I decided to buy a new TV.
I did a quick round of visits to local stores.
I found a 32” Sony I liked at a good price and a professional salesperson.
The following Sunday I went back to make my purchase.
The salesperson was not there.
While waiting for another, I overhear the manager trying to convince a caller to buy last year's Sony 57” model for the same price I was paying for the 32”.
I approach him and commit to buying it. He finds the remote for it, which is quite large.
It does not turn on the TV. “But that is easy to solve,” he says. I'll get the manual.
The only manual for the model is in Spanish.
“That’s easy to solve.” Take the remote with you and take the batteries out. That will set it back to default values. When the TV is delivered, put them back in.
The TV arrives a week later. My wife is miffed about rearranging the furniture to fit it in.
I put the batteries in. The remote does not turn on the TV. I call the manager. “That’s easy to solve. Come to the store and I will give you one of our new programmable remotes, no charge.”
I program the new remote and turn on the TV. Looks great. I press the PIP (picture-in-picture) button. A small PIP window appears, showing the same channel as the big picture because I have cable TV. Also a second press gets a split-screen PIP; a third gets 16 images of the same channel. A fourth press goes back to the screen with the small PIP window. I can’t turn off PIP.
The old remote and TV had an extra function, a key labeled “PIP OFF.” The new TV does not have or recognize that function.
The manager is confused, offers to come to my house (he doesn’t really believe me).
Manager comes and can’t turn PIP off. Suggests I call their customer service, available to all customers for the first 30 days.
Call customer service and explain the problem. “That’s easy to solve. I will write the issue on the work order and send one of my people. But can’t schedule you for at least 10 days.”
Technician arrives, looks about 18. But enthusiastic despite having no description of the issue on the work order.
“I have never seen that new remote before. Do you have the manual?” Spends 20 minutes looking through it. Can't turn off PIP.
“This is easy to solve. We have a guy at the shop who used to work for Sony. I will call him.” Goes out to his truck.
20 minutes later, comes back. “He showed me how to set the TV back to the default settings.” He proceeds to press and hold several buttons. PIP disappears.
“It’s easy to solve. All you have to do is use this sequence to get the defaults back.”
“But I also lost all of my personalizations, like which channels are active, which are my favorites, etc. I am not going to go through that every time someone accidentally presses the PIP button.”
“Humm”
I get an insight. “How about if we program the PIP key to do something else, like channel up. That way there will be no harm if someone pressed it by accident. The PIP function is useless anyway with cable.”
We program the button. Success. “That was easy to solve.”
