BOFH: The Geek's Countergambit – outwitted at an electronics store BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns So I'm in line at an electronics shop, waiting to speak to their returns people because I foolishly assumed that when I said that I wanted a VERY SPECIFIC RAM module, the salesperson would supply the module I asked for and not some generic substitute that would save me about 50p but not …
I'm not so sure. He's obviously met someone who also knows how to play THE GAME and he forgot the oldest rule in the returned product category: palm it off on another mug. This is obviously the only way to avoid electronuclear war here. The question is, how can it be made to work for both sides? Obviously, i11s require special RAM, but that isn't quite enough… maybe beancounters can be traded at the DMZ?
And if you are reading this after today (no, not your today, the today when I wrote this), it's this Dilbert strip that we're talking about…
The "bug in the billing software" idea is a straight-up rip-off of (or homage to...?) Office Space.
Inside I find the same RAM as I've just returned.
They're very, VERY good.
In the foulest mood for having inexplicably screwed up the data on a half full 300Gb drive late last night, this episode made my morning much brighter.
I'll probably be laughing till noon as I wait for TestDisk 7.2 to recover the suff from the drive.
Thanks for that. 8^D
And have one (or more, only one icon available) on me ---->
O.
I raise you multiple Seagate barracuda 3TB drives, yes all same vintage and fail (FYI 30% - see previous threads, RAID barely making it through) at the same time. replacement WD all installed over 12 months,and an additional backup regime over the multidisk (thank $deity) I used sufficiently [not optimally] before
4x seagate barracuda 3TB in <2 years ---->icon
Seagate Barracuda?
I see you like to live on the edge. =^)
Gave up on Seagate with the last SCSI drive I had to RMA ($$$) under warranty in 1998 (?).
From there on, only unused SCSI/SAS IBM, Sun or Dell spares from outfits that were upgrading their servers.
Don't know who makes all these now, but not one ever failed me.
O.
been taking the proper lessons and the health and safety regulations in howto use screwdrivers.
Although the latter one has been my down fall after being disturbed by a moron while trying to de-bug a recursive function ..... I kind of went for a cursive fuction after that... closely followed by grabbing 4 screwdrivers , 2 planks of wood and putting up the easter decorations a bit earlier than planned...
Wait, high street (or soulless retail 'park') electronics shops still exist?
Sort of sadly, it has been quite a while since I last, not entirely unhappily, stepped foot into a small, slightly off the main drag, piled high to the ceiling with boxes, hobbyist computer shop, perusing their parts list to see what selection of components my (then) meagre budget could actually afford to assemble a system from.
I kind of assumed that pretty much everyone ordered their RAM (or custom laptop or desktop orders) direct from the interwebs these days? (And it is a bit sad to think that an entire category of shops has been almost entirely eliminated, just like that, although at least some are still around and can still make money from repairs.)
Well, the two computer shops I regularly buy from do have an actual non-intarwebz, geo-locatable presence, but given their distance from my home it's just not very appealing to go there in person. Same with electronics parts shops, even when all the parts I need are indeed in stock in their physical store (which almost certainly won't ever be the case). Household white goods and consumer electronics? Those are still around, but how often are you buying that kind of stuff?
"And it is a bit sad to think that an entire category of shops has been almost entirely eliminated ..."
I'm v lucky that here in The Hague there is still one place like that. Yes, they do sell new-fangled stuff like transistors and Arduino related kit but they also have a huge range of weird vintage kit. A few weeks ago I was admiring their shop window stuffed full of valves/tubes, HV transformers and resistors larger than my laptop computer and got chatting with a guy in his late fifties who commented that this particular display hadn't changed much since he was a teenager, and the stuff was already seriously vintage then.
They don't have much of a website, but you can see part of the shop in the banner on:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbjoz7YmutD-JMwNrqKBvGA
Here's one for the weekend -->
There's RS if you are extremely wealthy and CPC if you live in Preston. Cricklewood still have a counter accessible by the general public, assuming you can afford Sadiq's eye-watering charges for the privilege, but the options for a place to go on a Saturday to have an argument over 85 degree and 105 degree electrolytics are severely limited these days.
Admittedly, that has been the case even before Craplin closed all their shops; finding someone working at a Craplin who knew what an electrolytic is was a challenge. I never thought I'd miss Tandy but one never knows where life will take one...
Online, Bitsbox are rather good if you want a proper, old school, family run electronics shop.
I used to work for Maplin as a Saturday guy. I assure you I know my thermistors from resistors. And TV licensing laws for VHS recorders v B&W TV [colour licence required]
Shitty local senior manager. Framing staff for theft is not a smart move to control costs you've been flagged on* as you were found out. Wan*er.
*the other "Saturday" worker was getting loads of extra shifts, not shared with me**
**busy at university if they had been shared - pillock didn't even have plausible deniability.
Middle management was suspicious and saved the day.
Here in Australia we still have JayCar Electronics - anything from a 3D printer to a single resistor and everything in between.
I use them online a lot, but when I'm working in town, their dingy basement shops are a must for lunchtime inspiration.
I mean, who doesn't need a 10mm tapped spacer, electrolytic capacitor, tub of solder flux or bluetooth dancing santa speaker from time to time?
Here in the States we used to have Fry's Electronics and Micro Center, each with various locations around the country. Fry's is now gone, but these sound like the sort of place the BOFH was visiting. Very familiar with them, am I!
Of course, we used to have Radio Shack, CompUSA and a white-box store in every corner shopping center. Ah, the booming 90's!!
Where I am in the States there's a little cinder block building in the bad part of town. They both bars and woven steel plates over the windows, and you can get anything there. I buy from them regularly, even when the internet might be cheaper, because I want them to stay jn business. They'vr saved my butt more than once by having what I needed in stock when nobody else did. I don't even know if they have a business name, you just have to know they're there.
Many years ago, I worked for the reseller in question. When they were acquired by a well-known purveyor of electronic tat, I opined that this was because the Chairman of the tat-vendor must be pandering to his inner child as he had bought himself a cowboy outfit for Christmas.
Despite many name changes, restructurings, mergers, acquisitions and rebranding in the intervening decades, I have not seen anything since to alter that view.
interesting... this almost looks like Newegg's scammy warranty service policy is now featured in a BOFH episode...
i'm impressed... Simon managed to have this story published at around the same time that Gamers Nexus posted their episode 2 video about Newegg's malicious RMA process and fraud - they intentionally sold a rejected RMA product as a functional product - even if it has a damn sticker on it from the manufacturer that says it has bent CPU pins...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-eB_Bv5Ik
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