The Big Box Fiasco (Part II)

I’m putting Torts aside to write about yesterday’s journey in awful aka, the Big Box fiasco Part II.

So, I’ve called Big Box three times to follow-up on the Flipcam I sent out for repair.

The first time I called, Big Box still had my repair job under my old (and out of service) Miami number.

The second time I called, Big Box didn’t have the repair job under any number.

The third time I called was this Wednesday…

Me: “Hi, I’d like to check the status of a camera I sent out for repair.”

Geek Squad Dude: “Uh, sure… Erm, it looks like it hasn’t arrived at the repair center yet.”

Me: “…Um… I sent the camera out for repair two weeks ago.”

Geek Squad Dude: “Yeah. The 25th. I see that. I don’t know what to tell you. It should be there.”

Me: “…but it isn’t.”

Geek Squad Dude: “Right.”

Me: “…Well, what happened to my camera?”

Geek Squad Dude: “I dunno.”

Me: “…well, did you guys lose my camera? What’s going on here?”

Geek Squad Dude: “I don’t know what to tell you. It hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t know what’s going on. We tell you it’ll take two weeks to repair, but that’s just what we tell people… we don’t really know what’s going on.”
Gee thanks. Customer service FAIL.  I didn’t have time for the drammy because I had an 8-hour Constitution Law final Thursday.

But I had a plan!

So, Thursday I woke up around 4am, cleaned the kitchen, made breakfast, and then scooted off for a last minute review session at Starbucks at 5:30am.

I started the exam around 8am. The word limit was 3,500. I thought this was a lot of room, but I ended up writing 3,499 words. Yeah.

…and thank goodness my professor didn’t ask about detainee rights… Hamdi and Hamdan blur together for me…

Anyhoot: I hand in my test around 3:30, and ten minutes later I’m on a bus to Rosedale Mall (where the Big Box is.)

I arrive at Rosedale around 4:30pm. I politely say goodbye to the pissy bus driver and march into Big Box with a big-ass smile.

After an 8 hour exam I was ready to let them have it.

I stand in line, all extra-chipper. I was like Pollyanna reincarnated…

When it was my turn, the Geek Squad guy he gave me the “Oh shit” look. He wasn’t stupid – when a customer is that happy and polite it’s a set up. Always.

Me: “Can you check the status of a repair?”

Geek Squad Guy: “Sure…hm. Your camera arrived at the repair center today. We’ll give you a call when it’s done.”

Me (extra smiley): “I appreciate that. My concern is that I sent it out two weeks ago. Is it normal for shipping to take that long? Big Box is based here in Minnesota right?”

Geek Squad Guy: “Uh, yeah.”

Me: “And when I called yesterday the Geek Squad Rep I talked to basically told me my camera was lost.”

Geek Squad Guy: “Well, what happened was that you came in on November 25th, we didn’t send it out till the 26th, but that was the Thanksgiving Weekend. The delivery company was lagging and our repair place was closed over Thanksgiving… the first time we could have accepted it was that Monday…so you lost a week right there.”

Me: “Does it usually take this long?”

Geek Squad Guy: “Well, two things – shipping is slower during the Holidays and our delivery company sucks. We are trying to get another carrier…”

Me: “Can you call the repair center to see what’s going on?”

Geek Squad Guy: “Hah! No! They don’t accept incoming calls. Good thing too. I’d be on the phone cussing their asses out every day.”

Geek Squad Guy was too cool, so instead of doing the whole, “I WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE TOO IMPORTANT TO WEAR A NAME BADGE!” routine that I had planned, I thanked Geek Squad Guy and left.

I was still a bit frustrated, especially since I just realized that I left my hat on the bus… So, I decided to go see a movie.

I saw Punisher: War Zone… which is the campiest superhero movie ever. This is the movie every 15-year-old boy wants to see. The Punisher is like an updated, horribly un-PC Batman.

Every problematic caricature you can think of is in this movie:

• Guido mob-bosses
• Cops with thick NY accents
• Thugs with the requisite bling and big fur coats
• Chinese gangs
• Skinheads
• Russian mob bosses (with nukes)
• Arab terrorists (who everyone calls “rag heads”)
• The Mexican ex-con with the ridiculous mi-amigo accent
• And the acrobatic British Meth-heads ala Madonna’s Jump.

Oh, and of course the deformed bad guy (ala Two-Face) and his crazy brother…

And like any gun-slinging action movie: all the bad guys have machine guns and are yet completely incapable of actually hitting anyone.

Yes. The Punisher is all sorts of camp and awful… and I loved it! It was the kind of mindless entertainment that is perfect after a law school final.

Oh, and if any of you actually have 15-year-olds in the house DO NOT let them watch this movie. The movie is unnecessarily gory. The characters snort (and smoke) cocaine, get shot in the head, axed, gutted, blown up with short-range missiles,… and the insane brother character (above) also eats someone’s kidney…

Uh yeah…. that’s sounds really bad now that I type it… it didn’t seem THAT bad during the movie…but,  if you had an 8-hour final, followed up with Big Box drammy, kidney-related-unsavoriness wouldn’t sound so gruesome either…