I’ve just come across something funny on xkcd which reminded me of the nice time I had in PCWorld once.
I already made up my mind about which model of laptop I wanted after comparing the specs on the internet.
I stepped in, and asked the salesman, can I have this laptop please. He went to check his stock, and came back with a smile. So far so good.
Then, he asked: “Would you like any additional warranty or software with it”. I replied back, “No thanks”.
We when to the till point for the payment. Then he asked me again: “You would like Office with it?”I said: “No”. After a few second he said, “Well you need to buy anti-virus software with it, else your PC will not be protected…” I again said: “No, thanks”.
Now the funny thing happened. He stood up. And told me: “Sir, I’ll have to speak to my supervisor first, because I don’t think I can sell you a laptop if you are not willing to protect it with an anti-virus.” I told him: “Fine, go on.”
After a few minute he came back. He said: “Well, sir, you are lucky. My supervisor has authorised this transaction.” He took a few details and then my credit card. Then he tried it one last time: “Sir, I’ll give you 30% off if you buy antivirus software.” Now I was about to lose it. I told him: “First thing, that I’ll do, I’ll wipe the hard drive and get Linux on the laptop and for office, and I’ll get Open Office which is free of charge.”
He paused. Then said: “Sir, I don’t think you are allowed to remove Windows from the laptop. Also, Linux is a very bad operating system and it got loads of viruses that’s why all laptops we sell are shipped with windows. You’ll definitely have to buy an anti virus, install it on windows and use it to scan your Linux partitions to remove any virus.”
I’ll let you guess that I did after hearing that…..
Please add your guess as a comment below… Thanks!