Kentucky Fried Customer

Lord Zim regrets that he is about to launch into an aggrieved customer tirade against a major corporation. He knows this is a tired subgenre of bloggery, but he is unable to resist.

I will not bore you with all the reasons I hate Best Buy. My story is much too sad to be told. And it takes about 20 minutes when I do tell it. No, I'll just say that the nightmare of bad products and apathetic, inflexible customer service I have received from Best Buy has plumbed new depths in my life as a consumer. If you must buy anything electronic, go anywhere but Best Buy. Don't become one of the countless disappointed people I've watched walk away from the "Customer Service" desk seething and cursing.

The prices are high, the selection is limited, the service is slow and slapdash, and the policies are written to take advantage of you. In fact, the CEO announced last year that the new corporate mission is to superserve the Top 10% of customers -- and let the rest rot. So unless you plan to drop ten large on a new car stereo, they don't want your business. Buy at Fry's, buy at Amazon, buy at Buy.com ... just don't buy at Best Buy.

But that's not the point of this post. This is: I was writing to a friend about the Kafka-esque experience I had on the phone yesterday with Best Buy (I spent at least two hours trying to find out where they lost my new laptop and why they won't send me a new one).

When I clicked "send" on my email client, the spellchecker offered to substitute "KFC" for Kafka.

Now ain't that America? Land of the chains.

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