The best buy Xbox 360 launch was the worst experience I ever had. Planning to wake up at 6am I went to bed early last night to have the opportunity to stand in line at 630; I didn’t sleep at all, just too much anxiety I guess. Like a kid on Christmas eve.
So I arrive at best buy at 630 to count the line and I’m 75th, knowing the inventory was 84 I was golden, I could at least get a core system. Jason M. arrived shortly after and he counted me at 80th, WTF? Thinking it was a mistake I waited until 750 and counted again. 84th now and furious, I politely walked up to the door and asked the manager, Henry Lo, please pass out the tickets because people are cutting. His response was, “We will pass them out when we are ready”, I replied, “What do you mean you can just pass them out now…it will take 10 minutes…you have to do it anyways, why not now?…people need to know if they should leave or not…I’m on the verge of not getting one because people are cutting”. He then gives the excuses that people will counterfeit the tickets. What a bullshit answer, no one is going to copy the tickets then get back in line with the same number as the guy next to him, I told him this and he still didn’t care.
830 now and I count myself as 90th, I go back and talk to the same guy again. “Come on…you have to do something or there will be some fighting, people are blatantly cutting. And No one wants to do anything because they are with their “dogs”". HE just said he hoped people would police themselves and there was a “list”. I argued, CALMLY, he said it was company policy but then stumbled saying it was the store discussion, “so what is it, yours or corporate?”. He didn’t want anything to do with it. Bunch of SHIT.
845: they start passing out the tickets. I noticed the “list” wasn’t being used and terrified that the wait was for nothing. I noticed this guy originally directly in front of me in line slithered 6 spots up, and no one said anything. Finally they run out of the ultimate packages then he starts with the core packages, the last one handed out was: 4 guys in front of me. Steamed Jason and I confronted some cutters but that didn’t last because we knew we had to find another store. Target: No. CompUSA: No. Costco: No. Toy r’ us: No. Circuit City: No. K-Mart: No. and finally Sears: they fooled us with empty f’ng boxes, NO.
I also said I will never shop at Best Buy again, unless they have the 360.
[Update] other good stories…read.
