Today I undertook the task of setting up a surround sound system. The intention was to hook it up to a television and price them together in a package deal. It seemed easy enough, but the problems and distractions quickly piled up and had me spending about four times the amount of time doing this than was necessary. Follow my frustrating journey.
1) Rearranging things (20 minutes) : On the day of the One Day Sale this past Saturday, I was helping a customer look at a surround sound system that was located next to the TV that was going to be put in the aforementioned package deal. Only when we were testing said surround sound system, we found that one of its speakers was blown. The customer, of course, decided not to buy the system, and I didn't have the time to do anything about repricing or removing from the showroom floor. So, when I started out on this task today, I had to move this semi-broken system to make room for the package deal. First, I decided to be responsible and double check the speakers to see which one was blown for sure. That way, it could be marked properly. It was a nice thought. When I tried to reproduce the rattling sound I heard on Saturday, it wasn't there. All the speakers from the old system seemed to be working fine. I realize that this didn't mean that they'd be working properly indefinitely, but I was already becoming annoyed and decided to just mark that one speaker was broken and let the customer figure it out. As long as they were warned about it, that was what counted.
2) Finding the appropriate system (15 minutes) : As the TV we were going to be selling in the combo deal was priced at $299.99 alone, I wanted to make sure the surround sound system was of comparable quality. It just didn't seem appropriate to put an expensive TV with a junky surround sound system. Anyway, I went to the back and had a heck of a time finding the system. We have an entire stretch of shelves devoted to surround sound systems and speakers in the back storeroom, and sifting through all of them is somewhat difficult because it is necessary to make sure you have the right speakers for the right sub for the right receiver. They're normally paired together, but it is still confusing and requires checking the item numbers on stickers multiple times to find the correct matches.
3) Broken sub-woofer (15 minutes) : Once I found a system and carried it down to the showroom floor and began to set it up, I discovered that one of the tabs that was supposed to hold the wires that ran from the sub-woofer into the receiver was missing. This meant that the sub-woofer would not work because the wire would not stay where it should have been staying. This meant that we couldn't sell this particular system in the package deal. This meant that I had to take it all apart and then move it elsewhere.
4) Connect surround sound with broken sub-woofer to a different TV (30 minutes) : Hooking up all the speakers and arranging them was not the difficult part of this task. The difficult part came when I tried to hook up a DVD player to the system and to a TV but the DVD player didn't work. It couldn't read two discs; so, I followed store protocol, wrote down the item number of the DVD player in a book and indicated what was wrong with it, wrote a sticky note with similar information on it and taped it to the item, and then placed it by the back door so it could be transferred to our sister store to be either repaired or thrown out. After this was done, I had to find another DVD player and hook it up. Only, when I finally got a working DVD player hooked up, not all of the speakers in the surround sound system were working. I examined how I had the systems wired together and couldn't figure out if I had done something wrong if it there was something malfunctioning somewhere. Solving this mystery required knowledge greater than what I possessed and I asked a manager for assistance. What he discovered was simple enough, that there were different sound settings that control which speakers are being used and to what proportions. But, even so, the other settings he discovered sounded hollow and/or had a sort of echo. After much annoyance, we finally got the system working the best we could and called it good.
5) Find another surround sound system (5 minutes) : For some reason, finding the second surround sound system went much smoother. It was about time I caught a break.
6) Deal with an annoying customer (20 minutes) : Just as I was setting up the second surround sound system, my boss came over and began arranging some items on a display next to me. She noticed a man outside looking at the bikes and suggested I greet him and offer my assistance. I did so, but he said he was fine and I gratefully went back inside the store to my surround sound system. It wasn't long, however, before this man who supposedly didn't need assistance came into the store and said he wanted to buy a bike. Only he wasn't just going to buy the bike and then leave. Oh, no. He had questions about warranties and pricing and was very concerned about having the option of buying the bike, taking it to a professional so he could get an estimate of the cost of possible repairs he would need to have done, and being able to return the bike for a cash refund if he decided the bike would end up costing him too much money. For starters, we don't offer cash back refunds, so, I knew this was going to be fun. He was one of those people who talks loud and fast and in circles until he gets what he wants. I was very polite out loud, but I wasn't so polite in my head. All I wanted to do was finish setting up this combo deal and he kept rambling on and on about things I couldn't change. I eventually gave up on him and had him speak to a manager. They worked something out after several more minutes of discussion and the annoying man was on his way with the bike and an opportunity to return the bike for in-store credit (which is what we normally do, but he thought he was getting a sweet deal).
7) Finish setting up the system (15 minutes) : Annoying bike customer patronized and sent on his way, I was finally able to finish setting up the second surround sound system, but not before being interrupted by various customers who needed to be rang up. There is nothing more annoying than being in the middle of doing something and being interrupted repeatedly so that a simple task takes hours to complete.
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