/dev/null/kevin

I tried to warn people last year, but apparently, no one listened.  Cyber Monday is fake.  It's not real.  It's just a made up event to try to promote sales.

The term Cyber Monday is only two years old.  It's supposed to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, but in those two years it hasn't been.  The media, once again, perpetuates a story without verifying it.  More lazy reporters.

For the record, Black Friday is also not the biggest shopping day of the year either, but at least it is an real big with (theoretically) big sales.  Much of it is "bait and switch" but there are some savings, if you don't find your own time valuable and don't mind getting trampled or waiting in ridiculously long checkout lines.

Perhaps the title of this entry should have been "things that make me want to puke."  Cyber Monday is such a thing.

First of all: "cyber."  Eee-ick.  1998 called and wants that prefix back (and yes, 1997 called and wants that joke back).  Since when has the term "cyber-anything" been used by anyone who actually knew what they were talking about?  Never, that's when.  People who use the term "cyber" are the same people who didn't see the plot holes in Independence Day and Signs. 

Second: "Monday."  Why Monday?  According to the "experts" it's because people do all of their shopping at work using their work computer.  That's a pretty bad assumption.  Anyone who would actually buy something online probably already has a computer at home (or a smart phone or PDA), and if they do then why wait until Monday?  Why not shop on Saturday or Sunday?  I'm sure people will, and do, shop at work, but there shouldn't be a huge bump just on that Monday.

Third, why is the media just blindly parroting this story?  The term is only 1 year old and wasn't even correct last year.  While there was increased web traffic that day, it was not the busiest online shopping day.  I expect that trend to continue.

So, here is my prediction, and hope, for Cyber Monday:  It will die the horrible death that it deserves.  As more people get "wired" (to use another really old and obsolete term), people will not be waiting until Monday to shop and they will not do so from their work computers and more than they already do.  People who use the term "Cyber Monday" will also be mocked and ostracized.

Best Buy sucks.  I want to get that out right away so it appears in the synopsis of this entry.

I was sucked into getting up at the butt-crack of dawn so I could wait in line for Best Buy to open.  Their newspaper flyer advertised all kinds of amazing deals, only available from 5am to noon.  Vouchers for certain key items would be handed out starting at 4am!

I didn't expect to be first in line arriving at 3:45am, but I didn't expect to be 800th.  Yes, there were at least 700 people in the line already, and many had partners keeping warm in cars nearby.  You'd think they were selling Playstation 3s inside, but no.

Now, any rational person would have just left (and if had been able to see the line before I parked, I would have), but I decided to tough it out.  I put aside any expectations of getting the huge sales ($379 Centrino laptops, $189 Celeron desktop systems, $999 42" plasma TVs ), but I held out hope for the cheap DVDs, DVD players and SD cards.

The doors opened at 5:00am and I actually stepped in to the store around 5:15.  BTW, I was in the first third of the line by the time the store opened.  My patience was rewarded, as I did find a cheap compact-DVD player, lots of cheap ($2.99) DVDs and even the 2GB and 1GB CD cards for $29.99 and $14.99.  Now, just to pay and get out.

Ha.

Again, I didn't expect to just find an empty register and get out.  I expected to wait up to 30 minutes to check out.

Ha.  Again.

I got in line at 5:30am.  My receipt is stamped 7:22am!  That is why Best Buy sucks.  Let me say it again for the search engines: Best Buy Sucks!

Just a simple matter of huge crowds?  No.  This flaw is by design!   You see, if you want to buy an item, say a camera, you have to wait in the camera line.  Even if you are just buying a camera accessory (like an SD card) then you also have to wait in the same line.  Here's the good part: this line is also the checkout line.  And by "checkout line" I mean a single cashier with a single register.  Forget that huge bank of multi-tasking checkout stations they have at the front of the store!  We at Best Buy are going to create several long, snaking lines that are being processed by a single guy.

