You see, the customers at this place go because they need the expertise of people who know what they're talking about. This is good for them when I'm working, not so much when the guy is in who thinks a virus can physically affect the computer before it's been loaded into memory. But anyway, some of these people apparently want my opinion just so they can disagree with it. Others should get a clue and just not touch technology anymore. By reading the rest of this post, you agree to become Amish and never attempt to communicate with me at any point in the future if at ANY point you sympathize with the idiots written about in this post instead of me. OK? Let's go.
First, let's talk about the old guy who wanted to buy some antivirus software a few weeks ago. This guy wants you to believe he's experienced with tech stuff- pulls anecdotes out and makes it sound like he knows what he's doing. OK, fine, I can appreciate a guy with technical expertise... but not if the beginning of that expertise involved punch card machines that gave their outprints using ancient printers instead of monitors!
So here's this guy asking me what a good antivirus is, and of course I recommend Norton like they say we should. Peter Norton hasn't been involved with this program for a decade and a half but STILL Symantec calls it- well, anyway, this guy rejects my suggestion out of hand because the version he used five years ago was crap (and so it was) and messed with his computer. Yes, but they fixed that- "BLARRGH! NO NORTON, WHAT ELSE IS GOOD?"
OK, idiot, if you don't like my first opinion, let's try McAfee- "BLARRGH! NO NORTON, WHAT ELSE IS GOOD?" At this point you realize that you have run into the customer from hell. This guy is asking for your opinion but has been around in computing long enough to have opinions, even those he's too stupid to have based them off anything factual- more than likely the antivirus wasn't what messed him up, it was the fact that he never once updated the program and viruses got through anyway!
So here we are stuck with a guy who only knows what he doesn't want and is only asking a salesman for his opinion so that he can disagree with it (we aren't in the habit of recommending our unknown products we've never used ourselves, obviously). So I try one last stab... AVG, whose free version I use. Surely this guy hasn't tried three antivirus products- "AVG IS NO GOOD EITHER!"
So of course at this point I did the only reasonable thing to do- I explained that the remaining products that he hadn't used were governmental spy tools: Kaspersky spies on you for the Russians, Trend Micro spies on you for the Chinese, and of course Panda spies on you for the environmentalist vegan liberal Democrat hippies. (You thought I was going to say Chinese again!) I then told him we didn't want his business and used the store phone to call a "friend" in animal control.
But I digress. That's another story entirely. There was also a guy who called in wanting to know what DVDs we had on sale. "Nothing, sucker, it's the week after Christmas and those of you dumb enough to not buy them with the things that needed them are getting price gouged because we know you need them for your toys!" I said. (Management says I'm not allowed to do that anymore, but the jury's still out on laughing like a maniac when I give bad news.)
5 minutes later the phone rings again. It's a slow night, so I figure I can ignore my "leave them on hold for 10 minutes at minimum" policy twice in a row- and wouldn't you know it, it's the same guy again, probably thinking the "previous" salesman had lied to him!
No longer allowed to tell the customers' our evil plans, I got out my air horn...
