the answers?
If they start off by making fun of how clueless the people they were talking with were? I’d say they’re fair game.
I’ve never worked for BestBuy but I have worked for a comparable Australian business. I have no idea how I would be able to “update the database” if a price was wrong - that was all done by head office. I couldn’t update the shelf price either - our price tags were generated by the system, so if the system was wrong, the price tags would be wrong. I would be able to send an email to HQ to get the database corrected in the following morning update, and manually correct prices at the register until it came through. That’s about the limit of the powers of the people on the floor. I remember one morning the store manager realised the prices on single reams and boxes of one brand of paper had been accidentally switched - the price at the register was like $5.00 for a box of 10 reams and $50.00 for a single ream. We had to dismantle the floor stack and move every unit of that paper off the sales floor for the day, and restock them the next day when the correction had come through.
Also, at one point our online store was a separate business to the bricks and mortar stores. If they had a sale, we didn’t know about it and may not have had the same sale running. If people brought their sale prices to our attention, we could price match them like they were a competitor. I’m sure that confused more than a few people. Fortunately they merged the two a few years ago and that stupidness stopped.