About Web pages, modems & such...
And the Infamous Fry's Horror Stories!

Note:  This page is a holdover from day's gone by, and doesn't get updated much anymore.  More current info tends to be found on the almost-daily diary page.  --Mike-- 12/02/01

About this web site...

Front Page 97 (now Front Page 98, actually now it's FrontPage 2000) is wonderful! No way I could throw things up as quickly as I do without it. Simply not possible. Highly recommended to anyone trying to set up their first web site.  I'm going to take a look at the latest version of Dreamweaver (2.0), since it looks like it will make page layout quite a bit easier when lots of graphics are involved. [Well, it's several months later now, and as for Dreamweaver, well...the learning curve is just a bit too steep for me!]

Most of the photographic images are from an Olympus 220L digital camera...very cool little unit, small enough to fit into a jersey pocket, and fairly easy to use with one-hand, so you can take pictures while you ride.  The 220L isn't up to today's specs on cameras, since it's only 480x640 resolution...the main issue being that you've got to frame things carefully, since you don't have any "extra" pixels to throw away...you've got to make all of them count if you want a sharp picture!  I should add that it's not a good idea dropping a digital (or any other) camera three feet onto a concrete floor.  My 220L is currently held together with a fair amount of crazy glue!

[The remnants of the 220L now have an honored place on the shelf, as it has been replaced by the 340L...same case & basic design, but higher resolution at 960x1280...frankly, the 220L did just fine for web stuff!]

[Time marches on...I now use an Olympus 450Z, which is one exceptional little camera!  Same resolution as the 340L, but much better low-light sensitivity, meaning I can take photos while riding and they're less likely to be fuzzy.  There are also times when the zoom is nice as well, but that is the camera's Achilles heel, since it takes time for the lens to come out (no biggie) as well as time for it to retract (which is a problem, since after taking the shot, you kinda want to get both hands back on the bars as quickly as possible!).  32-meg SmartMedia "film card" is very nice, as it takes 140 photos in hi-res mode, and twice that in low-res.  Battery life is great too!  I highly recommend this little camera.]

[12/02/01 Time continues to march on!  For a bit over a year I've been using an Olympus 3000Z, 3.3 megapixel camera that takes really great pictures.  Only problem is that it's pretty bulky, so not the easiest camera to ride with.  Got my eyes on that new OlyC40... really small clamshell design with 4 megapixels.]

By the way, I've been going to a lot of trouble to try and keep the size of GIF and JPG graphics as small as possible for quick downloading. There's nothing more annoying than dealing with a web site that seems optimized for someone with a direct connection to the web while your modem is either 28.8k or 14.4k (and you somehow just can't seem to justify the $600/month expense for that fractional T1 connection). If you're interested in the basic technique for creating small .GIF files, the thing to remember is that the fewer colors, the smaller the size GIF created. Photos generally use quite a few colors so they don't make for really small GIFs...try using JPEG format instead. But for any computer-created artwork, you might find you can do with as few as 12 colors instead of the default 256, and create a very compact file!

Regarding modems...my own personal experience is that you might want to stay away from US Robotics Sportster models at the present time. I've got six of them, and half of them are marginal, to say the least, working OK with non-US Robotics modems but, curiously, having major trouble talking with older 28.8k USR models. Go figure. Another problem with USR modems is their reluctance to talk to an awful lot of stand-alone fax machines, particularly Brother and Ricoh units. On the other hand, if you want a super-reliable unit, spend the extra $$$ for the US Robotics Courier V.Everything.  That's one great unit...nothing stops it!

As for ISDN...it seems a mixed bag. Generally much faster, but sometimes it means you just hurry up and wait because of a bottleneck somewhere down the line.

As of 6/1/99, the ISDN line is out, PacBell ASDL is in.  Another mixed bag.  Works great... when it works.  Which seems to be about 3/4 of the time. Drives you nuts!!!  Outrageously fast one minute, then doesn't work at all the next..

