Where in the world? Not PC World [RPT]

PC World has reported grim times in their gaudily lit tat outlets. Sales fell 15% in the UK, apparently due to - who'd have thought? - " significantly lower sales". That'd do it, every fucking time.

How on earth has this happened? After all, PC World offer a range of shiny PC's and laptops. Everybody wants a laptop. You can just pop in, grab a new laptop and off you go, can't you?

Err, no. There are laptops aplenty on display, but none you can take to the till. The laptop you want to take away is securely stored around the back somewhere.

Someone has to fetch it for you. So you have to wait, and wait, and fucking wait, for that someone to be free. To stop answering inane questions from the elderly couple who just want to send email but are being upsold to a massive quad-CPU system with a 24 inch monitor.

And when the 13 year old Asian boy (actually, thats not fair: sometimes its a 19 year old Polish girl) is finally ready, can you have your laptop?

No, not yet. First you'll have to suffer a lengthy monologue about the importance of virus checking software and the happy co-incidence that PC World happens to have the worst product on the market available to you for 29.99. 

Then you have to use all of your rhetorical skills to avoid being persuaded to pay 10 pounds a month for the privilege  - one you thought you already had - of having your computer repaired if it goes wrong next week.

Then, and only then, will you be given the box containing the computer you came in 40 fucking minutes ago to buy.

But it's not just about the goods. PC World also offer a number of helpful services.

Among them is a repair and upgrade service. If you're too old, dense or idle to install a new hard disk, or if your computer has suddenly ceased to function after you shared your wine with it, take the box down to PC World, they'll sort it for you!

No they fucking won't. They'll cheerfully tell you, as you stand there sweating from the effort of lugging in a big box from the far end of the car park, a box that has been lurching about on the back seat of your car all fucking day, specifically so you could bring it in, that you need "a ticket".

A ticket? A fucking ticket? Yes. You can't just turn up with your computer and have it repaired you know. Oh no. Even though most of the staff are either picking their noses, downloading porn or playing on the consoles, they can't be expected to just drop everything and repair stuff at the drop of a hat.

What you have to do, mate, is lug that box back to your car, go home, look up PC world on the Internet (on your fucking dead computer) then ring the number given there.

After you've listened to a couple of hours of Enya, you'll be given a ticket number, which will entitle you to bring that box - that one there, on the counter - all the way back here, at which point one of the lads will stop picking his nose and start trawling your disk for pictures of your wife in a bikini.

Another advantage of buying new from a real, physical shop is that you can go back there when - inevitably - your new purchase makes a hideous grinding noise and stops working. They'll give you a new one, won't they?

Again, no. No. Not with PC fucking World. Although they sold that laptop 12 days ago, they want nothing to do with it. They don't even recognise it. They don't want to touch it. Ugh. Take it away, takeitaway!!

No, what you've gotta do, chum, is take that laptop, with all the boxes and packing material you dug out of the bin, back to your car, and go home.

Then you've got to look up PC World on the Internet (on your dead laptop) and 'phone the number given.

Will they help? No they won't. They will take you through a fucking immense labyrinth of menu options and computer generated voices, asking you to type in every serial number on every item in your entire fucking house, before  eventually deducing, like a moronic Miss Marples, that your computer was made by Advent (yes, it was; it says it on the fucking lid) and warmly recommending that you call them.

PC world, you've utterly fucked up. In your ceaseless drive to minimise what you actually do, and your endless quest to have fewer staff, each with less ability, you've actually sunk well below the minimal standard of service that any half-normal person would tolerate.

CF would like to tell you all that in person, but he's never going to set foot in one of your stores again.

[Repeated while CF enjoys his holiday]