[uqual]

It's good to finally have something "between" Best Buy and Central Computer (et al) back in the SV after Fry's died its slow and painful death as the previous Micro Center in Santa Clara closed.

Unfortunately this new one is in the same shopping center as Harbor Freight and it's close to where I live - this could get expensive... Mean to shop at one, end up shopping at both...

The lines on the "insider" opening day 5/28 were pretty long - I waited about an hour in line just to get into the store and the checkout line was over an hour long.

However, based on my purchases that day, I fear they will be unpleasant to shop at - even when busy, they were annoyingly upselling extended warranties. The sales associate on the floor tried to sell me on a plan for a laptop I bought and then, while there were hundreds of people waiting to checkout, the cashier spent time doing so AGAIN. Both were just following their mandated scripts and were at least nice about it all. They apparently also have some sort of rule that the customer buying something like a laptop also needs to "meet" with the sales associate's manager/supervisor - which was a completely useless awkward perfunctory handshake (and the customer survey asked if this meeting had happened so it appears to be an annoying institutional rule).

[arcanemachiner]

> the customer survey asked if this meeting had happened so it appears to be an annoying institutional rule

Whenever I get a survey that asks dumb questions like that, I just answer "yes" so that the employees don't get harassed for not asking those dumb questions to me in person.

"Were you warmly welcomed by a team member?" You bet I was!

"Did one of our team members tell you about our partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation?" Sure, why not?

[vunderba]

There's a great parody of the whole customer satisfaction thing on a very underrated comedy series called "Corporate". Five out of five!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvHZfAT0F94