Fry's Electronics stories

12/02/01 Most of the stories below should be considered for entertainment only.  Fry's is still an amazing combination of customer abuse and incredible selection, but most of my recent issues have dealt more with their habit of repackaging returned merchandise and putting it back on the shelves, sometimes without any indication of doing so.  This has bitten me on more than one occasion and, in fact, the Envision Flat Screen monitor that I'm using right now fits that category.  Probably returned by somebody due to a single stuck pixel, which isn't bothering me sufficiently to deal with bringing it back.

Presently, I have two pieces of defective merchandise that I've purchased from Fry's, a Netgear 4-port 10/100 switch and a USR modem.  Neither are Fry's fault, as both were in unopened packages etc.  But the thought of waiting through one of those lengthy return lines... well, I think I'll just return them to the manufacturer!

I will add at this point that I've actually had salespeople come up to me and ask, in an intelligent manner, if I needed assistance with anything.  This is definitely an improvement from the past, so things are looking up.

[Note: The truly horrible experiences are fewer lately...and, in fact, the last couple of times I've been there, well...it's not like things were downright pleasant, but they had everything I was looking for, nobody tried to sell me on bogus warranties, and, perhaps more important, the wait at the counter for "caged" items (things like hard drives and CPUs, that must be brought out by someone more trustworthy than Colin Powell) was no more than three minutes.  This is truly amazing, especially when you contrast it to some of the stories below! I first noticed the improvements around July of 1998...as of June 1999, things still seem better than before.  However, I find a lot of customers who still have some pretty incredible horror stories about trying to return something! --Mike-- 06/13/99]

I have no idea why I keep going back to this place...guess they must have the perfect combination of customer abuse and cool stuff. Whatever the case, this file is now required reading for all Chain Reaction employees so they might better understand how their own actions might be viewed from a customer's perspective.

And lest you think we believe Chain Reaction is perfect...we're not even close. We certainly try to be the best we can be, but I constantly see evidence of our own shortcomings. However, unlike some monolithic corporate entity, I am not immune to losing sleep over things, and, since I'd rather not lose sleep (I'd much rather ride!) it's in my best interest to make sure we do everything we can to take care of our customers. This preamble will be more-or-less repeated at the bottom of this piece, but I figured I'd better get it said at the beginning as well since some people might not make it all the way through my ramblings!

And while we're at it, if you've had an experience at Chain Reaction that didn't meet your expectations, please send me an email (you can use the email box at the bottom of this page) and I'll personally see what went on and try to figure out how to make Chain Reaction a better place. But please, keep in mind that we cannot take care of things we don't know about. Every once in awhile a customer comes lets us know about something that seems really wrong with his/her bike, and it's been really wrong for three months, and they're not at all happy about it, and blame us for how long it's been that it hasn't been working right...which would be fine except that this is the first time we've heard about it! Seriously, this happens from time to time. And try as we might, our best combination of ESP and remote material manipulation doesn't work that well. We can't fix something we don't know about. Please let us know if something's not quite right and we'll be happy to look into it for you! We don't run away when you bring your bike into our shop over your shoulder because it's not rideable.

December 1998 Aha!  I spoke too soon, believing that my problems with Fry's may have been behind me. This past Christmas I decided it would be nice to replace the 30+ year old electric cooktop in the kitchen with one of the new easy-to-clean ceramic ones. Of course, this is not something you'd find at Fry's, right? Well, I'd done a bit of looking around, not so much for price but mostly to get dimensions, so I could get something that would drop into the existing space with minimal work. Well, imagine my surprise when I'm at Fry's (picking up some computer supplies) and their new appliance section has one of the cooktops I was interested in, and it's priced very reasonably. So hey, what could go wrong, right?

