Parts Store Rant, the other side of the story

I feel bad for the knowledgable people that work in these stores, but as a customer I have to say, a lot of the people they hire are absolutely worthless. Some of them are kids that have never held a wrench in their hand. No offense to our younger members that may be knowledgable, but I have never ran into anyone past their youth in these stores that couldn't get me what I needed or direct me towards somebody else that has what I need. My favorite parts store in the Omaha area had a kid in there that had no idea what a 1/4" drive torque wrench was. Same thing at the local Sears tools department. I called both places and both of them had young guys that tried to hand me a 3/8" drive torquewrench when I got there and then when I said no, they both tried to hand me 1/2" drive ones.

Harleys aren't any different. I called one of the local HD dealers parts departments looking for a battery for my bike. I usually won't deal with HD, but I'm somewhat new to the area and don't know any of the local chopper shops in Omaha. When I initially started talking to him he wanted the model of motorcycle. When I told him 50 Panhead Chopper he became clueless and said he wouldn't be able to sell me a battery becaue it was a custom build. I told him I would give him the exact measurements of what I needed and it had to be at least smaller than the measurements I was giving him. The kid told me he had one so I clarified the measurements one more time over the phone with him and then drove 30 minutes to get there. Guess what? You guessed it; it was bigger than the dimensions I gave him. So after I calmed myself down I taught the little ignorant fool how to read a tape measure.