Best Buy can kiss my ass

I got pissed off and sent this to them on January 18th.

Dear BestBuy,

Recently I had the misfortune of making a purchase in your Manchester, New Hampshire store. Allow me to state in no uncertain terms that I will never, ever again make a substantial purchase at Best Buy for the duration of my natural life. If I were in a serious accident, and for some reason all life support technology was destroyed, and in order to live my only option was to purchase a life support system from Best Buy, I would gladly welcome my own demise than funnel one more dollar into your yellow and blue coliseum of unadulterated retail aggression.

The purchase of a plasma television is no small matter for someone of my income. Whereas the wealthy may happily buy any number of said televisions at an arbitrary price and having performed minimal research, I work my ass off to figure out what exactly it is that I am buying, and how I can pay for it intelligently.

Your store was nice enough to match the price of a competing retailer. This is literally the only positive I can take away from the experience of purchasing a $$$$$ dollar television.

Upon checkout, a sales associate asked me if I would be purchasing an HDMI cable. I stated that was not interested, and that I would figure something out. At this point in time, no less than three Best Buy associates verbally pounced on me like a pack of starving hyenas. The trio of blue-clad employees tore at my intelligence like wild dogs, blasting my decision not pay for an HDMI cable, giving me absolutely zero room for rebuttal while they spouted ephitets of “clarity” and “not getting what I paid for”. I was made to feel like a simpleton who did not understand even a modicum of the technology I was about to purchase. Infuriated by the insinuation and the confrontation, it was all I could do to refrain from a verbal retort that would have surely made the situation even more uncomfortable than it already had become.

The simple fact is that I am a fully informed consumer, am well aware of my options, yet am given absolutely zero benefit of the doubt that I actually have the first clue about HDTV technology. It is purely insulting.

Let’s be realistic for a moment. I just dropped $$$$$ and your wild dogs are tearing at my jugular for another $70 – $119 in the form of a tragically overpriced video cable. You’ve got enough already, let me be! And where is the respect I feel I am owed for taking the plunge into the already intimidating Magnolia room, stepping to the plate, and purchasing the finest 42-inch plasma television in the known universe? Can we simply start by asking ourselves that question?

Now following the checkout process, which for the sake of convenience we will label as “awkward”, I was then instructed to wait at the front of the store for my television. No problem. However, 25 minutes later or so and…problem. How can it take 25 minutes to get a single television from the rear to the front of a store? It was 3pm on a Monday! I stood around for ten solid minutes before anyone even asked what the hell I was doing, loitering just inside the front doors of the store. It turns out that my television was “waiting on” what was termed as “a couple of appliances”. I don’t know what the hell that was supposed to mean, but I think I got the idea.

The idea is that whatever cache your Magnolia label is trying to create is completely meaningless. There’s a special marquee, special carpet…basically a lot of special bullshit but no special treatment whatsoever. No special salespeople. No special paperwork. No special warranty. No special things thrown in with your purchase. Magnolia is basically where you go when you crave the unrelenting pressure of an overbearing salesperson, but you also want to spend a shitload of money and loiter about indefinitely waiting for your property. I swear to you, I cannot – will not – return to Best Buy.

Here is some irony. I met the nicest guy I have ever met at Best Buy, and he was the person responsible for loading my television into my car. He was, and I swear to you, the only person to acknowledge the quality of the television I had just purchased. He clearly understood that I had just made a massive purchase, he possessed a comprehension of the quality of the product, and took time to make conversation that made me feel valued and important.

That’s it.