Wrong.  My wife was quite happy Christmas morning when she opened the box, but not quite so happy when she pulled out the styrofoam and discovered the entire top surface was broken.  And then much, much less happy with both me and Fry's when she notes that, on the side of the box, in very large letters, was written BROKEN...something that neither the salesperson nor myself had managed to spot.  But I understand it only took her 20 minutes of waiting in line to get it taken care of...which I thought was great, but since she didn't...well let's just say I didn't score too many points!

Wednesday Evening (07/01/98) It's been awhile since I've had a really good Fry's story, so I was due. I decided it was finally time to get a digital camera for web stuff (product pictures, rides, etc) and pricing on basic cameras has dropped through the floor.  My original idea was to get a Cannon Powershop 350, but upon seeing it I killed that idea quickly...no integral lens cover...not a good idea for something in a jersey pocket!  But the Olympus 220L was the same price ($299) and looked quite bikeable.  So...how difficult can it be to buy one?  Well, this is a Fry's story!

First, the guy couldn't find one.  The computer said they were in stock, but he couldn't find them (sadly, at this point this isn't too far from something that might happen at Chain Reaction!).  And there were huge crates in the way of some of the bins that held the digital cameras, so the guy is certain that's where they must be.   After about five minutes of him getting pretty frustrated, I decide to take a look at the bins myself (these are in the public area, underneath the displays) and, lo and behold, they're sitting right at the very front of the far-right bin.  The guy doesn't believe me but checks anyways and yes, that's them.  OK, how about some additional memory?  Should be easy enough...and generally nobody beats Fry's on memory pricing.  Yet the guy tells me the only memory that will work costs $99 for an Olympus 8mb card.  Well, I tell him that I don't need the special "panorama" feature the Olympus card has, how about a generic 8mb card?   Well, sorry, he says, this is all they have.  At this point I bring him over to their memory display board, show him the $44 8mb card they sell, and ask that he write one up for me.

Should have been the end of my troubles?  Sorry, this is Fry's.  You get your paperwork and stand in line...in this instance, 18 minutes worth (I time these things now).  Finally at the checkout stand, it's 10 minutes before someone brings the memory card up to the register.  Fortunately, I decide to check it, and it's not the 8mb SmartMedia card that's listed on the quote, but rather a far more expensive 16mb CF card...which the guy is trying to tell me is what I ordered.  Yes, it would have been sold to me for the $44, and yes, I technically would have gotten something worth twice that, but it wouldn't work in the camera.  And yes, it took another 10 minutes of explaining to the guy that it's the wrong card, doesn't match the part number on the receipt, and he brings yet another incorrect card (again not matching the number)...trust me on this one here...I am absolutely certain that, with this guy, I could have ordered and paid for a 500meg IDE cheapie hard drive and convinced him to give me a 9-gig super-SCSI.  I can't imagine how badly this guy has been screwing up their inventory!

So it takes another five minutes to change the quote so I'm not charged for the memory I'm not getting.  But the camera does work great!

Thursday evening (11/20/97) Uneventful trip, even a really short checkout line...uh...not quite.  Their system went down and all credit cards and receipts had to be done by hand!  But this is something I'm sympathetic to...been there, done that.  Felt sorry for how late people were going to have to stay that night, trying to manually balance the books.  Made me question whether I'm doing a good enough job with backups at Chain Reaction!

Wednesday evening (8/6/97) Nothing unusual to report. Went to the Palo Alto store to see if they had AMD K6-233 mhz chips in stock...the computer maintaining my web site is getting pretty bogged down as this site gets larger and larger! Anyways, no chips in stock, and only took about 10 minutes to find that out. For Fry's, that's pretty darned good.

Sunday afternoon (6/29/97) Take the kids to the Palo Alto store to see if they have a program called "Marble Drop" (the SJ Merc News says it's supposed to help teach kids logic, but more than anything it looks like a really cool game). Don't find it on the shelf, so spend ten minutes to get ahold of a salesperson, who looks it up on the computer and says they don't have it. Looking at the same screen, I show him where it's staring him in the face, and he says, yeah, we've got nine copies in stock. He can't find it on the shelf either, so he goes off to check backstock. Well, 20-25 minutes later he's still not back, so finally (at the kids' urging) I ask another salesperson if the guy just disappeared. Uh...no...he's been on break for the past 20 minutes and just never bothered to come back and tell us he couldn't find it (if he even looked).

