Jobs Worth +Technology = Trouble

Oh the joy of technology. Because when we re-furbed the pub, we were working to a tight budget, some of the equipment was "previously enjoyed". The EPOS till system will run as a stand alone system but if you hook it up to a PC, you can tinker with the till screen layout without having to keep swapping backwards and forwards etc, you can adjust the prices [very handy!] and you can cash up all the tills in one fell swoop without loads of frigging around. Well, our till system was new but the PC was one I cadged from a friend. The monitor has always been a bit iffy and it finally went phut last night. This morning sees me trotting down to PC World.

Laying hands to the cheapest monitor, £99.99, I then stood in the queue for fifteen minutes while some 12 year old boy arsed around with the till.

Finally, my turn came. He wafted his security tag de-activator thing over the box, then zapped it with a bar code reader thingy, then typed the Gettysburg Address into the till and asked me my first initial.

"C"

"and your surname?"

"why?"

"it's for the till"

"but the monitor is not for me"

"who is it for?"

"none of your business!"

"but I need it for the till" he pleaded.

"I just want to pay for it"

Unbeknown to me he had pressed the button for help.

Some other 12 year old appears and, I guess, asks [in a language other than English] what's going on. He then turns to me and says "you have to give your name".

"Why?"

"It's for the till"

"But the damn thing's not for me"

"But you're buying it"

"I came with somebody else's money and will take the monitor back to them"

"why couldn't they come and get it?"

"None of your business. I'll tell you what, forget it." and I gave him the damn thing back.

Now I wasn't buying anything, I followed him as he walked away with what was going to be my monitor.

"Why do I have to give you my details?"

"It's for the guarantee"

"But I didn't want a guarantee"

"Well if it breaks you wouldn't be able to bring it back"

"have you ever heard of the Sale of Good & Services Act?"

"Yeah"

"So if it broke, I could bring it back, guarantee or otherwise"

"But it's the law, we have to ask"

"Which law?"

"The law"

At which point I showed him my ID and told him to return to the till, take the monitor with him, and that that was where I intended to pay [cash] for the monitor, and that I wasn't going to give him any details, personal or otherwise.

The morals of this story are [many];

If you don't like something, complain / stand your ground/ refuse etc.

Don't shop at PC World.

Don't run errands while your lazy Irish boyfriend festers in bed.

The only person to whom you are obliged to give your name, address, date and place of birth, is a police officer who may ask you in the course carrying out his duties. Everybody else can kiss for it.