Got off the phone with a "step" family member to discuss their wireless issues. I've been to there house and it is a big house and they've had numerous additions throughout the years with some rooms divided with concrete block. So they pop over to the local BB and the guy starts giving the lip service about since they haven't upgraded their router in 5 years they have to have the latest AC router. He goes on to tell them they should need anything else and that will cure all ills. He doesn't get it and a week goes by until the next wifi irritation. So he calls Comcast to see what's going on. They proceed to tell him he is CRAZY for not renting one of their routers/modems because he will get a router at the same price as the modem rental HE IS ALREADY PAYING. Now I know some of you are shocked this is still not working out for them....I just find it funny how clueless most people are including those who sell/install it!

One of my latest hires is still working weekends on the retail floor at BB and knows all of the spec's inside and out. Guess who is a little overwhelmed from things not working like he has been told! It's actually pretty funny!

This has been Best Buys business model since the beginning. Hire morons, teach them buzz words, wish them luck.

I will never forget my first experience in a BB. I wanted to get a Sony VCR because i knew it had discrete codes (for my pronto TS-1000). BB employee tells me to buy another make/model because its "hi fi". I ask him "whats the difference?". He says "This one has High Fidelity so its better".

NSFW (Profanity)

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I've experienced it myself before but it still amazes me the misinformation that people are subjected to every day with retail electronics.

Well Mac, to be fair, Hi-Fi IS better! Especially when talking about a VCR!

Same philosophy the sales team incorporated at Ultimate Electronics, where I started out (delivery/warehouse....not sales). The guys who sold the most were the ones that memorized all the specs and acronyms and knew how to use them smoothly in their sales pitch. They would adopt their speech depending on what brands and models had the largest spiffs that week. :) Brilliant!

Customers must have caught on that last week, the same guy told him why the Mits was better than the Samsung....and today, magically, the Samsung is better....likely for the same reasons! Not sure who is more ignorant...the sales guys or the consumer sheep. Everyone is happy, I guess that is all that matters. :)

I've realized the same is true for all products, especially when dealing with a big box/chain store. Be it vacuum cleaners, appliances, car batteries, central HVAC, etc. And in each field, if you find a specialty dealer, they are just as passionate about quality products in their field as most of us are about audio and electronics. I have an aunt and uncle that still own a small appliance store and do repairs. I can get him fired up for hours about the crap models the big box stores get manufacturers to make for them. And this summer my wife finally gave in to my suggestion after going through multiple wal-mart vacuums, and went to a vacuum store and bought a meile. I went by to drop the demo unit off and talked to the owner and ended up getting an hour lesson on how not only is suction important, but so is air flow, and how dyson never mentions air flow in their ads. That vacuum cost me $500 (and that was discounted because my family is his landlord). But it has a real warranty and he will clean and service it once a year for life.

Yeah, but would any Sony VHS VCR sold in ~1999 *not* be Hi-Fi (ie. without that, it would be mono)? My first Hi-Fi VCR was a Hitachi in 1989 or so...

I'll say it again.................BB is job security for CI's.

A quote we use several times a month......."you didn't mind paying them to do it wrong, might as well pay us to do it right."

No, a non-HiFi could still be stereo using a fixed audio head, just not using the rotary head to record the HiFi audio tracks.

They were both hifi. Both said it right on the box. Thats when i decided to ask him what the difference between the two were to see what else he could conjure up.

I remember him saying "this one is hifi...that means its high fidelity". LOL

I understand this but it's incredibly annoying to constantly have to re-educate customers because of misinformation. It's also good to post stuff like this from time to time because there are a lot of homeowners who read this section. I was literally laughing out loud and this guy had to stop to ask me why I'm laughing!

Agreed. One could make the point that we are always going to be re-educating. As for those lurking homeowners out there: think about what your paying for, you spend 10k in best buy and the $13/hr kid that programs it will be gone in 6 months.

And most likely wont configure the gear properly. Surround receivers that aren't configured...universal remotes that are programmed without macros...

So your $10k gets you about a $2k experience.

Back when progressive scan and 3:2 pulldown were buzz terms for DVDs, a BB salesman told me that 3:2 pulldown was the 3 seconds before the laser read the disc, in a " 3...2....1...go" fashion. I couldnt believe my ears and just chuckled a bit.

How many decades have speakers been sold based on the very important fact that they are "this many watts"?

Except that was an early VCR phenomenon... not found by 1999.