Support Your Local Small Shop


Okay this is going to end up sounding hypocritical but stay with it. I purchased a new computer in April, basically because my seven year old XP model was too slow to run my photograph software and the local company who had produced the bespoke model for me have switched for making and servicing PC's to running courses for business people - obviously they discovered where the money is. Anyway I purchased a new Windows 7 based PC from a well known manufacturer and it is brilliant, save for the fact that I can't connect my mp3 player to it and last week I discovered it wouldn't recognise my video camera by one of its six (count  em!) USB slots.

Having done a stupid amount of research online, both on the Sony site (the cameras manufacturer) and the HP site (the computers manufacturer) I discovered that the two items and accompanying software would talk to each other via a FireWire set-up. Guess what, yes you've guessed it, my new PC may be able to sing and dance in several languages at the same time, boil an egg and up load videos to youtube etc via some smart arse software but it didn't have a FireWire card or slot.

I found out the card I needed and phoned the local HP shop only to be told that they had closed and I would have to phone a national helpline, for which I would have to mortgage my daughter. A light bulb went off above my head and I thought of PC World which has a store about two miles from home.  Well I doubt there  was a more depressing place than the Christchurch PC World on a Thursday afternoon. The store is closing and walking into it, having decided that it was indeed open despite any outward appearance to indicate so, was a surreal experience. I was outnumbered by staff at a ratio of 4:1, all of whom said "Good afternoon Sir," as I tripped invisible politeness wires strung out across the shiny floor.

Anyway despite the overwhelming bonhomie I managed to stand for five minutes at the optimistically named 'Help Desk' before a female staff member, one who had previously greeted me so ebulliently and then ignored me, asked if I was waiting to be seen. It's a funny question when you think about it as I was never technically invisible, but hey let's move on.

I explained my problem and she said they could fix it, she checked the situation with some guy called Trevor and said I could have it done whilst I waited. I went home picked up the PC and went back to the shop only to be told that they didn't realise it was a Slimline - this despite me telling them, they then said that they couldn't do anything and they didn't stock the card that fitted the Slimline models - this despite the fact that they stock and sell Slimlines!

Anyway Trevor suggested a small PC repairers about a quarter of a mile away, this small company who I had never heard of, apparently stock hundreds of spares and would be able to 'sort me out'.

Cut to small computer repair shop.  

Walking up the steel staircase and pulling down the handle on the steel door I suffered one of those deja vu moments, the inside of the store was stacked floor to ceiling with computer bits, in truth it reminded me of Soho Sex Shops in the 1970's where you would be greeted by magazine covers with permed haired European ladies who were in possession of preposterously sized breasts and black sticky tape over their genitalia.  Darwin only knows how many dribbling teenage boys suffered from premature ejaculation when they discovered, upon removing their girlfriends underpinnings, that the real thing had hair and not gaffer tape between her legs.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. I explained my predicament to one of the guys behind the counter and he said it would help if I knew what model I had. I said not only did I have the details written down but I had the PC in the car. Anyway one quick run down the stairs and one slightly slower walk up the stairs later and the back of my PC was on the work desk. "Pity it's a Slimline," he said and I could feel my enthusiasm balloon slowly deflating. "But that's not a problem, I'll take a full size card, cut off the bits we don't need and see if it works."

Twenty minutes later, which covered installation and testing, I left the store minus £19.95 and with a computer that is now functioning the way I want it. As I handed over the cash I said to the tech-guy, "Just wanted to say I'm really impressed and embarrassed I didn't know you were here in the first place."

"No problem," he replied, "we hate to see customers going home let d own."