Why am I surrounded by fricking idiots?
*headdesk*
Well, it's a good thing I don't do Xmas, otherwise my day would be completely ruined.
As a present to myself, I decided it was well and truly time that I had more than 160G of storage space on my machine. I check the website for my computer store of choice, and note that they are selling 320G PATA HDDs for $150 or so. Score.
So, Friday, (22/12) I call ahead to make sure that they have one of these drives in stock, and can they please put one aside for me, I'll be in to pick it up that afternoon. (Clearly saying several times the words 'Seagate PATA') They say yes, and give me a consignment number. I later head in to the store and eventually get to talk to the guy at the counter about my order. I've written the consignment number down, and hand him the piece of paper with said number on it, once again mentioning that I wanted a Seagate PATA drive with the 16M cache.. Drone nods, enters the number, nods again, quotes a price slightly different from the one listed on the website. I point out this difference, and am told that that is only for online sales.
"Tis only $5", I think, and pay for it, taking my receipt next door to actually get my drive, then head on to work and the so-called staff party. (Which is happening in the store while it's still open, mind you.)
Skip to today, when I decide it's time to actually install the drive and start the annoying 'swap data between drives' so that I can pass my old 40G drive to my housemate and expand my (currently 5G) boot partition. I'll shut down the machine, un-plug everything, lug the heavy bitch out of it's nook and across the room to where I can actually work on it and open the sucker up. Remove the second DVD burner so I have an IDE cable to plug the new drive into, and then go get the new drive and open the anti-static bag it's in.
At which point I start to slide it out of it's bag when I notice that the info printed on top of the drive says not 'Seagate' like it should, but 'Western Digital'.
*pause* Um, what?
I look over the drive, thinking 'Huh, I'll bet they've given me the 8Mb cache WD instead, idiots' and go look at the invoice to see what they've actually sold me. Disappointing, but it's not that big a deal. Except that upon reading the invoice, and then checking the drive, it turns out that they didn't give me the WD 320G PATA HDD with 8Mb of cache, but rather the WD 320G SATA HDD with 16Mb of cache.
Neither of which, of course, is the Seagate 320G PATA HDD with 16Mb of cache that I repeatedly asked for.
Given that my motherboard doesn't support SATA (or I wouldn't have asked for PATA now, would I?) I have a very expensive paperweight at the moment. And this particular store always closes on the 23rd or 24th of December and doesn't open again until the 2nd of January. *sigh* Oh, but I'm working on the 2nd, so I guess it'll be the 3rd at the earliest that I can go visit these idiots and get the drive I actually asked for.
To make things even more interesting, the invoice I have claims that they charged me $150, not $155. I wonder just where that extra $5 ended up?
Such a pity that the name of the muppet that served me is on the invoice, now, isn't it?
Well, it's a good thing I don't do Xmas, otherwise my day would be completely ruined.
As a present to myself, I decided it was well and truly time that I had more than 160G of storage space on my machine. I check the website for my computer store of choice, and note that they are selling 320G PATA HDDs for $150 or so. Score.
So, Friday, (22/12) I call ahead to make sure that they have one of these drives in stock, and can they please put one aside for me, I'll be in to pick it up that afternoon. (Clearly saying several times the words 'Seagate PATA') They say yes, and give me a consignment number. I later head in to the store and eventually get to talk to the guy at the counter about my order. I've written the consignment number down, and hand him the piece of paper with said number on it, once again mentioning that I wanted a Seagate PATA drive with the 16M cache.. Drone nods, enters the number, nods again, quotes a price slightly different from the one listed on the website. I point out this difference, and am told that that is only for online sales.
"Tis only $5", I think, and pay for it, taking my receipt next door to actually get my drive, then head on to work and the so-called staff party. (Which is happening in the store while it's still open, mind you.)
Skip to today, when I decide it's time to actually install the drive and start the annoying 'swap data between drives' so that I can pass my old 40G drive to my housemate and expand my (currently 5G) boot partition. I'll shut down the machine, un-plug everything, lug the heavy bitch out of it's nook and across the room to where I can actually work on it and open the sucker up. Remove the second DVD burner so I have an IDE cable to plug the new drive into, and then go get the new drive and open the anti-static bag it's in.
At which point I start to slide it out of it's bag when I notice that the info printed on top of the drive says not 'Seagate' like it should, but 'Western Digital'.
*pause* Um, what?
I look over the drive, thinking 'Huh, I'll bet they've given me the 8Mb cache WD instead, idiots' and go look at the invoice to see what they've actually sold me. Disappointing, but it's not that big a deal. Except that upon reading the invoice, and then checking the drive, it turns out that they didn't give me the WD 320G PATA HDD with 8Mb of cache, but rather the WD 320G SATA HDD with 16Mb of cache.
Neither of which, of course, is the Seagate 320G PATA HDD with 16Mb of cache that I repeatedly asked for.
Given that my motherboard doesn't support SATA (or I wouldn't have asked for PATA now, would I?) I have a very expensive paperweight at the moment. And this particular store always closes on the 23rd or 24th of December and doesn't open again until the 2nd of January. *sigh* Oh, but I'm working on the 2nd, so I guess it'll be the 3rd at the earliest that I can go visit these idiots and get the drive I actually asked for.
To make things even more interesting, the invoice I have claims that they charged me $150, not $155. I wonder just where that extra $5 ended up?
Such a pity that the name of the muppet that served me is on the invoice, now, isn't it?