Would it kill computer salespeople to know something about computers?

The BBQ Pit
1

This is as much a pitting of me as it is of them, because I’m the Queen of Impulse Purchases.

I’ve been saving up my money for a long time to buy a gaming computer. I’m running out of good RPGs on my PS2 and none of the new consoles offer enough RPGs to make it worth a purchase. I’ve noticed beautiful things happening with PC games lately, and I’ve been dying to get in on the action.

I walked into Mainstream Electronics Store X for a minor purchase last Sunday afternoon, and while I was standing there I realized I could finally, at long last, afford to buy a desktop computer. I checked out the selection there, having a reasonable idea of what I could afford and what I was looking for, and then went next door to Mainstream Electronics Store Y to see if they had any better deals.

They did. Their selection completely dwarfed that of Electronics Store X and at that point I realized I wasn’t coming out of the store empty handed. I’m not a complete idiot about computers–I understand the concepts of RAM and hard drive space and processor speed. I just know nothing whatever about graphics cards. I haven’t owned a desktop computer in 6 years. But that’s what the Geek Squad is there for, right?

Sales guy sees me ogling the goods and asks if he can be of assistance. ‘‘Yes,’’ I say enthusiastically, ‘‘I want a gaming computer. I want something with good graphics that will run any game I throw at it.’’

‘‘What game do you want to play?’’
‘‘Oblivion,’’ I say. ‘‘I want to play Oblivion. I’ve wanted to play it for so long. Please, help me play Oblivion.’’

Fucker actually walks over to the PC games, picks up the fucking box, and comes back over reading the specs. ‘‘Well for gaming you want to beat the minimum requirements. This little baby,’’ [sidles me over to a sexy CPU) has 4 GBs of RAM and a quad-core processor so it’ll pretty much run Oblivion without breaking a sweat.‘’

‘‘Awesome,’’ I say. The package comes with a 19’’ widescreen LCD monitor. It’s a beautiful machine. I trust him. I buy it. It’s something like $1000 including the monitor and Office 2007. I turn down the offer to pay $20 for them to install Oblivion for me, because Christ that’s dumb. I sat there for like two hours while they prepared it, quite aware that I was actually more excited about the game than the computer itself.

I plug it in. I load the game. It recommends I set my graphics setting to Low. ‘‘Low? Are you shitting me?’’ No. I just went to the fucking electronics store and basically asked for a computer that fit the specifications of a specific game, and the goddamn computer does not run Oblivion without breaking a sweat. It sweats. It can only run properly on ‘‘Low’’ graphics quality, shadow rendering off, water reflections off. I JUST WANT TO FUCKING PLAY OBLIVION, OK? I BOUGHT THE FUCKING COMPUTER SPECIFICALLY TO PLAY THIS GAME!

Fortunately, I’ve got an uncle with a graduate degree in computer engineering who also happens to be a hard-core gamer. ‘‘Hello, Uncle. Um, you remember your niece, olivesmarch4th? Right, the neurotic one. I hope all is well with you. Um, now that I have you on the phone…’’*

(*I jest. He’s 28 and we’re good friends who hang out a lot.)

‘‘Do I know Oblivion?’’ He cannot conceal the hurt in his voice. ‘‘I own it!’’

He pulls out the box. I read him my specs. ‘‘Okay,’’ he says. ‘‘You have a great processor and plenty of memory… you actually got a pretty good deal… but the most important thing is the graphics card. You’ve got an NVIDIA 6100 series which is pretty much shit.’’ He tells me buying a gaming CPU from Mainstream Electronics Stores will result in paying too much. Much cheaper to just buy my own graphics card and install it into an otherwise nice machine.

So I just bought a ridiculously high-end graphics card to install myself, and it’ll be here Monday. The picture makes it look like some kind of Borg accessory, so I believe I may have a future of cursing and throwing shit before I get my way. I am optimistic that eventually I’ll succeed in creating the perfect machine for a good price. My uncle has described this card as ‘‘excessive’’ even for him, but he confirms that it will absolutely blow my mind. It was a lot of money. But I don’t fucking care. I want pants-shitting graphics and as I made it perfectly clear to the dude at the electronics store, I am willing to spend what it takes because the whole point of buying this computer was so I can play games on it, and have them look like fucking masterpieces, and would it fucking kill people at the fucking store to actually know something about the products they are selling? Would it, really?

Next time I’ll save myself the trouble and just call my uncle.

