CNagy
10-05-2005, 02:24 AM
So, I went to the mall saturday; but it wasn't the nearby, kinda crappy mall. This was the gigantic, boggles-the-mind, fuck-off big mall. You know, the kind that has all the stores that you could imagine. Vibrating stuffed animals? Check the kiosk, it's there. This place had a ton of expensive clothing stores, but in the last-chance, off-the-rack variety. In other words, style intensive without being extremely money intensive. Personally, I don't really buy clothes, and when I do need something I don't really buy brand name, but if I ever to decide to I know where to go.
Can you go to a mall without buying something? I submit that the answer is No. But I wasn't about to go and buy a $50 dollar shirt, nice though it may have been, to justify my presence in the mall. Especially not when the Gap had jeans starting at $7. But alas, it would have been better for me to get the jeans rather than what I purchased instead. Let me explain.
I am a recovering gamer. Playstation, Gamecube, computer gaming, you name it. I rarely play anything any more, not because I am restraining myself but simply because I sort of fell out of it. In any case, I walked into an Electronics Boutique and temporarily reverted to a former, games-playing life. Still, I spent only $17 on an expansion to a game I used to play. Nostalgia, maybe.
Let me tell you something about EB's hiring habits. Imagine you have the choice of hiring a human being, able to reason and discern. Imagine his competition for the job is a trained chimp who skipped out on the training. They both want the same amount of money, so who do you hire? If you are an EB Managerial Fuckhead, you've got a monkey fetish that just needs fulfilling.
The useless sack of human life in particular went by the name Raul. To say Raul wasn't good at his job would be an understatement. To use the word good in conjunction with Raul's work, even as a function of "not good," tarnishes the word. Raul looks at the box, and then turns to the back counter and tries to find the game. At this point, I don't yet have a reason to believe that Raul is an incompetent disappointment that would drive a parent to suicide. When he can't find it there, I still feel no ill will towards him. After all, it is an old game, it's probably in the back.
Raul goes into the back, assumingly on a quest to find my wayward new old game. Minutes pass. At least five of them. Raul comes out empty-handed, and takes a look at the box once more. Poor Raul, did you forget what you were looking for? Why didn't you take the box back with you? Its powers of confirmation would have served you well.
So Raul goes back-room spelunking once more, and another five minutes or so have passed. Mind you, the stock of games are in alphabetical order; it should have been as simple as going to N and finding the game. He comes back out, with a cd in a paper sleeve. Victory, right? No, not right. Raul tries to open the paper sleeve, but such technology is apparently far beyond his manual dexterity, because all he manages to do is tear the shit out of the sleeve without really getting the cd out. Then he checks the box to find that there is no cd case, so he tosses the cd (sleeve ripped to hell and all) into the box.
Fast forward past a movie, an hour long drive, and a night of sleep. I go to install the game and what do I see? Raul got the wrong game. That's right, he spent ten minutes looking, he came out to refresh himself as to which game it was, I'm pretty sure he even compared the two when he got back to the register. Somehow, Raul is the lowest common denominator, and somehow, I have had the misfortune of running into him. Who trusts someone with that little competence to leave their own home, let alone hold onto a set of store keys? Now I have to drive back out there this weekend, on principle mind you, and I bring with me the rage of a customer wronged. And if I see Raul, I might just indulge in a little mercykilling.
Can you go to a mall without buying something? I submit that the answer is No. But I wasn't about to go and buy a $50 dollar shirt, nice though it may have been, to justify my presence in the mall. Especially not when the Gap had jeans starting at $7. But alas, it would have been better for me to get the jeans rather than what I purchased instead. Let me explain.
I am a recovering gamer. Playstation, Gamecube, computer gaming, you name it. I rarely play anything any more, not because I am restraining myself but simply because I sort of fell out of it. In any case, I walked into an Electronics Boutique and temporarily reverted to a former, games-playing life. Still, I spent only $17 on an expansion to a game I used to play. Nostalgia, maybe.
Let me tell you something about EB's hiring habits. Imagine you have the choice of hiring a human being, able to reason and discern. Imagine his competition for the job is a trained chimp who skipped out on the training. They both want the same amount of money, so who do you hire? If you are an EB Managerial Fuckhead, you've got a monkey fetish that just needs fulfilling.
The useless sack of human life in particular went by the name Raul. To say Raul wasn't good at his job would be an understatement. To use the word good in conjunction with Raul's work, even as a function of "not good," tarnishes the word. Raul looks at the box, and then turns to the back counter and tries to find the game. At this point, I don't yet have a reason to believe that Raul is an incompetent disappointment that would drive a parent to suicide. When he can't find it there, I still feel no ill will towards him. After all, it is an old game, it's probably in the back.
Raul goes into the back, assumingly on a quest to find my wayward new old game. Minutes pass. At least five of them. Raul comes out empty-handed, and takes a look at the box once more. Poor Raul, did you forget what you were looking for? Why didn't you take the box back with you? Its powers of confirmation would have served you well.
So Raul goes back-room spelunking once more, and another five minutes or so have passed. Mind you, the stock of games are in alphabetical order; it should have been as simple as going to N and finding the game. He comes back out, with a cd in a paper sleeve. Victory, right? No, not right. Raul tries to open the paper sleeve, but such technology is apparently far beyond his manual dexterity, because all he manages to do is tear the shit out of the sleeve without really getting the cd out. Then he checks the box to find that there is no cd case, so he tosses the cd (sleeve ripped to hell and all) into the box.
Fast forward past a movie, an hour long drive, and a night of sleep. I go to install the game and what do I see? Raul got the wrong game. That's right, he spent ten minutes looking, he came out to refresh himself as to which game it was, I'm pretty sure he even compared the two when he got back to the register. Somehow, Raul is the lowest common denominator, and somehow, I have had the misfortune of running into him. Who trusts someone with that little competence to leave their own home, let alone hold onto a set of store keys? Now I have to drive back out there this weekend, on principle mind you, and I bring with me the rage of a customer wronged. And if I see Raul, I might just indulge in a little mercykilling.