Bad customer service, or bad customer?

Ok, apparently too many people are running wireless networks, microwaves, wireless phones, etc in my apartment this year - wireless reception outside of 10 feet from the router is just a crapshoot, at best. So I needed to wire a couple extra rooms. I did some measurements, figured I needed a 25 foot cable and a 45 cable. 25 foot is no problem - you can get those anywhere. 45 you can't get short of a custom-cut cable, and 50 are slightly harder to find.

Theres only one halfway decent "geek-friendly" computer store in town, all the others sell pre-packaged stuff off racks. So I went to the store, grabbed a 25 foot cable, checked to see if they had any 50 foot cables (They did not), I wander up the counter with the 25 footer, and asked them to cut me a 45 foot cable.

Guy in the store: "Yeah, we can make you any length you want... It might take me a while to get at it, though."

Me: (slight pause, I'm the only person in the store, and he appears to be, as best I can tell, taking inventory of hard drives or something." "Uh, ok... How long? I can go pick up my textbooks and..."

Guy: "It would probably be tonight, can you come pick it up in the morning? (Mind you, it's about noon)"

Me: "Well, I do know how to put the plugs on the cable... Can you just sell me 45 feet of cable and a couple little plugs?"

Guy: "Sorry, we don't sell it like that."

At this point I left the 25 foot cord I had picked up on the counter and went across the street to Radio Shack and picked up some pre-packaged 25 and 50 foot cables. I payed about 8 dollars more than I would have, and I'm one of those sorts that prefers to give my buisness to small operations rather than chains, but I was a little irked.

Now I'm wondering if maybe I was expecting too much for him to drop what he was doing to help me? It takes a few minutes, I know, but it's not that hard, I've done it myself, and worse.

Don't get me wrong, I know I was perfectly within my rights to do what I did - I don't owe the store my undying fealty or anything, and they didn't have what I needed, so I went elsewhere. But was I too harsh in being as pissed off at them as I was? Would you have been?

gone to home depot and made your own off the rack, I think they charge like 10 cents a foot and you just buy a pair of clips

It would have taken him what 10 minutes on a bad day to make up the cable?

Nope you did the right thing. That store clerk was lazy or flat did not know how to do it and had to wait for someone that did to come on shift.

I would not trust people like that to terminate the cable properly.

It's quite possible to really mess your bandwidth up if they don't do it right. I woulda done the same thing you did.

Zip, Snip, Mind if I leave the granny knot at the top end? Here you go sir, that'll be $X.XX Have a nice day!

I vote with my wallet. It would probably be at least 6 months before I ever went back in that store. In fact, that's exactly the kind of thing that gets me all twisted up inside. I'd write a 2 pager to the manager detailing the lost business that the store can expect. (To Radio Shack, fer cryin' out loud!)

( I know... *Get a life* Buster.)

I can't believe he didn't know how - it's simple. You can teach a person how to do it in five minutes, and you have no buisness working in a store like that if you don't know how.

Answer: buy a roll of Cat-5 cable in a box, a pair of crimps, a couple of bags of RJ-45's and rubber 'boots'. You will never need to buy an overpriced run of LAN cable ever again. Just make sure you wire it up correctly...

Thru cable (the type you'll be using most of the time):
L-R looking down at the contacts:

Cable end #1
1) Orange-White
2) Orange
3) Green-White
4) Blue
5) Blue-White
6) Green
7) Brown-White
Brown

Cable end #2
1) Orange-White
2) Orange
3) Green-White
4) Blue
5) Blue-White
6) Green
7) Brown-White
Brown

X-Over cable (for computer-computer or switch-switch 'downlink'):
L-R looking down at the contacts:

Cable end #1
1) Orange-White
2) Orange
3) Green-White
4) Blue
5) Blue-White
6) Green
7) Brown-White
Brown

Cable end #2
1) Green-White
2) Green
3) Orange-White
4) Blue
5) Blue-White
6) Orange
7) Brown-White
Brown

Heh, I got tired of the lack of long lenth CAT 5e cables available in stores so I bought myself a crimper, some ends & cable spool. SO much nicer!!

Stores like that are usually why I just buy the stuff online & ignore the brick & mortar places. Once in a while I make a trip to Walmart or CompUSA for some dinky lil' thing rather than pay the extra $10 for shipping.

Well seeing how a) he's been busy with working on something else at the moment and b) from description you didn't actually tell the guy it's important for you to get your cable done right there and then ... i'd say it was a bit abrupt switch from shopping to "fine, i'll take my money elsewhere". I mean, seriously what's so hard about answering to question "can you pick it up tomorrow morning" with "no, i'd rather have it done now if possible"? ^^;;;

I think he sorta did that, though, when he started to say that he could pick up his textbooks...but the clerk interrupted him before he could finish. That clerk knew he wanted it while he was in the store instead of having to make a return trip.

Personally, I would call the manager/owner/whoever and ask him if it's normal to have to wait overnight to have a cable made and when that person sounds confused with their reply, tell them what happened.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I've been in Customer Service for almost 10 years now (specifically Hospital staff support, and we talk to the users, not just IT department people) and I have little patience for bad customer service (which is what Reitsuki received.)

I prefer to buy short 1 to 3 foot cables and use solid wire cat 5 with the punch down tool to connect to the wall plates. The plates don't have to be in the wall to work.

Personally, I do not have ANY wireless items due to security issues.
I helped a friend set up her system and it's hard to get the key files set up and secure. Even then, the encryption could be broken.

PS: radio shack is discontinuing it’s network surge protectors and is selling them for only ~$1.50 each instead of $20 ea. 61-2144
It’s a good arc tube type, not perfect, but worth the price.

--
Grumble- The paranoid because they ARE out to get me guy.

Can't even get CAT5e any more, last I looked it was all CAT6 or something at Fry's.

Like it matters all that much... but I tell you what, those pesky crimper thingy's... once upon a time in my life I had to deal with all that sort of thing briefly, and here is some perspective:

My life is *much* better now that I don't have a crimp tool in my hand regularly (tho, if I could be in my early 20's again I'd do it!)

Maybe this is the real answer to Ananda's thread...