Sunday evening (5/25/97) On the way back from a trip to Santa Cruz with the family, we make a "brief" stop at the Los Gatos Fry's to pick up some memory. Standard-issue stuff, 72-pin 16meg simms for our file server in the Los Altos store. In their ad for $119 each. Hard to believe such a simple thing could turn into the most incredible Fry's experience yet.

First, the salesperson (initials A.N.; full name available upon request to anybody from Fry's who wishes to follow up on this) tells me they're out of that type of memory. Hey, I can live with that. Even Chain Reaction runs out of popular stuff now and then! But next he starts telling me how I don't want that memory anyways because it's actually refurbished (yes, he *really* said that, if anybody at Fry's is paying attention to this...and, of course, if you're actually selling "refurbished" merchandise without saying so in your ad, you've got a lot more to worry about than this particular salesperson!) and carries only a 15-day warranty (not the one-year warranty that's plainly written on the sales tag...) and what I really need is their $250 simm. I explain no, I don't need those, I'll come back another time when they have what I want. OK, then the $174 simms will probably work OK. At this point, I tell the guy that, hey, I've probably purchased about 40 simms in recent history, I know what works and what doesn't, and I don't need to hear any more ridiculous stories. And, what do you know, they actually *do* have the simms I want in stock!

Now, please keep in mind that I was never upset about the fact that they supposedly didn't have the simms I wanted. This guy was just doing everything possible to try and sell me something I didn't need that cost more than twice as much...and lied doing so. How many people, one wonders, are taken in by this sort of thing? In all my prior experiences, I had never come across outright fraud before this. Most of the salespeople aren't familiar enough with the product to try and intelligently pull something like this off.

Oh yeah, and as usual, it took forever waiting at the counter for somebody to get the chips...in this case, 18 minutes. And, if you've been to the Los Gatos Fry's, you know that the "cage" where they keep the chips is about 15 feet away. And, of course, during that 18 minutes you've got nothing better to do than to stare at a seriously-bored clerk who has nothing better to do than act seriously bored. A real border-line thrill!

By the way, the memory chips have been installed and work fine.

Sunday evening (3/9/97) Had to pick up a new hard drive and some memory for the file server in Los Altos. They had the drives and memory I wanted in stock and at a reasonable price, so things were looking good. Until I got to the line, that is. It was one of those times the line winds all the way around the magazine area (this is in the Palo Alto store)...but it actually moved pretty quickly. Well, it did for awhile, at least until I was in front of a bunch of boring stuff (being stuck in front of the magazines isn't so bad, but I have no use for casio watches, cheap shavers and ho-ho's...ok, a lie, the ho-ho's are tempting...). But still, not so bad and not unexpected on a Sunday evening. BUT...those "in the know" know the drill. You hand somebody a piece of paper that's got your component order on it and somebody runs it down and brings it to the counter. Uh-huh. I handed the paper over at 5:28pm. The memory and drive arrived at 5:45pm. No foolin. I was standing there, with nothing to do, in front of a counter behind which was my sales clerk, with nothing to do. For 17 minutes. This is one of the most unbelievable aspects of Fry's. How they can afford to pay somebody to stand there and do NOTHING for 17 minutes is beyond me. I don't question their willingness to have the customer bored out of their mind and thinking about all the things they'd rather be doing. They're not paying for MY time. But they ARE paying the sales clerk.

Amazing. But, like all these other stories, absolutely true, without need for embellishment!

