My CD player died last week.
I went to Best Buy, which is the closed music place to my house. I looked at CD changers. There was only one brand, which I was unenthusiastic about: Sony has sold me two defective monitors in the past five years; the dead CD player was another Sony, and the company's so-called "customer service" for the defective monitors was from the far end of hell's furnace room.
The sales dummy said there was another alternative: a DVD player, which happened to be half as expensive, and would work just as well. I bought it. It worked, but whenever there was a smooth transition from one song to another, the player stopped abruptly, paused a second, and abruptly embarked upon the next.
I took it back this morning. The return process took about three times as long as the purchase process.
I went to Circuit City. The only sales person I could find in the entire store was a cellular telephone guy who said he couldn't leave his post. I found a cashier, who said she'd find someone to help me. After five minutes of waiting, I gave up and left.
I drove miles and miles to a stereo store I'd ventured into in search of cables several years ago; unfortunately, it's not still in business.
I tried Wal Mart, always my shopping destination of last choice, since I'm sick and tired of third-rate Chinese junk. Wal Mart had everything but what I wanted.
I tried Target, another shopping destination way down on the list. Nothing.
Home again, I tried
http://www.crutchfield.com. I narrowed the choices down to three, then dialled the toll-free number. I had to navigate a telephone tree, but in about a minute, I was connected with a guy who a.) sounded as though he knew what he was talking about, and b.) tried to upsell me. I'm not sure I actually
need special cables to connect the CD player to the receiver, but for the grand sum of $12.99, I figured I'd reward the lad for exercising some actual old-fashioned salesmanshipand anyway, he made it clear I might as well buy the $119.99 model as the $149.99 model, since the more expensive model didn't have any features or capabilities I actually need.
I'm tired of listening to business people whine and snivel about business not being very good. If they want my dollars, they can hire sales people who actually know what they're talking about, as well as put some sales people on the floor to answer questions. If you aren't willing to compete, kindly get the @#$%^&! out of the way!