Thanksgiving Day: I see in the Thursday paper that Best Buy is offering a very cheap notebook deal. Looks interesting and worth a shot.
5:50 AM: After four hours of sleep I’m in line this morning @ 5:50AM for a shot at a limited supply of $ 499.00 notebooks offered at the new Best Buy that just went in October. I realize I’m not doing Best Buy any favors profit wise by getting this loss leader machine, but it’s offered, and I’ll take a shot at getting one.
**
6:00 AM:** Doors open @ 6:00 and the line vanishes as people quickly fill the store. Follow the black taped line for the notebooks and the TV’s. I do as I am told, and there is a line of about 30 people ahead of me, and about 30 behind. It’s 6:05 AM and the fun begins.
6:30 AM: This line is apparently for two items, a bargain TV for $ 70 or so, and the aforesaid notebook. We sit for 30 minutes and the line does not move. An employee comes around handing out numbered slips of paper for the 50 available notebooks. I’m # 36. I’m in the docket!
**7:00 AM: ** We shuffle forward a bit so that at one hour after arriving I am now 10 feet further in than when I arrived. People are rounding a corner to go into the where the products are being distributed out of the rear road shop, which has it’s own cash registers. Even huge black Friday lines usually creep ahead normally, but this thing seems stuck in a bizarre time warp. About one person is being served every 15 + minutes or so. It’s literally beyond the realm of understanding.
**7: 30 AM: ** My legs begin to hurt from the static shuffling. People are complaining, many saying they will never shop here again. Everyone is confused as to what the hang up is, but no one knows what the problem is in that all the buyers are shuffled out the rear of the Road shop never to be seen again. The tense employees before the Road Shop are all Sergeant Schultz’s, and know “I know nothing! Nothing!” is literallly the mantra when they are asked about the slime mold like pace of this shopping experience.
8:00 AM: It’s now two fucking hours and we’ve moved 20 feet! Behind the glass we see buyers that were head of us in line milling around for 10-20 minutes each once in the check out line. Are they being subjected to body cavity searches? What in the scrofulous hell is going on? A young, and none too happy to be there, Best Buy employee comes around offering $150 notebook buyer protection plans, but no one bites. We’re too exhausted. I keep trying to close my eyes and retreat into Zen like state of floating consciousness, but I’m too pissed, and my feet hurt.
8: 25 AM: It’s getting near! I get to ascend to the lofty heights of the taped square outside the road shop. I’m on deck! The suspense is killing me! What’s the jam up?
8:40 Go time! Credit card and voucher in hand I march into the road shop. It’s a direct price reduction so there are no rebates to fiddle with. She offers the protection plan once again, but I politely demur. This is going too fast. I’m wondering what the problem has been, and then she lets it go.
“Would you like us to check the notebook for you. It’s a free service where we take it out, plug it in, start it up, then put it back to make sure everything’s all right with the unit. “
“And this service is free?” I ask
“Yes!” she says
How many people have been taking you up on this offer this morning?
*
“Almost everyone!”* She says.
Suddenly it’s all coming clear. Every fucking person buying this cheap laptop is “offered” the option to delay the check out process by 15+ minutes. All the pointless milling around, all the wasted time. It’s a bit like the end of “The Usual Suspects” where all the pieces finally fit together for the hapless detective.
And on all days to pull stunt like this! I could have gotten my notebook in 30 minutes, and had time to shop the rest of the store, and possibly buy something that would make them money, but my legs are pounding, and my head hurts, and I’m oddly exhausted from doing nothing but standing. The raw stupidity involved in this setup washes over my exhausted soul like a wave of psychic sewage. I forego the offered checkout, pay, and I’m on my way in two minutes, cheap little notebook in hand.
I get to my vehicle and try to take stock. I’m quivering all over, and I feel flushed. Why? I don’t know. It’s peculiar and worrisome. I had planned to hit Best Buy first, then Circuit City, but I’m mentally fried and I realize I left my favorite travel mug of coffee in the Best Buy car stereo shelf. Arrrggh! Back to get it, then home again.
Eight hours later I’m just too fucking exhausted and pissed off to see straight. I done Black Friday shopping before, but to wait in a not that big 30 person line for almost 3 hours is just the crappiest retail planning I’ve ever experienced. Once the vouchers were handed out they could have partitoned the line into TVs and notebooks, and they could have offered the option of an expedited checkout to those not wanting the 15+ minute “Check it out” offer, but that would have required common sense.
I’m avoiding Best Buy into the foreseeable future at this point.