Friday evening (2/21/97) Relatively uneventful trip to pick up some cabling for the networks in our shops...except that, of course, I was in a bit of a time bind, and that's a bad thing at Fry's, where the unexpected is the rule. In this case, I should have known when the register clerk had a badge that said "sales trainee" and a supervisor came up to him in the middle of ringing me up and told him he had to change the paper in his printer because it was about to run out (which it was). Unfortunately, they use the same printers we use in our Redwood City store, which means they can be a pain to load, and I was delayed several minutes. Now I know how our own customers feel when we've got somebody new on the register...

Friday morning (2/14/97) Time to pick up a new hard drive and a CD-ROM/Soundcard kit for a compute that will display our website in the store. The CD-ROM/Soundcard kit (a Televideo OEM unit) was clearly marked on the box as well as the shelf at $109.99. But when I checked the register tape after the transaction printed, I was charged $119.95. Can you believe that it took 13 minutes to get the $10.78 credit? However, this may have been some form of pre-karma payback (which I don't really believe in), since we had an unfortunate situation later in the day in our Redwood City store in which we'd special-ordered and built a bike for someone's wife, but apparently never called to let the customer know it came in. A very unhappy customer came in, two weeks after the bike had already been built up and was ready to go, saying that she no longer wanted the bike because it had taken so long. Not fun at all, and in my book, there is no worse crime we can do than take the fun out of cycling for someone.

Late January (I forget the exact date...) Bought a Braun super-duper plaque-removing toothbrush system of some sort that was supposed to be on sale for $39.99. When brought home, my wife pointed out that I was charged $79.99 for it and, in fact, the model number was slightly different from the one in the ad. Afraid I can't blame this one on Fry's. However, it was also missing one of the three pieces...so, one of these days, I gotta go back, wait in line, etc...

Sunday afternoon (12/08/97) Went after the 49er game (an awful loss to Carolina) and picked up one of those "Snappy" gadgets that converts video input into photos for your computer, as well as some utility software (Adaptec's EZ-SCSI) and a copy of Quicken Deluxe, which my wife will theoretically use to balance the checkbook. The lines were quite short, they had what I needed, and my two kids didn't get totally bored. But still, the train in the camcorder section wasn't running...they do lose points for that. On the other hand, they had a very knowledgeable guy on hand to answer questions about Satellite TV systems (TCI is about to get the boot in our house!). So, overall, not a bad trip.

Sunday afternoon (10/20/96) Nothing real special here. Had to pick up a new camcorder battery on the way to Felton with the kids for a trip on Roaring Camp's steam train. The only "event" was something I can't whine about much, but my kids sure do...the fact that their train that runs on the inside of their camcorder display is never running. The store in Campbell even has a panel with a hole where a button is supposed to be, and a label that says to "push here to run the train" or words to that effect. But I don't really consider this a major thing; anybody who thinks they're going to find something at a place like Fry's to keep the kids happy is seriously deceiving themselves!

Sunday afternoon (09/15/96) I've been avoiding Fry's for some time after the last few experiences, but I did need a bunch of stuff and, well, where else could I go? So I pack up one of the kids ("Oh no, I don't want to go to Fry's!") and head on down.

As usual it's pretty crowded (only weekend exception to that is during 49er games and this was a "bye" week), but I had my shopping list and was determined to get through things as quickly as possible. No problem with Y-connectors, paper, or modem. They were out of the keyboards I really wanted (we needed six new keyboards; in a bike shop, they definitely have a finite lifespan!) but they had an acceptable substitute.

For memory, I decided that, even though it was an absolutely incredible price ($143 for a 32meg 60ns simm), I'd have to pass since we're coming up on the time of year where customers begin to hibernate and it becomes tougher paying the bills.

But the really unexpected happened when I noticed that Microsoft Publisher '97 was out, but I only found boxes with floppy disks. What a surprise when I find a helpful salesperson around the corner who thought that he'd seen some CD-ROM versions that had come in, and he tracks them down for me (they hadn't been put out yet). Wow!

