So how is that the stereotype of a single store can be proven to be so goddamn true? Guitar Center, in my opinion, is the place where all failed, miserable and asshole musicians go. I had always heard about this place and because of what I heard I never even set foot into a Guitar Center… until last week.
Since moving to Atlanta, I have decided to have new experiences and one of them was to give this Guitar Center place a try. Upon walking in the door, I was greeted by a long haired guy that looked like the singer from Nickleback. His greeting was to roll his eyes at me and proceed to tell this other guy about how bad this other dude’s band sucked. I strolled over to the bass amplifiers and stood there for nearly 15 minutes. There were about 4-5 sales people that just walked by me and didn’t even make eye contact. After this, I decided to walk around to see if I could catch some wicked conversation. All I heard was a lot of “yeah dude”, “no way” and “that band sucks” before finally calling it quits and bolting.
My experience made me think of this YouTube clip that a friend sent me a while back:
After watching this again I just rolled, LOL’d if you will. It’s like the Walmart of music stores. How can one store have such a crappy reputation, so crappy that one can make a video like this and be spot on? I actually ended up taking my business to SamAsh in Atlanta (only because the mom & pop shop didn’t have what I was looking for) and those folks were super nice, professional and willing to answer all my questions. Its almost as if they know what kind of douche factory Guitar Center is and have decided to do everything in their power to NOT be that shop.
Now I will say this. I actually Emailed Guitar Center’s customer service people to let them know about my experience and the store manager called me back the same day. He seemed nice enough but he basically sounded like a store manager who just got yelled at my HIS boss for having a store full of failed, frustrated musicians who would rather do anything other than actually help a customer that DIDN’T know them. I almost gave them a 2nd chance but then discovered how awesome SamAsh is.
Sorry Guitar Center… you can suck it!
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