If I had wanted to buy a computer, I would have had to wait in the computer line.  And if I had wanted to buy both a computer and a camera, I would have had to wait in BOTH lines.  Yeah.

So what happened is that once people learned of these lines, the lines grew huge and long.  No one in line was shopping for anything else, so Best Buy was actually losing sales!  Smart!  The guy in front of me said that he never had a chance to buy any DVDs because he needed to get a camera before they ran out.  They also pissed off every single person in these "specialty" lines.  You can image people's agitation at taking half an hour just to move 10 feet (no exaggeration!) and then seeing that the line fed into a single cash register instead of the huge bank of registers at the front of the store.

About an hour into the checkout fiasco I asked one of the (actually helpful) floor staff (named Drew) if I could speak to a manager about the line situation.  He went up to his supervisor (Sherwin) and relayed my request.  I could hear Sherwin's response myself, "Well that's too bad!  This is the way it is!"  And then Sherwin stomped off in a huff.

I didn't expect to talk to a manager at that point, but Drew persisted and found someone willing to talk to me, but I had to go to him, he wouldn't come to me.  Since the risk of the line actually moving was nil, my line mates swore to save my place.  The new manager (Armando) pleasantly told me, "this is the way it is," and that "there was a reason for this."  He went on about how each department had to check out their own merchandise and other nonsense.  I told him he was an idiot and this plan obviously wasn't working, and that even a single cashier should be able to process the line faster than it was.  He then informed me that Brian Burke, the general manager, was the real idiot behind this "planning" and he would "relay my concerns" to him.

This went on for about five minutes, right up until I remember the old axiom "never argue with an idiot because you can't win."  I went back to my place in line (which, of course, hadn't moved).  On the way back, I figured out why the line was moving so slowly, even with only one cashier.  The reason was that  the cashier didn't just ring people up, he had to go and get all of the "behind the counter" items for people.  Good system.

About 10 minutes later, something amazing happened: we moved more than an inch at a time.  It was like three whole feet.  My legs almost cramped from the exertion.  What happened?  Our line started being directed to the bank of registers in the front.  Well, one of them anyway.  I guess each department doesn't have to checkout its own merchandise after all.  Just like every other day of the year.  :-|

Right before it was my turn to be "next," the guy in front of me asked for the camera that he had been promised when he entered the line.  Guess what?  Gone.  90 minutes for nothing.  Sherwin had taken his name to reserve the camera but had failed to actual hold the camera for him.  And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding (yes, that's a Seinfeld reference).  Once again, good system!

I sure hope my line mate got something for his troubles.  I still had troubles of my own.  Having been directed to "register #5" (the newly opened one that had here-to-before been unable to check me out), I though my ordeal was over.  Nope.  Seems that the cashier was now having to play salesman and explain the newspaper flyer to a couple buying a laptop for their son.  They couldn't figure out which one to buy, so they bought two (so they could return one).  That's two laptops that the cashier has to now leave the register to go fetch.  I'm not even sure whose fault this is, but it's not mine!

Time passed (slowly).  I saw my line mate still arguing about the camera.  Ah!  The cashier returned with two laptops.  But wait!  These laptops come with free printers, so it's back to the secret place for my cashier.  Longest.  Day.  Ever.  Again he returned.  "Can you ring these up separately?"  Of course you ask that.

At last it was my turn!  Time: 7:21.  I'm out by 7:22.  I felt like I should have taken more time to preserve the status quo.  Maybe cashier #5 can give my legs a massage after standing in 3 hours of lines.  Maybe not.

So, to sum things up:

• Best Buy, Store 190: Sucks
• Brian Burke, General Manager: Huge Idiot
• Armando, Floor Manager: Polite Idiot
• Sherwin, Floor Supervisor: Rude and Incompetent Idiot
• Drew, Floor Staff: Smart, polite, sympathetic  and helpful.  He must be new.

Happy Holidays!

Tags: blackfriday, shopping, bestbuy