Don’t Ask Me, I’m Just A Girl

My laptop has been dying a slow death over the past few years. Though the computer system itself is still working great the physical aspect is failing. Bits and pieces are falling off or deciding not to work. Rather like an old person with a good mind. The body stops but the brain still works.

So yesterday my dad and I spent a good hour on the net, looking up prices and stuff for a new one, before heading out to the store. I decided on the Gateway MX6930 with the free Windows Vista upgrade. I shelled out my $800+ and took it home.

It started with the blue screen of doom. Fatal error, could not start windows, just the thing you want to see in a brand new computer, right? We got that cleared away and then the mouse pad wasn’t working right. So it got packed back up in the box and I headed back to Best Buy where I’d bought it.

Now the employee from Best Buy was very nice. I’m always catching a manager when I leave the store, praising them on their service. They’ve really got customer service down. He apologized for the trouble I’d had, then told me that Geek Squad would have to do a quick check before he could exchange it for a new one.

That’s where things went all wrong. I was already pretty pissy about having a brand new laptop that didn’t work right and the guy from Geek Squad was just a raging ass. I stood and watched him talk with a guy having a similar problem, screen turned so the man could watch what he was doing, telling him how to check for bugs himself, etc. He seemed like a nice guy.

But apparently my lack of penis meant I wasn’t worthy of that sort of service. He finishes with the guy and comes over to me, actually looked around as if sure I’d have a guy with me, then asked in a bored and uninterested voice what was wrong. I explained my problem and he rolled his eyes and started working. Didn’t say a damn word to me, kept the laptop turned away, kept catching his co-worker’s eye and smirking or making a “why do I get stuck with this crap” face. When I asked him what he was doing to the laptop he looked all annoyed and said “Checking for bugs.”

Finally he tells me its fine and pushes it back towards me. I just about lost it. I asked him why it started on a blue screen, he said he didn’t know. I asked him why the mouse pad wasn’t working, he said he didn’t know. I asked him how I was supposed to use a laptop that didn’t start up windows and didn’t have a mouse, he didn’t answer. Then he asked me if I’d put any software on the laptop. I said I had and he actually told me that shouldn’t have loaded any software on it.

This is where I lost my temper. I asked him if I looked that stupid, that I could be told that the problem with my laptop was that I’d put software on it and believe him, or was it just because I was a girl? You have to put software on a computer otherwise all you have is a 6 pound paperweight. Then I told him I wanted a new one. NOW.

He told me they probably didn’t have any left and went shuffling off to the cage where they have the laptops locked up, came back and told me they didn’t have any more. I walked over to the cage and told him “There’s plenty of them in here.”

He gave me a sort of pitying smile. “Just because they have the same boxes doesn’t meant they’re the same computer miss.”

Resisting the urge to slap him, I began pointing. “MX6930, MX6930, MX6930.”

The manager walked over, I might have been yelling the computer number really loudly, I can’t really be blamed for that right? The Geek Squad guy immediately changed tactics and called someone to get a new laptop out.

Shift back to the original Best Buy employee who had been helping me. He did the exchange and kept apologizing; he’d watched the entire ordeal with a look of dim horror on his face the whole time.

The new one works fine. I did not slap or otherwise injure the employee even though he really deserved it. Nor did I tell me he was a raging sexist asshole who needed a good bitchslap. Even though he really deserved that too.

And *sob* I have the hiccups again!