R.I.P Customer Service

I didn't believe it until today. But it's true. Customer service is dead.
I walked into Circuit City today as the ideal customer. Because of my recent withdrawal snafu, I had money to spend. Instead of it disappearing into my bank account, I wanted something specific to show for it. Sure, $300 isn't a ton of money, but I think Circuit City probably appreciates it when customers come in looking to spend that much.
Anywa, my focus is car audio. I know I can't get exactly what I want, but this could be a good chance to feel out this whole project, cost-wise.
I see a Verizon booth mini-store. Now I hate my Verizon phone, and this could be just what he doctor ordered. I walk over adn start looking over the merchandise. The two employees, a skinny Asian and short fat girl are both helping one customer. I decide to let them be and head over to the car audio. That's when I start slipping into this surreal world in which customer service does not exist.
The two Hispanic employees are in the middle of the floor. They aren't working with customers. But one is on the phone and the other is haning on to every word trying to hear what's going on. I walk around waiting while they fool around. They walk in and out to the install bay dicking around and I start growing irate.
I decide I'll complain to the manager. I find him quickly. He's the guy in the black shirt flirting with the female clerk while two other "workers" stand by chatting.
I'm going insane.
I walk back to the Verizon booth in a stupor. In front of a big-screen TV, two employees stand watching it, their backs to me as they watch.
No one is working in this place.
Meanwhile, our two capable Verizon employees have managed to anger their lone customer. I sigh and return to the car audio section. Finally, I ask for help. I explain my situation and they tell me they can't help me. One guy gives me the phone number of a friend of his.
I go back to the Verizon booth. The fat girl is staring out into space. She's got a damn ear piece, one of those "I'm a bad ass, but I have no friends" cell phones and she's busy. I stand right in front of the Asian fellow and he asks if he can help me. I ask a simple question.
"What's the best phone you've got?"
He looks about.
"Well it depends what you're looking for. This one's good," he says, "and this one. The Razor is also really popular."
He then goes back to doing whatever the hell he'd been doing before, leaving me to the phones having not told me how they're different or why I might like one over the other.
I'm fuming but bemused now. I walk outside, then come back in. I head straight for tubby.
"Are there any free-standing Verizon stores around here?" I ask.
She answers quickly with the location. Then suddenly looks perplexed.
"Why don't you want to use this? We have all the same stuff."
I don't have the heart to tell her that she and her buddy suck at their jobs, and I don't want to deal with them.
I leave her slack-jawed in my wake, thinking I'm an idiot, I'm sure.

I step into Verizon full of hope and intent on getting a phone and working with real Verizon sales reps.
No such luck.
The stor has two sections. The front is for sales, while the back is for tech and customer service. Once again I find two employees helping one guy. I mill around waiting for them to finish. It takes awhile. Finally, Angela walks from behind the counter towards me.
Finally.
She's interupted but it's cool. She saw me and will soon be helping me. I'm sure of it. As she helps this fella with the intelligence of a gifted brick, she introdcues herslef to other customers telling them she'll help them next. This isn't looking good.
Sure enough, upon finishing with Einstein, who didn't buy anything, she turns to help an older couple.
The fact that I'm 20 and look 17 can't be helping me, and that's quite bothersome.
Another sales rep comes from the back. I make eye contact with him.
"One second, I help you, bud." he says.
He definitely called me "bud"...
But hey, I'm about to be helped right?
Then the cute red-head chick walks in.
Pretty soon he's helping her. Oh sure, her problem is technical and he does sales, but that's no problem he assures her. As he heads into the back another employee pokes his head in to say something, apparently something humorous. I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with the girl...
It's now been probably 20 minutes. I take off my glasses because the steam from my ears has fogged them up.
"So what exactly do you want anyway?" asks the guy behind the counter.
I blink and look up. He's talking to me. I wouldn't believe except he asks so rudely.
"I want to buy a new phone." I answer simply, not wanting to complicate things for him. I walk over to the counter.
He asks if I have a Verizon plan, and I answer that I do. And he asks what phone I have.
"This piece of shit," I say humorlessly, pulling out my phone.
He asks me if the account is under my name, and I tell him it's a family plan. He then tells me I can't by a phone without my parents present.
Deep breaths. fireworks are going off in my head. bright lights flash. Somewhere over the mountains, a cat meows.
I explain that I live in Austin and the live a couple hundred miles away. Then he tells me they can ok it by phone or internet. He then asks me if I'm in the last two months of my plan....
"I don't know."
"If you're not in the last two months of your plan, you can't buy a new phone," he says.
He tells me that even if I pay full price, I can't buy a new phone. This is making no sense. I look him straight in the eye and ask with a straight face if that would still be the case if my current phone were to break.
The obvious implication is that I'm about to walk outside and throw the damn thing around.
Anyway, he babbles some about insurance that I could have got when I got the plan and a warranty, blah blah blah.
I don't really hear anything now.

Another rant. Sometimes, you're in a situation where you want to be sold something. Anytime you go into a cell phone store you should have that outlook.
When I used to be with Cingular I'd love going in there. Knowledgable salespeople would always come out show me thoe phone and try to sell them all.
That's their job. It's how it works.
If I'm in your store, sell me something. Don't just watch me walk around. I don't know what I want. I have an idea sure. But that's not the same thing.
This joker at Circuit City, what the hell was he trying to accomplish?
He pointed out three phones and left me to it.
That's not going to cut it.
I want some slick willy that calls himself Maverick selling me a phone. When I ask what the "best" phone is. He should, without blinking, show the most expensive phone in the place and tell me why it costs so much and how incredibly useful it's 238 funtions are. Don't insult me by deciding what I can or can't afford by the fact that I look like a kid. Don't pretend you think you know what I need. Just sell me the most expensive phone you've got. When I say that's too expensive step down to the next bracket.
"Yeah that phone is pretty expensive. We don't sell to many of those. Most people are really happy with this one. It's a little cheaper and the camera is only 1.3 megapixels but it looks real sharp and gets the job done."
Some shit like that.
I hate salespeople as much as anyone. But I hate people who can't sell shit more. I walked into a car audio store the other day. I was straight to the point.
"I want to put two 12"s in my 2002 Ford F150 SupercrewCab truck."
"Oh you can't do that," he says.
WTF. I know I can. A little bit later....
"I'd have to do a seat riser kit, blah blah blah."
(This is pissing me off all over again as I type, not because I wanted to do business at that shady, ghetto operation, but because the simple concept of selling is lost on these morons.) Don't fucking tell me I can't do what I want to do when I CAN do it, and you can be the guy that gets it done.
Say "Oh man, those are some big subs for that truck. I'll have to get you set up with a seat riser kit and it'll still be a snug fit. Here's what we're looking at..."

Does this make sense?
It makes perfect sense to me.

/rant

So then I went and spent $90 at Barnes & Nobles on books. Pet Monster, from PokerStars and me talk on the phone sometimes, and I called him up and he made some suggestions. I got everything he suggested.

The Great Books of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Then he told me about the book he was reading. As he talked about it, I happened to see it on the shelves and added it to my geek-stack of books in my arms.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Perusing the shelves on my own, I came across one more. I very literally judged the book by it's cover and grabbed it.

The President's Assassin by Brian Haig

Hopefully these books will be as good as I expect. Now it's time to buy text books. We'll see how much time I have for fiction when the school semester begins.