Circuit Shitty

A transaction that should have lasted less than 10 minutes took a staggering 45 minutes: my father-in-law asked me to pick up a Palm Pilot for him. At Circuit City. Need I say more?

The whole "customer service" model they have, while meant to be efficient, can sometimes drive one insane. Get this:

I go to my friendly neighborhood Circuit City (okay, so there's only one and it's about a 1/2-hour drive but that's beside the point. Normally, I like going to the place, regardless of the drive) about ten minutes after the store opens. Apparently a lot of people are hip to the "Super Tuesday" thing, when most new releases are dropped. My first thought when I see the above-average number of people milling around the store is: "Don't these people have jobs?" But then I think of my own situation, bite my lip, and boogie on to the PDA section.

I see the PDA my father-in-law asked me to get, and I check to see that they're in stock (and I notice that they are since I see about four of them locked away in a cage cabinet right below the various display models). Of course when you know exactly what you want to buy, there's no salespeople around. There's a whole bunch of them by the camcorders and digital cameras as well as some in the television department, but none in the near vicinity.

Figuring the PDA department, which, paired along with the cellular phones, would have at least one salesperson nearby, I decide to wait. And wait I did. After five minutes, I get tired of waiting and decide to go upstairs to the computer department and pick up an ethernet cable that I needed to hook up the in-laws' home network.

I find the cable I need and head back down to the PDA department and there's still no salesperson around. So I go to the camera department and interrupt a salesperson in the middle of selling a family a camcorder and ask -- nicely -- if I could pick up a PDA. The salesperson says that there should be someone in that department. I tell him no, there isn't. He then finishes by saying he'll send someone there as soon as he can because he's with a customer.

So I mill around the PDA department for another five minutes. Still nobody comes by. I approach one of the guys at the cash register and ask him to help. He says that there should be someone there in the PDA department. I tell him no, there isn't. He tells me he can't leave the register, and that there should be someone to help me shortly. I go back and wait in the department.

Five minutes later, a salesperson finally comes by and asks if I need help. I tell him I know which model PDA I want to get and if I could get it please. He then bends down to look at the cage cabinet below the PDA display models, and proceeds to look aimlessly for the model PDA I want, which of course happens to be right in front of him. I finally point out the PDA that I want, and he says he sees it.

But instead of procuring the magical key that would unlock the PDA prison, he goes over to a cash register in the department, prints out a sales ticket, and gives it to me. "Can't you just give me one of those over there in the cabinet?" I ask him. He says he doesn't have the key, and it might be faster to have the PDA sent out from the stockroom. All I need to do is just pay for it at the cash register (a different one, near the exit) and go to the Customer Pick-Up desk to pick up the PDA.

So I do all of this, and give my claim receipt to the customer service person. They take my ticket, and for the next 15 minutes, I am left waiting at the counter for my PDA.

I pass the time by flipping through the store's current ad, and notice that the PDA I just got for my father-in-law comes with a free carrying case. I mention this to the customer service person and she looks at the ad as if I had just written the words "free case" right next to the PDA's picture in red ink. Finally she says "I'll be right back" and she goes off into the PDA department. She comes back a few minutes later with the free case in question and then has trouble ringing up the free case. She calls over another customer service person to ask how she should ring up the free case without looking like they (or I) didn't simply shove the thing in my shopping bag without paying for it.

While the one customer service gal is trying to ring up my free case, the other customer service person, with seemingly nothing else to do, sees an Xbox game nearby with a note on it. He then exclaims, "Is this game really only $4.99?"

In my head I say: "Why yes, sir. In your store's current advertisement, one which I have been browsing through for the fifteenth time while waiting an inexplicably long time for my merchandise to arrive, I noticed there was a clearance sale for selected Xbox games, going for a mere $4.99. On top of that, kind sir, the font on the text touting the $4.99 clearance sale took up nearly a quarter of the page."

So the unbelieving customer service guy rings up the game (I guess he really didn't believe the note that was attached to it) and says to his astonishment, "Wow! This game really is $4.99!"

Shouldn't an employee know what the hell's on sale in their own store?!?

All of this and I'm still waiting for the PDA to be brought up from the stockroom and the customer service gal still trying to ring up my free case.

Then a stockroom guy walks buy and the customer service gal helping me asks him to personally look for my PDA in the back stockroom. Another ten minutes passes by, he comes back and says "This isn't back there."

Sheepishly, the customer service gal says, "I'll be right back," and heads off into the PDA department. She comes back with the PDA, scans it through the computer, shoves it in a bag and gives me a receipt with $0.87 in change.

"What's this for?" I ask. She says it's the change from the free case. "Why do I get money back for the free case?" I ask. She says that according to the computer, for some reason I was due a bit of change.

At least I got $0.87 for my time spent there.