Conundrum.
Wander into a Best Buy, where supposedly the blue shirts aren’t on commission, and but you will get bugged at least once in every aisle that you pause in to look at product ” Can I help you? ”
After the 2nd or third “No thankyou, just browsing” I feel more like saying “When I need help.. I’ll be looking around for a blue shirt or standing at a counter waiting my turn. It’ll be real obvious that I want help”.
Of course even just getting a bit curt with them will result in them claiming that they just want to help and that they are not on commision. No of course you aren’t on commission but I’ll bet you won’t have a job if you don’t get x number of sales or n number of extended warranties and other sales sugar per week..
Almost makes me want to organize one of these.
Flip Side, when I’m in a store like, oh, London Drugs and I need to get a new Braun Clean-and-charge cartridge (why the hell does the London Drugs near me keep those locked up and at one across town they are out in the open??). I know the sales critters are busy, I see them scurrying to help other people. I queue up. I wait. Wait. And Wait.
Nearly at the point of waited-enough (10 min for me, usually) and I’m just about ready to start yelling “Who wants to take my money? I know exactly what I want to buy and it will take very little effort for you to get the thing I want out of the locked cabinet and take my money. Money here. I want to spend money!”
So yeah, conundrum. I want it both ways.
Maybe a flashing neon hat that flashes red for “stay the hell away from me” and soothing blue or green for “come get the money!” ?
There is an interesting dynamic at play in stores like Best Buy and Future Shop, a strange power of extra-sensory perception. We met the two of you on your way out of a Future Shop and you warned us that the droids were particularly clingy in the store. The interesting thing is that we were going in there looking for a specific thing, and for some reason not a single sales droid approach us or asked if we needed help.
It’s a force of consumer electronics retail that if you DON’T want help they are all over you, and when you DO want help they are no where to be found.
Camz
August 13th, 2006
Nowhere to be found … or even better. I queued up at the electronics sales/service desk at FutureShop one time and after the 3 people in front of me were helped, it was my turn and …. both people behind the desk ran away and could not be bothered to come back for at least a further 5 min before I gave up and walked out, not flinging money at them….
trever
August 14th, 2006