Criss spends a lot of time at an internet café talking about ways to improve the service to the clients, how to run the café with less expense, such as replacing the pc that are only performing routing services with routers, and researching different ideas to increase related business lines. Recently, the internet café decided to replace the CRT monitors with flat screen monitors.

This change has many positive effects. First, it looks more current and looking good is very important here. Secondly, they use less power and so the life of the battery backup system is extended. Probably most importantly, the clients judge quality based on looks and the day the new monitors, keyboards and mouse(s) were replaced, visits were up and the clients tended to stay longer.

But getting to this was an interesting process. After many discussions and price checks on the internet, it became clear that the price at the local computer store was about as good as could be gotten. The next step was to get the financing. Thankfully Criss was able to avoid this, but he heard about the commissions and service charges that had to be paid. After 3 attempts to close the loan, the deal was finally done and with cash in hand, it was off to Tiranë to buy the monitors.

At the store, the first question asked of Criss was “What monitor is best?” He knows better than to answer, as an answer would be a recommendation for a purchase. So he diplomatically sidestepped the issue, by asking what criteria was being used to make the selection. The silent response told much. As they headed to the row of monitors, Criss stopped to look at a Dell monitor and was comparing prices. Is Dell good? How about Samsung? Which is better? Criss did not want to make the decision, so he wandered off at the first chance. Next thing he knew 10 of the Dell monitors he had stopped to look at had been purchased. Thankfully, Dell has one of the lowest power usages of the available stock items. But he kept wondering how did they get the loan without knowing what they were going to buy and how much it cost?

While waiting for the monitor order to be processed, Criss was looking at other components and he was asked if he liked the Logitech mouse. Without thinking, he said yes and in fact used one at home. We will take 10 was the reply, although the Logitech brand was 3 times more expensive than a close competitor. Well, it is where the customer has a lot of contact with the service, so maybe that is a good expense was the rational. The next purchase was keyboards, but Criss avoided that decision.

Paper work done, and we are ready to pay for the parts. But first, we ask to speak to the sales manager about a discount and were successful in getting a 10% discount. Then, it is time to go to the bank and cash the check. So we head to out to find a bank and 30 minutes later we are back at the computer store with cash. We pay for the equipment with the loan covering all but about $15 and as we walk out the door, the senior partner says, “Oh, no! I forgot we need to buy batteries for the battery backup system and we spent all the money.”

At this point there was a lot of Albanian conversation that was not translated and they all went to lunch. The batteries will just have to wait for another time.