I was also looking for a SCSI version of the ZIP drive (I've been using the parallel-port type, but it's a bit slow and I can always use the parallel one to move stuff to other computers). But alas, all I find are stacks of parallel versions. In many separate areas. So, I find another salesperson who's in the area of the parallel ones, and she thinks she's seen a stack of them somewhere. Within a minute, voila, she produces a drive for me! Wish that it could always be so at Fry's!

Sunday afternoon (7/21/96) I call up their Cupertino store to see if they have some video memory I need (256x16k 60ns, for those interested in the technical details). I'd had no luck the past three weeks with the part at the Palo Alto Fry's location, but I was heading to Scott's Valley and the Cupertino store is right on the way.

So...the first major shock was that I didn't get their notorious automatic answering system; I actually got through to a real live person, who promptly connected me to another real live person in the components section. I was thinking that was too good to be true; typically, it takes maybe five minutes on hold before you get to talk to somebody who tells you you've got the wrong department. And, unbelievably, he said they had the memory in stock, and was going to have it up at the front (where the checkout counter is) with my name on it! At this point I was thinking I must have dialed a wrong number, since this just isn't how things happen there.

Well, it actually was too good to be true. I dropped in about 5pm (they close at 7pm, for anybody thinking I was pulling a last-second customer trick), stood in line for maybe three minutes or so (which, for Fry's, is very short) and told the cashier what I needed and that somebody had placed it on hold for me.

Right. No such item on hold anywhere. And for some reason it took her five minutes to find somebody to tell her that. And then, another full ten minutes for somebody to get the memory chips to the front counter. Fifteen minutes waiting for a couple of memory chips...fifteen minutes while my wife & kid are out in the car, thinking that I didn't just go in to pick up a part, but instead went cruising the store. Fifteen minutes that left one sales clerk 100% idle. Incredible that a business can run like this, and a continuing reminder of how customers should not be treated at Chain Reaction.

On a previous trip about a month ago, I picked up a bunch of things including a new computer case & power supply. They were clearly labeled $28.99 in a huge display stack. Since the item didn't have an individually-tagged price, the salesperson called out the price to me at $34.99. Ugh. Is it worth $6 to have to suffer through some incredible ordeal, with one tired 3-year-old in tow? Probably not. On the other hand, letting them get away with something like that in a situation where everything was so clearly marked and it was definitely not a situation of it being incorrectly tagged...

Well, how bad could it be? I mean, I told him exactly where they were in the store (it's a big store, but it's still only 150 feet away or so) and figured how long could it possibly take? Well, that one was worth over five minutes. Five minutes to take such a short walk to see something that's so clearly marked? But I suppose it probably involved talking to at least two different managers (next time you think Chain Reaction's policies on taking checks are tough, try them!) and who knows what else.

Another infamous incident was about a year ago, when a new hard drive I'd purchased was dead on arrival. I made a huge mistake with that one...I thought I'd try to be helpful and, instead of just bringing in the hard drive, brought it in still installed in my computer, so I could show them exactly what it did (or didn't) do and they could verify that it wasn't a problem with my computer and not their hard drive. Big mistake! Their policy (at least at that time) was that they don't look at anything "installed" without considering it a computer in for service...meaning that, for $20, they'd take a look at it. Seriously. Easy solution, of course...loan me a screwdriver (nothing complicated, just a plain old everyday screwdriver) and I'll take it out and give it to them. Store policy forbids loaning tools to customers. You've got to be kidding, I told the guy, who was actually a manager in their service department, not a mis-informed salesperson. This guy was trained to abuse customers! But he said sorry, that's the way it is. At that point I began to feel just a little bit outraged, and asked if it would be OK if I buy a screwdriver (and no, I did not precede "screwdriver" with any four-letter epithets) and take care of it, and by the way, could I please see a senior manager? At this point the guy says nothing, hands me a screwdriver, and walks away.

