the future is friendly

Full points to Future Shop for providing excellent service. I went on a digital camera recon mission last night and was very pleasantly surprised by my experience. I quickly discovered that the feature I really wanted, a variable angle LCD display, was about $100 out of my price range but there was still plenty to choose from. I pointed out the Kodak Z740 that I came into the store to see and expressed a concern that it might be too much camera for a first foray into digital photography. The salesgirl agreed that it probably wasn't the best choice and proceeded to ask some really good questions about what I was looking for. I asked for a recommendation and she pointed out a camera of comparable price with a better range of features. Feeling well informed I asked her to write down the model number and headed off to store #2.

My second stop of the night was another big box store and WOW here was the cocky and remarkably unhelpful "help" I was expecting from a big electronics store. I went straight to the midrange cameras as before and picked up the Kodak hoping to attract some help. Over came the camera guy. He didn't know anything about the Kodak expect that it was "kinda big" and when I asked for a recommendation he choose a camera $100 more expensive than the one I had been looking at. He told me how easy it was to use and then couldn't turn it on. Seriously. For about 5 minutes. I asked a few questions about shutter delay and he had no idea. I asked him to write down the model # and he couldn't find a pen. It just didn't get any better after that.

So no points for guessing where I'll be shopping, and well done Future Shop. Looks like the future is friendly after all.