Parts Store Rant, the other side of the story

I sold parts jobber and retail, ended my career as an asst. manager for Car Quest. A quality person can answer a phone and handle the walk in's at the same time. We had 5 lines in and a direct line to Sears who was our biggest account. Sundays I was there alone...lol. That's what note pads and what I called "Parts shorthand" come from. The first post about "they're all the same..." reminded me of a guy asking for "a starter for my Chevy truck. It's a 350." So I hit the book and asked all the questions. I got attitude and finally he says "Look. I don't know how long you've been doing this... But Chevy350s are all the same so just give me a starter for one..." We had the starers and alternators on the 2nd floor, so I went up, grabbed 5 starters in boxes that were listed in the catalog for 350/5.7L turcks, and dumped them on the counter in front of him. Then I started opening them one at a time pointing out tings like clock position, grounding studs, nose cones, etc. I said "I'm a mopar guy, and I've probably got more time behind a counter than you think. (I was 22, but worked jobber parts 6 years by then) If you can get past the 'it's all the same' bull **** I'm sure we have a starter for you..." He was a regular customer after that and never questioned when we questioned him for anything. Now I go in places with the attitude that the person helping may not know as much but is doing their best. I worked retail based parts too. That sucks. They are like the Wally Worlds of auto parts and staffed/trained accordingly.