Microsoft Store

I had a question about a Microsoft product I was considering purchasing, so I called the number on the store.microsoft.com site to talk to someone.

You see, Excel 2008 for Mac is $229, while the entire office suite for Mac is $149, which includes Excel. This intrigues me. So I call, and ask. First off, the guy I'm talking to doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about, and I wait while he looks the prices up himself, first finding the Excel upgrade and telling me the wrong price, then finding Excel, then finding Office. Then he gives me this explanation:

"In the world of Microsoft, that's how it works. Single products cost more."

Well fuck my ass. I didn't know that Microsoft had a whole world. Where the fuck is it, and how do I determine if I am in it, and how do I get out? Because I like to be in the world where shit makes sense.

I might be a fool, but I'm not a moron. I get it. You offer Office in the cheap so that I use Word and Entourage and whatever other crap you shove in there, and I send my friends my powerpoint documents, and they need powerpoint to open them, and they buy office, sure whatever. I get this. I just like to get the facts straight. Maybe I am a moron, because when I see a product that costs X, and then another product that includes that product and a ton of other shit, and it's cheaper, I just like having that kind of thing explained to me, you know? So I'm not spending $150 on the wrong shit.

Ok, so single products cost more, so I should just buy Office I guess, and just install the components I want, and not all the extra shit. Except I installed the Office trial, and I didn't see anywhere to choose which components to install, because I missed the small 'customize' button in the lower left of one of the 15 installation screens. Maybe I'm not too observant, my fucking fault, I now have 6 new icons on my dock for shit that I do not want.

So after this guy explains to me that I'm in the world of Microsoft and I'm getting fucked, I tell him thank you, he's been a lot of help, and I now understand. He then offers to help me with my purchase, since their web site sometimes has problems.

Their web site sometimes has problems, so I need this guy on the phone to take my order. You know what I think? I think somebody should fix that. Because if I worked for a company that made server-class operating systems, web-development software, web-server software, and web browsers, and my site sometimes had problems, I think I'd fucking fix it, because otherwise, I obviously can't do my fucking job now can I?

So from here things are predictable. I tell the guy I'm not interested in buying anything right now, because if I'm going to have to put up with this shit I don't necessarily want to buy anything, I'll figure out another way to do it that's not crafted by the retarded. He then tells me to use Office, explains that I 'don't understand'. A guy from another world who had to look up prices, incorrectly, for the only thing he does all day, is telling me that I don't understand how to get my product that should be forty fucking dollars to begin with.

Anyway, I said gave him a 'Thank you, Goodbye' and then hung up. I remember when Microsoft was a company that I respected, and was excited about.