The Geek Squad

Have you heard of The Geek Squad? They just replaced the motherboard in our computer because it had stopped working for some reason. However, they couldn't tell us the reason, they said. Usually the resistors fry, they said, but not in our case. Everything else on our PC was fine however, they said.

We have two hard drives that use a RAID configuration to make our two hard drives appear to be one they said. The geeks at the squad, however, did not have a motherboard that was compatible with the apparently-outdated RAID configuration. We would have to go buy the part somewhere else, they said. We did.

The replacement part, for one reason or another, wouldn't work with our hard drives they said. Unless, of course, we wanted half a file on one of the drives while the other half of the file was on the other drive. Half a digital picture here, half there... half a term paper here, half there. Yep, that sounds ideal to me. They would have to order the part themselves, they said. They did.

They installed the new motherboard. You'll have to reinstall your operating system for the PC to work, they said. We didn't. It worked fine. Except... we had no video output. Bring everything back into us, they said. I did. I hauled our CPU, monitor, and all cables to Best Buy along with my infant and toddler sons. By myself. Never again, I said.

Remember when they said the rest of our PC worked fine? It didn't. Our monitor's AC adaptor wasn't working properly. We don't carry the part here, they said. You can call our Customer Support Center however and they can order it for you. I did. They didn't have it in stock.

I can transfer you to our Customer Care Center for additional assistance, she said. What is the difference between Customer Support and Customer Care? I wondered. Customer Care didn't carry the necessary part either, they said. I would have to buy the part somewhere else, they said. Perhaps the manufacturer of the monitor would carry it, they suggested. Perhaps.

Perhaps not. We no longer manufacture that monitor, they said. We no longer carry any parts for that monitor, they said. Hmmm... am I just out of a perfectly good monitor because you can't get me the shitty-ass part I need to make your monitor work? Yes, they said. Unless, of course, I want to try eBay or Google to see if I can find one online, they said.

I see. The Geek Squad would have to just send the monitor in to have it repaired, they said. Can't you simply call your service team to see if they have an AC adaptor, I asked? No, they said. We'll have to send it in. I see. How long will this process take? About 2-4 weeks, they said. I see. And what happens if your service team doesn't have the adaptor either? Well, they will send the monitor back to us and we'll make exchange arrangements for a new monitor, they said. I see. We can't just do an exchange now? No, they said. We have to attempt to service the problem first. I see.

After muddling through this ordeal at The Geek Squad's desk for 95 minutes, they said they were unable to make the necessary service arrangements. I see. And why is that? We can't get our computer system to work right today, they said. Aha. I see. So, what shall we do now? We'll just give you an exchange, they said.

Argh.