the smoking vegans
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Yeah, well Small Dog can lick me
In addition to being a smoking vegan, I'm also an Apple user. If you're one too, you've doubtless heard of Small Dog Electronics, one of the fastest growing third party sellers of Apple-related crap. The actual Small Dog (not the 800 number, not the website) is about 5 minutes from our apartment, and has been there for awhile now. I started going there a couple of summers ago to window shop, and occasionally buy stuff. My 3G iPod, RAM upgrades, second HD, a 4G iPod, adapters of all sorts, etc.
Somewhere along the line, their ego inflated. A lot. So much so, they treat average customers like total shit. Even customers that have spent an ass-ton of their hard-earned cash there. Which, I guess if you're Small Dog, is how you say "Thanks for helping a Small Business get to the point where we don't value you anymore." The last few times I've been in there, the customer service has been worse than terrible. Hell, the average Apple Store now has better service than Small Dog. And have you ever been in an Apple Store? It's like fucking "Night of the Living Dead" meets the Heaven's Gate cult, but with pretty computers.
SD's tech support folks used to be the best. Now they've been replaced by zitty twenty-year-olds who can't get laid and still live in their mom's basement. Fuck, they couldn't get laid even if they had a brand-new Nano hanging out of their fly, which is about the size of what's down there anyway, I imagine. And you know what? It shows. Their are mean little bastards whose sole mission is no longer to help, but to bilk you out of as much money as possible. If you are actually there for tech support because of an error on their part, they delay and huff as much as they can in an effort to make you give up on getting help. It's rather astonishing.
Or, if you just want to buy something, you end up waiting nearly half an hour. But not in line. Just in front of the register. There's no line. Because everyone in front of you left twenty minutes earlier, when they realized no one was coming to help, even though plenty of staffers walked buy. Now this isn't a giant place. It's probably smaller than most Dunkin' Donuts. It's not as though employees must make a long, arduous journey across a warehouse and over a minefield to make it to the register. They are just lazy assholes who don't give a shit about shop customers, since most of their sales come from online and the phone. Suddenly the people who helped them get where they are today aren't worth an Apple ][ with Reader Rabbit in the floppy drive.
The bottom line now is, they just don't give a shit. After a while, I gave up on SD. There's a guy right in town who does great Apple repair work, and sells used and refurbished models for unbeatable prices. But one day recently I wanted to pick up an Airport card, and maybe a replacement battery for my Mercury TiBook, and lo and behold, my friend in town was closed. He sells the card for about $100, and the battery he would probably just strip out from an old machine. You know, because he's nice. I had only one option at this point, and that was SD. Given my history of unpleasantness, I figured it might be best to call first. After getting an actual person on the line, I found that SD--less than 10 miles away from Darrad, the place I go for Mac stuff now--was carrying the Airport cards for $169, and batteries for $125. Would they match the price of the place 6 miles away on the same road? No. Does that seem, well, kinda stupid? Oh well.
Fuck Small Dog. What a bunch of fucks.
Somewhere along the line, their ego inflated. A lot. So much so, they treat average customers like total shit. Even customers that have spent an ass-ton of their hard-earned cash there. Which, I guess if you're Small Dog, is how you say "Thanks for helping a Small Business get to the point where we don't value you anymore." The last few times I've been in there, the customer service has been worse than terrible. Hell, the average Apple Store now has better service than Small Dog. And have you ever been in an Apple Store? It's like fucking "Night of the Living Dead" meets the Heaven's Gate cult, but with pretty computers.
SD's tech support folks used to be the best. Now they've been replaced by zitty twenty-year-olds who can't get laid and still live in their mom's basement. Fuck, they couldn't get laid even if they had a brand-new Nano hanging out of their fly, which is about the size of what's down there anyway, I imagine. And you know what? It shows. Their are mean little bastards whose sole mission is no longer to help, but to bilk you out of as much money as possible. If you are actually there for tech support because of an error on their part, they delay and huff as much as they can in an effort to make you give up on getting help. It's rather astonishing.
Or, if you just want to buy something, you end up waiting nearly half an hour. But not in line. Just in front of the register. There's no line. Because everyone in front of you left twenty minutes earlier, when they realized no one was coming to help, even though plenty of staffers walked buy. Now this isn't a giant place. It's probably smaller than most Dunkin' Donuts. It's not as though employees must make a long, arduous journey across a warehouse and over a minefield to make it to the register. They are just lazy assholes who don't give a shit about shop customers, since most of their sales come from online and the phone. Suddenly the people who helped them get where they are today aren't worth an Apple ][ with Reader Rabbit in the floppy drive.
The bottom line now is, they just don't give a shit. After a while, I gave up on SD. There's a guy right in town who does great Apple repair work, and sells used and refurbished models for unbeatable prices. But one day recently I wanted to pick up an Airport card, and maybe a replacement battery for my Mercury TiBook, and lo and behold, my friend in town was closed. He sells the card for about $100, and the battery he would probably just strip out from an old machine. You know, because he's nice. I had only one option at this point, and that was SD. Given my history of unpleasantness, I figured it might be best to call first. After getting an actual person on the line, I found that SD--less than 10 miles away from Darrad, the place I go for Mac stuff now--was carrying the Airport cards for $169, and batteries for $125. Would they match the price of the place 6 miles away on the same road? No. Does that seem, well, kinda stupid? Oh well.
Fuck Small Dog. What a bunch of fucks.
posted by tsv # 3:54 PM 
Comments:
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i wanted to like small dog. I reall did. But they've fucked up on every order I've ever had with them.
Here's the last fiasco:
I order 512 MB ram. They send me 256. I send back the 256. They send me another 256. Eventually, we sort it out after many phone calls and back-and-forth, but apparently, someone there can't read or doesn't know the difference between 256 and 512. Also, they're ONE state away, but shipping and handling takes longer than when I order from the giants of the web like MacMall. On top of it all, everything I've ordered from them comes packaged poorly, and I've had to return other things because of shipping problems.
In short, I really wanted to like Small Dog. They're close by, they're small, and they're nice. But they've screwed up so consistently for me that I can't even stomach going back and paying their higher prices.
Here's the last fiasco:
I order 512 MB ram. They send me 256. I send back the 256. They send me another 256. Eventually, we sort it out after many phone calls and back-and-forth, but apparently, someone there can't read or doesn't know the difference between 256 and 512. Also, they're ONE state away, but shipping and handling takes longer than when I order from the giants of the web like MacMall. On top of it all, everything I've ordered from them comes packaged poorly, and I've had to return other things because of shipping problems.
In short, I really wanted to like Small Dog. They're close by, they're small, and they're nice. But they've screwed up so consistently for me that I can't even stomach going back and paying their higher prices.
This sounds like El Salaam, a little tiny Arabic restaurant that I used to go to with some friends. The food was excellent and cheap, and the staff was always friendly. They knew us by sight, and would always be nice to us, because we were nice to them, and we tipped well. Then they began to "improve" the place, and hire a bunch of crackly voiced pimply faced oil-headed greaseballs. They fucking sucked ass. Didnt' get your order right. Would accidentally fuck up our vegan orders and somehow manage to get meat in/on it.
People don't seem to realise that people will put up with a lot to get good service. We don't go there anymore.
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People don't seem to realise that people will put up with a lot to get good service. We don't go there anymore.
# posted by 
: 12:55 PM
: 12:55 PM<< Home
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