Ah. Customer Service...

J was given a 2TB external hard drive as a gift. Like 90% of all technology that enters our home, it was promptly rendered defective by our household gremlins and after a 28 hour formatting session (that should have tipped us off right away) we backed up some photos to it and called it a night. The next day it is not accessible to any computer anywhere.
So...I went in to return it. Trust me when I say I have a lot of experience with this. Our house is a Bermuda Triangle of technology and I return many many things. Having no receipt, but just wanting an exchange for a new one I figured no biggie. I put on my cute oh-please-help-me look (don't judge...it works far better than the rational grumpy face).
Good grief.
You'd think I was trying to smuggle heroin into a daycare centre.
After much fenagling and watching them hook it up to a few computers to prove that yes, it was indeed f*cked, and no I hadn't dropped it or played polo with it, they reluctantly gave me another. They would not scan it in to get a value for it - just a straight item exchange. When I thanked them and asked if I needed to sign anything and asked for a receipt of soome kind - they scowled and said "Look lady, there's no receipt or papers - be happy we did *this* for you". Then walked away.
Alrighty then.
A hearty get bent straight back to you London Drugs...

Later:
it gets better! I got home to discover they'd given me a 1 TB drive (box looks the same)...so I had to drive back and ask for the right one - at which point they told me that since they didn't have another one of what I returned there was nothing they could do. No equivalent exchange of current price...nada. I asked them point blank if they would do anything else for me. They said no.
...so I went to the other London Drugs in town and they were kind and courteous, and the manager didn't even want to test the drive. She simply logged in, scanned it and got the current price and then said I could pick any drive I wanted of the same value or pay the difference if they didn't have one like it. They gave me a new receipt in case the new one didn't work. Which is how it works in the real world.

Having worked in customer service I KNOW the manager can do this. There is no reason for them not to in a case like this. They lose no money. It just means the dept. manager has come down from his high castle to hit a few extra keys when there is no receipt. The other manager was just being a dick. I rarely complain, but will be emailing the store manager. I don't like it when managers play power games...

On the upside, I finally got around to having the restriction for glasses taken off my license. I had time to go in and get them tested at the insurance office and I can now drive around wearing no glasses at all if I so choose.
To be honest, I already do...it's just now I won't get a ticket for it. :)

And now I must go hide in the dark land of statistical analysis. I have my final numbers to crunch so I can spend all day tomorrow staring at them, scratching my head and trying to decide how to go about selling them to my committee. 6 weeks until my meeting and 5 until my report is due. I plan to lay them all out on the floor and look at them and try and keep the cats off of them while I look for a pattern and sip strong blue mountain coffee.
only 5 weeks?
Gak...
What am I doing here?
Gotta go.
:)