The guy sat and talked to me and my buddy about 1911's and various concealment tips, tactics, and the best bullets. He did all this for about an hour and never tried pushing a gun on us or got tired of our dumb questions. Now that is a good salesman in my eyes.
I agree that that's what I like in a salesperson...but the question remains, did you buy from him or just use him for the info and shop somewhere else. I've talked to a few shopkeepers lately who have talked about this problem. For some of them, it's not worth the time to sit a chat and tell you all that you want to know just to have you walk away happy if they won't be making money. Many of them like to b.s., no doubt, but they're also there to make a living...
Generally it's because 10 hours into a 13 hour shift you really don't care to argue with someone about how .45 Auto will leave two smoking shoes if you so much as wing someone with it, and how 9mm is lethargic, but their .38 Special has killed 10 men in Vietnam when they were a Scout Sniper from a moving truck at a range of 1500 yards in a monsoon / tsunami / typhoon. Or how Billy Bob took that raging bull Elephant at 7200 yards with a .22-250. Or how AR's are unreliable, but AKs are the best ever, and how their friend's uncle's brother was an Airborne Ranger that went to Delta Selection and got in, and he uses nothing but a sawed off AK47 and a toothpick, and how they are going to get training from said operator even though they are a 300+ lb. LARPer that spends every dime they earn on more Blackhawk tactical gear, in black of course, because they only are seen at night... never in the woods.
It's nothing on you... but dealing with the morons that walk into a gun store, or call a gun store, will wear down anyone. Especially when you have a gun range attached, and said morons waive guns in your face on a daily basis.
Not bad for $9 / hr.!
That also doesn't necessarily apply to people that are just assholes... those people don't need the excuse.
and we always try to show up towards the middle of a Saturday afternoon as one of our favorites is usually about ready to "shoot a customer".
Then there are customers like the one I had today....the one that literally took 2 full hours of my time....the one that got upset and walked off after I explained to him that we cannot possibly give a 25% discount on new guns and expensive high-end scopes just because he wants one. Heck, I've only been at this two months and have already seen a lifetime's worth of Darwin award candidates. I try to be #3 on that list and go out of my way to help people.
Hoji, I can't remember if you said you were looking for .45acp also, or if it was just 9mm and .40sw. Check your PM's though.
My neighbor went to mcbrides today to pick up his s&w 357 he said there was a guy that was very helpful. Of course there's Mr. Mcbride
last time i was in a gun store i felt like i was in a library. it was so quiet i was almost afraid to talk in a normal voice.
so naturally i overcompensated and became as boisterous as i could manage. suprisingly enough, the guys behind the counter began to loosen up after about 15 minutes of me making an ass of myself :-) any longer and id have given up and bought my remington 597 .22 lr replacement mags someplace else.