Sometimes, we get a tip in that rides the line between malignant incompetence and stupid mistake. I’m not really sure which one this next one counts as, so I’ll let you decide.

Full tip:

There was a compact flash card I was looking into purchasing that was on clearance at my local Best Buy for my new Sony Alpha 200. I checked on the website and it was available at the one near my home so I hopped in my car to go pick it up. I walk in find the Camera section and can’t seem to find the card. I ask the guy standing there and first thing he does is tell me that the website is not always accurate.

Oh I know I’m in for a fun time

so he checks the local inventory and says that yes it is in stock. So he looks everywhere I just looked and let me know he was going in the back to check the stock room. I wait around and actually see someone I know I talk with him for a few moments until the guy returned.

“Sorry the inventory must be off I couldn’t find it.” I assumed as much, so I walk over to the mini Apple store hop on the new unibody Macbook Pro and go to BestBuy.com and order it for in store pickup. I get my first e-mail and print it out on one of the stores printers with Wi-Fi and wait and talk to my Apple rep friend. After a few minutes I got my second e-mail stating that they found it and I can come pick it up. I walk up to customer service and pick up my flash card that doesn’t exist.

I mention what I had done and the salesperson’s inability to find my product. They laid a few lines on me about how it was in the wrong place and he probably wouldn’t know where it was, and the woman who rang me out asked me what the person looked like, I thought finally someone who cares about the crap I had to go through, until she stated that she wanted to make fun of him.

“The inventory must be off” seems like a pretty weak answer, especially considering their supposed ease of finding it the second time. I’m leaning towards absolute mistake on the art of best buy, but in any case it is still somewhat annoying.

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