ABC Wednesday Round 10 - B

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is




I was all set to write about Binomial Nomenclature, the process for assigning scientific names to living organisms.

But, between you and me, that can get boring.

I will try to add some life to that post and post it later, but something happened today that was of such significance to me that I had to Bypass Binomial Nomenclature.

**Warning, I am about to embark on a long rant about a personal experience. If you are here to planning read something deeply educational I suggest you stop reading now.


We bought Diann a new laptop for Christmas this year. (actually waited until after Christmas to buy it.) Her old one was worn out, and falling apart at the seams and it was time to replace it.

So, we spent a Bunch of Bucks at Best Buy and Bought a Beautiful new laptop.

Now, Before I go on, I have to note that in the last 9 months, between a new desktop, a new camera, a new printer and now this laptop, we have spent about $2000.00 at this particular Best Buy, so although we may not be their best customers, we certainly have been loyal and regular customers.

But that was all about to change.

I set up her laptop, downloaded the antivirus protection software offered by our ISP (Comcast) and Diann was ready to go.

Last night, for the first time, she opened it up, logged on and started reading comments on her blog. About 2 hours later, her screen went crazy, and the computer shut down.

It had a virus.

So, today we took the laptop back to Best Buy, to ask them for help.

Mike, the Geek Squad Tech offered to sell us a protection plan for only $200.00 that would include up to three computers in our home, and then he could fix the problem. Or, if we didn't want to do that, we could contact the manufacturer on our own and buy the disks to reformat and reinstall our operating system.

I explained, as politely as I could, to Mike the Geek Squad Tech that since we had just paid a whole bunch of money for this computer and since it wasn't really working, and since we have owned it less than 3 weeks, and since we had never even really used it yet, and since we had spent a great deal of money there in the last year, I had hoped that they would be able to help us fix our problem.

Mike the Geek Squad Tech, told me that there was nothing else he was authorized do, and so I asked if I could speak with someone who had authority to do more.

After a 15 minute wait, Eric the Assistant Manager came over and spoke with me and explained that since the way the Geek Squad makes their money is by fixing things, that it wouldn't be fair for him to ask them to fix this computer without first paying them $200.00.

I graciously offered to simply accept an exchange for a laptop that actually worked, but Eric the Assistant Manager said that they could not accept that computer as a return because it had a virus.

I pointed out that the virus was definitely a factor in my wanting to exchange it, and suggested that perhaps it was on the computer when we bought it, since it WAS in fact a factory refurbished model, but Eric the Assistant Manager bluntly told me that there was no way that could have happened, and that the virus was a result of our actions.

I asked Eric the Assistant Manager if perhaps they could run a smitrem or a malware removal program on our computer and see if that would help. I was annoyed at this time, but still willing to give Best Buy the benefit of the doubt.

This was when Eric the Assistant Manager started with the B.S.

Now, I may not be an expert on computers, but I am somewhat of an expert on B.S. and I know it when I hear it, so when Eric the Assistant Manager told me that they couldn't run anything on this computer in the condition it was in, I immediately recognized that he had no intention of doing anything to help me, no matter how much I may have spent in his store up to that date, and that he was simply throwing words at me to get me to go away.

So I did.

Best Buy lost more than just a $200.00 service contract today. They lost a loyal customer.

I may not have ever been their biggest customer, but as of today, I am no longer even their smallest.

I am personally Boycotting Best Buy.

Fortunately, all's well that ends well.

I called my Brother, who works on computers all day long. (I hate bothering him, because I know he does this at work all day, so when he gets home it seems like he should have some time off.) Actually, I left him a voice mail, since he was busy, and he responded with a text message. He was able to text me the information I needed to remove the virus by myself, at no cost to me.

Now why couldn't Mike the Geek Squad Tech, or Eric the Assistant Manager have taken the five minutes it would have taken to talk me through this process?

So for me, today, B stands for Bravo for Brothers, and Boo-hiss to Best Buy.