April 12, 2007

The crew appear to be brain-fucked, Lieutenant Data

A security guard sits on a small, elevated platform near the exit of my local PC World store. He has a workstation, a uniform, and a slightly embarrassed look as curious shoppers crane their necks to look up at him as they pass.
Being something of a git, I occasionally offer a “Beam me to the surface, Number One”, or “Charge up the photon torpedoes”, as I breeze past, imagining the scowls.
God knows you need a sense of the absurd when entering one of these stores. I visit roughly once a month, looking for the latest gadget to breathe life into my clunking PC. Naturally, I can never find what I’m looking for.
The acne-faced assistants only have two coherent sentences in their vocabulary, before they lapse into urk-speak. It goes something like this.
A: “Can I help you sir?”
FNC: “Yes. You only seem to have PCI video cards. What are the other sort called?”
A: “I’ll ask the manager.”
Manager is summoned. Manager appears. Manager appears to be younger than Assistant.
M: “Can I help you sir?”
FNC: “Yes. You only seem to have PCI video cards. What are the other sort called?”
M: “Hmm? Urrr. Ngg.” (shrugs, turns to assistant) “Rurrr hnggg wurrr.”
A: “Rrr ug ug grrrrn?”
M: “Hurrrrn. Urrr.”
FNC: “Don’t worry. I’ll go and look online.”
How these bastards ever sell anything I don’t know. I head for the exit, annoyed.
FNC: “Send a security team to the engine room, Lieutenant Worf.”
I’m flabbergasted every time I watch M&C Saatchi’s attempt to convince us that PC World is not staffed by cavemen from Planet Acne. Instead, they would have us believe that the store urks can string more than four words together. Just take a look at the ad currently on air and tell me you wouldn’t want to shoot this over-opinionated immigrant from Planet Fucking Annoying.
Notice how this staff numpty recites the already-bought PC specs back to the customer, inferring that she's either stupid, or just a typical woman (his assumption, not mine), and wouldn't have checked it out before spending £399 on it.

4 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...


M: “Hmm? Urrr. Ngg.” (shrugs, turns to assistant) “Rurrr hnggg wurrr.”


Who taught him how to speak monkey language? If he said that in my part of the jungle a baboon would be rimming him.

Mrs Belmot said...

This is ABYSMAL advertising at its worst.

Bringing in a 'ringer' who is NOT gormless (= clearly not a PC World employee) is treacherous.

Also, it's patronising telling someone all about something they've just bought.

If this happened to me in real life, I would stare at them HARD.

SchizoFishNChimps said...

Alas, staring HARD at a numpty like this would get you locked up. To that sort of person, it is his HUMAN RIGHT to get a reaction. You MUST look stupid in his eyes.
To assert dominance over him by staring would be as bad as you eating his babies.

RFB said...

And the cuursor hand coming out of the screen to shake hands with the customer is pretty creepy. Looks like a bejeweled glove; something Michael Jackson might wear. And he likes monkeys.