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Last week I received a very tempting offer from Whitcoulls in my Inbox. They were having 25% off all DVDs and Blu-ray discs this weekend. Being the movie junkie that I am, and since it had been a very long time (by my standards) since I had last bought a DVD I thought of taking them up on this offer and increasing my high-def movie collection by buying some new Blu-ray titles.

Then, my adventure began..

I went to my closest Whitcoulls store which happens to be the one in Pakuranga. After having spent a a few minutes trying to locate their Blu-ray collection I approached a staff member, the following conversation ensued.

ME: Hi, where can I find your Blu-ray movies?
HER: Err, what red?
ME: Blu-ray, you know like DVD’s
HER: I’ll have to check, come with me

I follow her to the terminal, I can see her type in “Blue Red” in the title search

ME: It’s not a DVD title, I’m looking for the movies you have on Blu-ray disc.

She starts another search, with the exact same string “Blue Red” this time using a different field

ME: Its not spelt like that, its Blu-ray
HER: Oh, sorry, (This type types in “Blue Ray”)
ME: The Blu is spelt “B L U” not blue, and its Blu hyphen ray.

She types in “Blu:ray”

ME: umm, I said “B L U hyphen R A Y”

She types in “Blu;ray”

ME: umm, it’s B L U dash R A Y

This time she types in Blu-ray and finally seem to have found a result, takes me to the stationary section (I’ve lost any hope of them actually having any Blu-ray discs at all at this stage) and points at a Blu-ray recordable disc. I once again try to explain to her that I’m looking for Blu-ray movies

ME: These aren’t what I’m looking for. I’m looking for movies in Blu-ray format, you know, we had VHS, then we had DVD now we have Blu-ray, its a format, not a particular movie, there are a lot of movies in Blu-ray.

HER: Oh you mean like multiple movie collections? well we have these (points at a triple pack of Lindsey Lohan movies or some such)
ME: Umm, thanks for your help I’ll have a look around myself.

At this point I walk out of the store pretty disgusted that a store would advertise a special on stock they clearly didn’t have. I can’t blame the sales person for her lack of knowledge but I do find it shocking that Whitcoulls would not train their staff on the basic skills required to do their job, even worse that they would blatantly advertise something they just don’t seem to have, wasting both my time and petrol in the process.