Item Subject: BoF Fry's Raod Trip @ IPROF '97
Don writes:
>For those of you (us!) that are planning on going on this little jaunt,
>you may want to peruse the following web site to prepare yourself for
>what _may_ occur.  Never having shoped there, myself, I cannot speak to
>the veracity of the statments made, but caveat emptor, etc.
>
>http://www.accesscom.com/%7Edave6592/frys.html

Fry's are actually an OK bunch to deal with once you learn a few rules and
what not to expect.  The number one rule is:

1) Do not attempt to pay by check.

Rules two through nine are:

n) See Rule #1.

After this there are just a few more:

10) They don't take AMERICAN EXPRESS either, so bring MasterCard, Visa, or
    wads and wads of cash.

11) Don't *expect* useful help from anyone who works there.  This way you'll
    be pleasantly surprised when you get it.  Do your own research ahead of
    time.

12) Less than 90% of the sales people are actually *blithering* idiots.  If
    you ask for help and don't get it, try someone else or come back later.

I've recently had a couple of incredibly *good* experiences, including
the purchase of a new cell phone (one of the more exotic models), where the
sales girl worked like a dog for over an hour to figure out how to get the
phone programmed (after I had already been told by the floor manager that
it was impossible for them to program the phone and that the phone company
would have to do it).  She worked with support people on the phone to first
figure out how to get the phone unlocked (it had been taken out of the box
at some point to show someone and they had locked it), and then programmed.
Everyone else there would have given up at the first difficulty, but she
fought through all the problems and I got my phone.  She later called me
at home to give me some information that she had forgotten to tell me at
the store.  Needless to say, I was very impressed!

Yesterday I dropped by the Palo Alto Fry's on my way to work and purchased
32Mb of memory for a PC.  The memory sales guy was quick and efficient, and
they had what I wanted in stock (two 16Mbyte 32x4M 70ns SIMMs for $114 each).

The memory even worked the first time!

by the way, that works out to $7.75 per megabyte.  It hasn't been *that* many
years since we paid $12,000.00 for *one* megabyte of memory for an MPE/V
system.

I find Fry's more valuable because of selection than price generally.  I
wouldn't say that they are usually the cheapest place to get something.

G.

P.S. Did I mention that you shouldn't try to buy anything at Fry's with a check?