Fry's Salespeople starting a feisty LH session.

Fry's: the Lowest Common Denominator of Retail

I discovered Fry’s through my father. My father was a tech freak of the first order. He loved Fry’s, and would comb through it like a pervert at the Castle Sex Superstore.

For those who don’t know: Fry’s is an emporium of tech goodies for the home, office, and elsewhere. It’s where you go to find computers. Radios. Surveillance cameras. Soldering irons. Stereo equipment. TV, Tivo, tripods, toy bots, Toys for Boys, really.

Shopping with my father in Palo Alto ten years ago, however, I was warned that this was not a place you visited for customer service. He passed the occasional off-color jibe about the overwhelmingly Hindu-biased staff, but it was just out of frustration for their lack of knowledge. It was comical, really, unless you actually needed to know something that wasn’t on the box. Even on the box. Or even where you could find the particular product you wanted to buy. But not what it could or couldn't do. They'll tell you anything to just make you move along.

Fry’s opened in Renton recently, and many rejoiced. It’s a perfect market here in Seattle for a Fry’s – the tech population is high, with a disposable income level to match.

Bill and I went Saturday. I wanted a PDA. I was pretty set on $200 or less, but was thinking that WiFi might be a nice addition.

First major impression I got on this trip was the sales help. Very, very hard to get anyone to look you in the eye – they knew that eye contact was just inviting questions. It was like a bunch of abused dogs - they just wouldn't meet your glance. They raced around like they all had someplace to be, like they were actually helping a customer. Then you could spy clusters of two or three on lonely aisles humping each others legs.

I finally got someone to talk to me about PDAs, though his knowledge was sparse. No, not sparse. Non existent. He took me to the ‘computer desk’ where a manager of some sort kind of intimated he knew something. He then drew in two other associates on small questions; “Jerrod, does the X30 have WiFi?” “Tomas, does the JZP39 come with a cradle?” And each of them thought, and went for brochures or something… and I stood waiting for someone to answer a question.

Finally I asked the manager, as he was busily looking through a book, “So what do you see there?”

He looked at me like he’d never seen me before. “Uh, about what?” he looked befuddled.

“About the handhelds I was asking about.”

His head swung back and forth in search. “Oh – uh Tomas was working on that.” Tomas had drifted away. “And Jerrod.” Jerrod was on the phone with someone. "Uhm..I'll get someone else for you." Then he disappeared. And this turned out to be their game. I watched it happen to other customers in other departments.

I went off and found the Palm of my choice, but was still being tempted by models for twice the amount that had WiFi. I grabbed Jerrod as he raced by on his way to another LH session over in Peripherals. He was confused, but finally said, “you can just get an SD WiFi card to stick in the expansion slot on the cheaper ones, and you’ve got WiFi.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Oh yeah! Just go to the Networking department. They’ve got ‘em.” He was saying this as he spoke walking backwards on his Mission of Avoidance.

I will shorten this story. I got home and tried it all out. The WiFi softare locked my new PDA up time and time again. An hour of screwing with it. Finally I did some web research and found out that the WiFi card only works with one model of Palm. None of the other dozens of Palm PDAs can use this card. And everyone on the web seemed to know it.

I’ll return it today. Though Bill went yesterday to return the thing he bought on our trip. (The thing they told him would work, but didn’t work at all.) He went through the returns line, left, got home, and found out that the piece of paper he was holding was not a credit card credit… it was a piece of paper he had to take to another cashier for them to give him a credit.

If you’re going to Fry’s, go in knowing what it is you need, and be prepared to find it yourself. Because all they can do is sell it to you.