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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Animation Abomination

Yesterday I spent my entire shift watching animated training videos. Initially the thought of sitting in a mold-encrusted spider hole (also referred to as the training room) for 5 hours appealed to me as I wouldn't be mindlessly stacking toner cartridges or answering stupid customer questions all night. But once the videos started, I could hardly watch the monitor. In a half-assed attempt to be politically correct, Pencils featured an African-American character that appeared to be suffering from Stage-4 Leukemia. The voice was a combination of Fat Albert and Sir Richard Burton (from Othello). I'm not black, although my wife's Nordic family considers me a "dark skin minority," but I would be definitely taking offense to these videos if I was of African descent.
When there was only 15 minutes remaining on the clock before closing, I emerged from the bowels of Pencils and was immediately approached by a woman and her teenage daughter near the laptop display. I could tell from her accent she was Haitian and she told me she wanted to buy the Acer Laptop that was on sale for $350.00- I knew Pencils would be loosing at least $50 on that sale if she wasn't persuaded to purchase any of the bullshit add-ons, so I told her to make sure she only buys the computer. I informed her that her daughter can download free anti-virus and Open Office for text editing and to forget the extended service plan. As the pair walked out as the last customers of the night, Steve, my associate at the tech bench turned to me and said, "Thanks Mitch, that really brought our store numbers down for the day." It was my pleasure.

11 comments:

  1. Keep up the good work! I am the EasyTech Master/Mobile/Resident Tech at my store. Tomorrow is my last day, I will be posting this on the Staples User Forum!

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  2. Staples "training" certs are an outdated joke. You'd be better off reading the latest Maximum PC...

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  3. Besides, who needs certs when all you really are is an "upsell" market basket whore--it's not like your "EasyTech" skills means a good goddamn to the annoying managers with too much time on their hands and their scumbag district manager.

    After all, it's easier to "train" a salesman to be a "tech" than a tech to be a salesman...

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  4. Chances are, they went home, didn't install shit, and are now fueling several botnets. Good job, Mitch.

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  5. You are my hero, the ESP is a joke it's practically daylight robbery.

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  6. Sell a $150 plan, see no individual incentive and rely on the "team" to get bonuses? Way to suck all the money up for yourself Gayples.

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  7. Grats. Now they don't know how to save files in Word format, and have shit protection that ends up costing them more than they "saved".

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  8. Who needs to have tech skills, when pencils provides access to google and software that is automated on tech services.

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  9. LOL dude I had to watch the same fucking video. It was terrible. I couldn't get over the terrible voice acting on top of the shitty animations. It was like a terrible video game from 1999.

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  10. They may not know how to save files in Word format but they sure as hell think they do.. Also, Avast free antivirus is a heck of a lot better than norton or McCrappie or anything else Staples sells.

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  11. Wow...that training video is seriously messed up. Look at the nametag.."Snoop"..wtf?!? I don't see how it's cheaper to use that crappy animation and a voice-over than an actual actor. There are tons of wanna-be stars in the Hollywood area that would do it cheaply.

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