Tuesday was one of those rare days at work when my company actually paid me to spend their money. We have just been awarded a contract from the Department of Transportation and as part of the contract we have to procure some computer equipment and a camera (along with other miscellaneous crap) for the resident engineer to use for the duration of the job. I was charged with getting the camera and the computer gear.

I was under the gun to get this stuff and to prepare the computer (delete Vista and install XP, Office, and lots of other software) so I couldn’t order the stuff online and was forced to actually go to a brick-and-mortar store. Gasp! With CompUSA gone under, my choices were limited to Best Buy or No Where, so I chose Best Buy. But that was OK, because I like Best Buy. It’s just a shame that they make it so hard to spend a lot of money there. I’m afraid that they could be loosing out on a ton of business because of their bazaaro security enforcement. I’ll explain.

My first goal was to get a digital camera. I went to the camera department and found the camera I wanted in two minutes, and then hunted for fifteen minutes for the correct guy in a blue shirt. All of his neighbors were hanging around in their own departments, but the camera dude was MIA. Once I found him, he had to go to the back to get the camera because Best Buy likes to keep the products safely out of the wrong hands - the customer’s. To this end, he would not let me take the camera out of the department without buying it. I told him I had a lot of other stuff to buy first, so I would come back later to pick it up. I was already seeing that this was not going to be easy.

Knowing that a similar fate awaited me at the computer department, I decided to shop for all of the other miscellaneous items like a portable printer, ink, CDs, power inverter, laptop bag, etc. All of that went well because no guys in blue were needed.

Now to the software department. I needed XP Professional and Office 2007 Professional. I couldn’t find XP, and the Office box was just an empty decoy. I hunted down the appropriate guy in blue. I think the Best Buy employees should all have to wear a different color shirt depending on their departments so customers can find them easier, or perhaps wear blue shirts but different color fluorescent hats. Or they could just leave the products on the fucking shelves like every other store, but I digress. So anyway, software guy goes in the back and gets my software. But, of course, I can’t have it. No, It will be waiting for me at register 8. Fine, I think in my head: I’ll have to buy the camera, buy the laptop, then buy the rest of the stuff from checkout 8 – no problem?!?

Over to the computer department now, I pick out a laptop, hunt down the computer guy, he goes in back and gets it, he won’t give it to me, he tells me it will be at customer service. Now I’m annoyed.

I go back to the camera department and ask to buy the camera. He asks if I want to pay for the other stuff here too. I tell him no because I plan to go through register 8 because I have software there. He says, no problem – he’ll just bring the camera over to register 8 for me. I sigh and tell him, but somehow I also have to buy the computer that is waiting for me at customer service. He says no problem and tells me that he will bring the camera to customer service and get the software from register 8 and bring it all over to customer service. I give him a sincere thank you and go to customer service, where my laptop is not. When the camera dude comes by with my software and camera, I send him on another quest to get my laptop, which he does.  Thanks, camera guy - you rock. Finally, all of my items were in one joyous location. I plunk down the company credit card and sign the electronic pad “Fuck Bestbuy.” No one looks at the card and the transaction goes through.

I then take, literally, ten step toward the front door and am stopped by the front door guard who glances at my receipt and then unbags each item, one at a time, and puts them in another bag and then finally sends me on my way ten minutes later. What a fucking asinine system!

And the truly silly part of all this is that I was left alone at the customer service desk with all of my expensive items (sans computer) for a good ten minutes and I was in front of the machine that neutralizes the security tags, so if I really was a hoodlum I had a nice desk in front of me to hide my stuffing cameras and shit down my pants. But I’m sure that Best Buy has thought of that and has at least ten redundant measures in place to prevent it.

Best Buy: I have a couple of ways to improve your system. How about you let us handle our own merchandise while in the store, and then you have all of your security at the check out? I know - that’s crazy talk. OK, how about this: How about all of us customers just shop nude? Then you can be really, really sure that we are not stealing your stuff. Well, actually you would have to do a cavity search as we checked out. And then another one at the front doors just for good measure. You know what, forget I mentioned it.