Caveat Emptor, people. That’s Latin for don’t trust the fucking Geek Squad. Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times…

2

No offense, babe, but there could be a much better rant in this. Nice title, takes place at a Best Buy, ended up needing outside help…

This could have really been a shit storm.

Instead you ended up with a great deal on a very powerful machine (for which you paid cash) and in a coupla days will have a mind-blowing video card on which to play Oblivion.

Major, MAJOR letdown over here. Major.

3

Yeah, my life is pretty sweet right now, all things considered. Actually it’s pretty sweet with only one or two things considered.

Honestly at this point I’m more relieved than anything else. I was damn stupid to buy it without doing any research. But fuck. If you can’t go to the store to find out about these things, and you sure as fuck can’t go to the internet, where can you go? Not everybody’s got a computer engineer in the family.

4

Lawl.

The only things I ever ask people in Best Buy is a) where do they keep the ‘X’, and b) do they know if they’ll be getting more in later.

Also, I don’t know about Oblivion, but Fallout 3 is by the same company and they auto-detected my graphics far below what they could actually run. Oblivion might be doing the same thing to you.

5

I wish. I tried it on every setting conceivable. The only way it worked was 800x600 resolution on ‘‘Low’’ graphics. My computer is 1440x900 resolution so this is really sad.

I also wanted to add, this is my first negative experience with Best Buy. I’ve been pretty brand loyal up to this point. But they let me down this time.

6

Wait, I thought you said they were called ‘Mainstream Electronics Store X’. Brand loyalty indeed!

7

We appreciate you coming in so we can point and laugh.

A little disappointed that we can throw in a few I told you so’s, but we’ll make do.

Seriously though, complete agreement. You’ve just learned the lesson that all of us have or will. Either by direct experience or by reading posts from those who do.

I’ve never played Oblivion, but I can see it happening. I’ve heard some really good things. If you find yourself in need of some post apocalyptic luvin, do check out Fallout 3. I’ve been playing for two months now and that’s a record for me. I’ve got games piled up collecting dust waiting to be installed.

But anyway, where was I? points, hehehe

8

Graphics cards in prefab computers (not counting specialty ones from Falcon-NW or art business computers) are almost always shit, unless they’re laptops, simply because laptops are a PITA to upgrade. I’ve always gotten computers from Best Buy, I just remember that I need to set aside a little extra than what I pay for another graphics card. They put it in with mid-high range processors and craploads of RAM and sell it for a pretty good price though, so you usually end up saving a bit (Alienware and Falcon-NW kind of bump the price up), usually the only way you’re going to save more is building it yourself, and that requires either A. A lack of laziness (which I don’t have) or B. Knowhow, which a lot of people don’t have.

I suppose you could buy the parts and chassis, put them in a bag, bring it to the Geek Squad and say “build this,” but they’d probably charge out the arse for it…

9

Having worked at Best Buy I can tell you that they do not want to hire people who have all that much knowledge about what they are selling. I was majoring in Computer Science when they hired me and since my expertise was in PCs they had me selling cameras. They explicitly told me that they did not want their sales people to know much more about the product than the customer because customers might get scared off by a lot of technical words.

In other words ignorance is company policy (at least in the store where I worked).

10

And one of the reasons you got a pretty good deal is precisely because Electronics Store Y (along with its competitors) is not interested in paying the sort of wages that would entice salespeople who are highly knowledgeable about the store’s products.

You could have gone to a local geek store, where the salespeople would have been happy to explain in excruciating detail the different frame rates and screen resolutions that you would get with different graphics cards, but you probably would have paid 10 or 20 percent more for the same machine.

For the most part, and in most industries, “cheapest store in town” and “store with the most knowledgeable and professional salespeople” are NOT the same place. I’m constantly amazed at how many people expect things to be otherwise.

11

Do you choose your merchandise according to price, or according to the knowledge of the salespeople? If, like most people, your answer is the former, it’s your own damn fault.

12

> and you sure as fuck can’t go to the internet, where can you go?

wtf, why can’t you go to the internet? I am sure google is teeming with accurate information about game machines, video cards, and your favorite current game requirements.

