Dear Fry’s Electronics,
I would like my $3.24 and 45 minutes back.
Yesterday I went to your store in Sunnyvale. All I wanted was a male-to-male DIN-9 null modem adapter so I can connect my GPS to my Treo. That’s all. Since you’re THE nerd haven, carrying everything from resistors to deodorant, I thought of nowhere else to go but to your store. I looked on the web for it, but it’s such a small thing that I’d get killed on shipping and I was drawn by the allure of having it RIGHT NOW.
I got there and wandered through the aisles, looking for such a device. First I found DIN-9 ends. No, I don’t really want to make my own cable. In a different section, I found DIN-9 ends with the wiring and cases. Close, but not what I want.
About 20 minutes later someone detected my aimless wander and asked if I needed help. I told him what I wanted and he directed me to some older guy who seemed to know what he was talking about. He immediately told me they he only had RS-232 null modem adapaters, even though he admitted that DIN-9 is what most people wanted.
I stared and stared at the wall of connectors and gender changers. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I got a DIN-9 gender changer, even though I was pretty sure that wouldn’t work.
On the way out, I remembered a needed a book for work, the Apache Cookbook, a fairly common and popular O’Reilly book. You didn’t have it. You did have a completely obsolete book on Object-Oriented Programming for the Macintosh that I bought over 10 years ago though. Great. Thanks for keeping that stocked.
I walked out the door with $3.24 less in my pocket and 45 minutes of my life lost. I’d like those back please.
I don’t want to go return the item as my time is more valuable than the 30 minutes I’d have to spend waiting in line to return something to your store. I accept Visa, Checks, PayPal, Yahoo Paydirect, cash, and baseball cards – basically anything but store credit.
As for the time, I’ll accept in in the form of productive work OR 45 minutes of extra sleep on a Monday morning. Your choice.
As for the gender changer, I’m going to keep it. I’ll throw it in one of my boxes of miscellaneous cables and electronics in the garage. It’ll sit with the 2400 baud modems, 100-ft serial cable, AppleTalk dongles, fat ethernet adapters, and other stuff that I’m sure I’ll need at some point. Who knows, maybe someday it will save me a trip to your store.
Sincerely,
Jeff Boulter