The interesting thing, of course, is that Chain Reaction goes out of its way to treat customers with the respect they deserve, and the owners (of which I am one) put in 90+ hour work weeks and are, guaranteed, not getting rich. The lesson here can't be that abusing customers=profit, can it? I don't think the experiment will ever be tried at Chain Reaction; I just don't have the guts to try, and I'd like to think that people deserve better. But is Chain Reaction Bicycles a perfect place to shop? No way. Every single day I see little things, and sometimes something big, that's gone awry and make me wonder how they could possibly happen. But hopefully we never get to the point where these things don't seriously bother us, and I think that's the difference between Chain Reaction and Fry's (and perhaps other places as well). I don't think anybody at Fry's loses sleep over the incidents outlined above. But at Chain Reaction, events like these have the potential to create serious sleep loss!

A Fry's story emailed to me by a customer-

Situation: Nov. 2000, saw a segment on a morning TV news show which mentioned a newly released CD box set of songs by Ricky Nelson entitled "Legacy". This would be the perfect gift for my wife. Checked with a large music chain, and they said that it was actually due for release a bit later. Waited a few weeks, ordered it, but it didn't arrive when expected (not in stock.) Now what? Called a number of music stores the week before Christmas. No luck. Then I thought, "Hey, Fry's has music CD's!" What happened then was amazing:

Ring, Ring, Ring ... Ring
Fry's: "Fry's Anaheim, how may I direct your call?"
Me: "I want to see if you have a particular music CD in stock."
Fry's: "You want CD movies and DVD?"
Me: "I want music CD's."
Fry's: "You want CD movies and DVD?"
Me: "I want whatever department handles music CD's"
Fry's: "You want CD movies and DVD?"
Me: "Music CDs!!!!!!!"
Fry's: "Hold on, I'll transfer you to Audio/Video."
Fry's "Audio/Video department."
Me: "I am looking for a CD box set by Ricky Nelson."
Fry's: "You want to talk to the Software department, they handle music CDs."
Me: "Thanks, I'll call back."

Ring, Ring
Fry's: "Fry's Anaheim, how may I direct your call?"
Me: "Software department, please."
Fry's: "Software."
Me: "I'm trying to find a newly released CD box set by Ricky Nelson called 'Legacy'"
Fry's: "A Ricky Nelson box set? No we haven't received anything like that."
[Note, no effort to check the shelf or the computerized inventory system.]
Me: "Ok, thanks. Bye"
[I'll try Fry's in Fountain Valley]

Ring, Ring
Fry's: "Fry's Fountain Valley, how may I direct your call?"
Me: "Software department, please."
Fry's: "Software."
Me: "I'm trying to find a newly released CD box set by Ricky Nelson called 'Legacy.'"
Fry's: "Let me check the computer."
Fry's: "No, we don't have one, but the computer shows there is one in stock in Anaheim."
Me: "They said they don't have anything like that."
Fry's: "The computer says they have just one. Let me give you the SKU number. Write it down and tell them to look it up."
Me: "Thanks." [Gives me the number, now its back to Fry's Anaheim]

Ring, Ring
Fry's: "Fry's Anaheim, how may I direct your call?"
Me: "Software department, please."
Fry's: "Software." [Different sales associate this time.]
Me: "I'm trying to find a newly released CD box set by Ricky Nelson called 'Legacy' and the Fountain Valley store says you have one in stock, let me give you the SKU number" [Give the number.]
Fry's: "Ok, I'll check" [Hear a conversation in the background to the effect of "Ricky who?"
"Ricky Nelson." "Ricky Nelson! Who would want to by a Ricky Nelson CD?"]
Fry's: "Yes, we have one."

Me: "Great, can you hold it for me? I'll be right there"
Fry's: "Yes, we can hold it. What's your name? It will be at the Software desk."
[Gave them my name. Drove right over. Brought the set home, gift-wrapped it. Success!!]
Doug H

Last updated   05/06/05