Wednesday, March 14, 2007

A Passive Observation

Any time you hear anyone in government say, "Mistakes were made," it's someone who's afraid of a discussion over who made those mistakes.

• Posted at 6:56 PM · LINK

Hi-Tech Lynching

The CompUSA chain is closing down an awful lot of its stores. Here's a list of the ones that are shutting down, and it isn't even complete. The one on La Cienega at the Beverly Connection closed about a year ago and I noticed yesterday that the one at Pico and Westwood in West L.A. is already vacant. Neither is on this list, which I guess is of imminent closures. I used to shop at all three. As one who has purchased an awful lot of software and hardware from them, I'd like to suggest the reason those stores failed.

It's not because there's no demand for their product, that's for sure. Computers...cell phones...PDAs...plasma-screen televisions...My God, if there was ever stuff that people are buying left and right, it's new, high-tech stuff these days. Even people who own those things are in a constant state of upgrading to the next model. You'd think this would be the time that many chains of that sort would be blossoming like Starbucks on every corner.

But there was a problem with CompUSA: Finding anyone worked in one who knew anything about the equipment they were selling. I think you could have walked into the one in Culver City and yelled, "What's a spreadsheet?" and not gotten an answer. It seemed to me like in every store, they had one or two people who knew everything and those people were always too busy to wait on anyone, leaving customers at the mercy of the Amish.

You ever try asking a question in one of these places? Anything more technical than "Where's the men's room?" and you'd get back these blank Orphan Annie eyeballs. Inevitably, they'd start looking around for the one person in the building who might know...and that guy was always occupied and unavailable. I have been in CompUSAs where I wound up taking pity on bewildered customers and helping them with questions. I was also once in one where I had to explain the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R to a salesperson.

There's a place for a chain of computer stores where the people know their merchandise and know their technology. A lot of people would be willing to pay a little more for their technology bling to shop at that store...but it wasn't CompUSA. If I want to buy where they don't know anything about computers, I can go to Wal-Mart or Costco or Best Buy...or better still, order over the Internet. It's cheaper and you get the same amount of personal attention: None.

In the meantime though, the buzz is that the CompUSA stores that are closing are offering substantial discounts. So if the one near you is on the list, you might want to check and see if it's still there and if so, drop by. Just don't try asking anyone anything. If one assumes the smarter employees are already gone to get other employment, you may not even be able to find out where the men's room is.

• Posted at 5:43 PM · <a targ