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In Which I Moan About Mobile Phones
Jan. 19th, 2009 08:46 pmSpecial icon in honour of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_local_echo and my soon-to-be-unveiled civil partnership...
( Cut for long post )
If you've got this far, well done for putting up with me being a "grumpy old woman" about the state of the smartphone market (awesome phone, great apps, replaces my iPod - pick any two). If you just skipped the cut, well, there's a very sexy youtube vid in there if you happen to share my love of geek-shinies. I'll leave you with a tale from my shopping expedition. After I'd been to get ink for my printer and some cards to print our civil partnership invitations on (that's all coming together now, and I'm really enjoying organising it), I decided to pop into one of the myriad mobile phone stores that litter Cambridge city centre. This is because the battery in my little Nokia has developed a tendency to go from full to flat in a couple of minutes if I look at it a bit oddly. Reasoning that its insides have probably turned to mush, I decided to hunt for a new one. This led me to have the following conversation with a sales assistant who looked like he should have been in school:
Embryo: Hi, how can I help you?
Me, holding up phone: Hi there! I'd like a replacement battery for my phone, please.
Embryo: Oh, we don't sell mobile phone batteries!
Let's get this right - this is a mobile phone shop, and they don't sell batteries for mobile phones.
Me: Do you know where I could get one?
Ay this point, I'm expecting him to direct me to another of the myriad mobile phone shops, perhaps a Carphone Warehouse or something
Embryo: Well, there's a guy on the market sometimes who might have one. Failing that, you can get one off Amazon.
So there we are - I want to buy an actual physical product from a shop which might well be expected to stock the item in question, and I'm told that not only do they not sell them, but my best hope of getting one is via that arch enemy of bricks-and-mortar shops everywhere, Amazon.com. I understand the retail sector is in some difficulty at the moment, but I can't understand why at all...
the_local_echo and my soon-to-be-unveiled civil partnership...( Cut for long post )
If you've got this far, well done for putting up with me being a "grumpy old woman" about the state of the smartphone market (awesome phone, great apps, replaces my iPod - pick any two). If you just skipped the cut, well, there's a very sexy youtube vid in there if you happen to share my love of geek-shinies. I'll leave you with a tale from my shopping expedition. After I'd been to get ink for my printer and some cards to print our civil partnership invitations on (that's all coming together now, and I'm really enjoying organising it), I decided to pop into one of the myriad mobile phone stores that litter Cambridge city centre. This is because the battery in my little Nokia has developed a tendency to go from full to flat in a couple of minutes if I look at it a bit oddly. Reasoning that its insides have probably turned to mush, I decided to hunt for a new one. This led me to have the following conversation with a sales assistant who looked like he should have been in school:
Embryo: Hi, how can I help you?
Me, holding up phone: Hi there! I'd like a replacement battery for my phone, please.
Embryo: Oh, we don't sell mobile phone batteries!
Let's get this right - this is a mobile phone shop, and they don't sell batteries for mobile phones.
Me: Do you know where I could get one?
Ay this point, I'm expecting him to direct me to another of the myriad mobile phone shops, perhaps a Carphone Warehouse or something
Embryo: Well, there's a guy on the market sometimes who might have one. Failing that, you can get one off Amazon.
So there we are - I want to buy an actual physical product from a shop which might well be expected to stock the item in question, and I'm told that not only do they not sell them, but my best hope of getting one is via that arch enemy of bricks-and-mortar shops everywhere, Amazon.com. I understand the retail sector is in some difficulty at the moment, but I can't understand why at all...