Next thing, you will be telling us you can’t get book or film reviews on the internet either…

13

Ars Technica always runs a very respectable guide for building computers. Here’s the latest:

They have parts lists for three different budgets. Even if you don’t build your own it would give you an idea of what to look for. For future purposes, a rule of thumb:

  1. You want a new model video card that can do all the latest DirectX features. Do not accept integrated video “cards”.
  2. You want all the RAM you can afford - at least twice the minimum, ideally. This is the place to really splurge.
  3. You want a good processor but it doesn’t need to be top shelf. Middle of the road is fine. You can save a little money upfront and replace the video card every two years and get better results than if you kept the original video card and splurged upfront on a massive cpu.
  4. Integrated audio is surprisingly good and getting better. Dedicated sound cards are nice but strictly luxury items at this point.

Enjoy your new machine Olives! Once you slip that Radeon in there you’ll have a blast!

14

Geeky computer store owner here.

Every other day I hear “Whats the cheapest you can build a computer for me”?

My reply, “we don’t do cheap cookie cutter crap, you have needs we fill them”.

If you need a dirt cheap basic computer I will point you at dells website and say “have fun”.

What you pay extra for but usually get with an independent shop:

1: People who know WTF they are talking about
2: Local support, I can’t count the number of times I have made a side trip to do a freebie 5-10 min onsite to correct some small issue or bit of confusion.
3: We live on referrals and reputation, if we fail in any significant way on a regular basis, we would crash and burn.
4: In many cases once we know you and what you want/need we can anticipate and or better interpret your needs for future service.
5: In many cases you are dealing with an owner or partner who has a vested financial interest in you as a customer.
6: We regularly toss in free data transfer and or onsite setups on most decent full system purchases.
7: Quality parts at a fair price
8: Total customization to your needs, whatever you want you can have, no cookie cutter systems.
9: Most of the parts I carry have 2-3 even 5 year manufacturer warranties, if you are willing to wait for the RMA, I will fix it beyond normal warranty time frames, if you have been a regular otherwise, I have been known to take care of it then just get reimbursed the part by the RMA. I have a guy who has lost 2 hard drives in 3 years on his 3 machines, all are mirrored raids and I did not charge him for the replacements.

If this had been my shop you never would have left the shop with an inadequate video card for your application, and in the unlikely event you were unhappy with the performance of the machine in your desired game I would happily upgrade it for the difference in the price of parts.

For comparison, the most piss poor motherboard onboard video I have in my store is a Geforce 7100, basic gaming rigs leave with 512mb 8500-8600GT Serious machines 9600.

15

Don’t blame the victim here people. The salesperson is a sucky person that didn’t admit they didn’t have a clue. She was gullible not culpable.

The manager at Staples just told me this one last week. I couldn’t use the new battery with the larger amperage rating because it would burn out the phone when plugged in. Sorry idiot, but that rating does not mean that. I didn’t correct them that night either, because I didn’t feel like pointing out what an idiot this person was.

I would complain about being mislead to the store manager or headquarters too.

16

The internet may be teeming with accurate information, but it’s also teeming with conflicting information… too damn much of it. Usually when I try to decide on a product by googling it I end up confused as hell.

I am somewhat surprised to hear that some companies don’t want their staff to know much about what they’re selling. Merneith thank you for the excellent resource. I have never viewed myself as a person likely to try the ‘‘do it yourself’’ computer stuff, but that sounds like not a bad idea. We’ll see how easily I can get the video card in.

17

I accept exactly 50% of the blame. I am notoriously gullible, and not just with electronics. I still think salespeople should have knowledge about what products they are selling. And if they don’t, they should at least have the decency to say, ‘‘I don’t know.’’ I’m not the kind of person who complains to the store manager, I am the kind of person who makes a weak pit thread on an anonymous message board and then moves on with my life… but I will certainly mention in my review of the machine that it’s not for gaming.

18

I was in a Best Buy the other day (a friend wanted to get more memory for her laptop, and despite my suggestion that she could probably get it cheaper on line she wanted to price it at Best Buy first) and was browsing through the laptops. I’ve been thinking of getting something like a netbook for traveling, and was looking at one when a salesman came over. Amazingly enough, he actually knew something about them, and we spent a few minutes discussing the relative merits of various models. He even told me something I hadn’t known before - why computers only come with a trial version of MS Office.

19

I’ve always assumed it was so you had to purchase it separately and pay more money overall. Is there another reason?

20

It had to do with a lawsuit that was filed against Microsoft, claiming that having the full version of Microsoft Office pre-installed on computers was unfairly affecting the sales of other office suites. If your computer came with MS Office, you were less likely to spend the money to buy a competing product. In my case, the end result was that after my trial period expired, I went online and downloaded Open Office, a free program which as far as I’m concerned works just as well, and allows me to save files in formats readable by other programs.