I had occasion to visit the new Coffs Harbour Jaycar store, it is a nice shop well stocked and laid out probably comparable to the Gore Hill store. All I wanted was a 9 pin "D" connector and a MAX232. The connector was no problem, I just rocked up to the bin, but all the semiconductors were in bins behind the counter. A polite middle aged male "Assistant" came up and asked if he could help me. "Yes, I'd like a MAX232 please" I said. I knew straight away that this was a problem from the blank look in his eyes, "A MAX232?" he said, "Yes" I replied, "A MAX232 integrated circuit please". By this time the other 3 middle aged well dressed "Assistants" had backed way to the other end of the counter and were trying to look busy. My "Assistant" started leafing through the catalog without much success, so I grabbed another copy, and, even without my reading glasses, found the item in about 30 seconds and showed it to him. "Oh you want a ZK8824" he said as if I should have asked for that in the first place "And whats this other thing you have here?"
I suppose that if I had wanted a farting ashtray there would have been no problem.
As I left the store, I looked back at the "Assistants" who had gathered behind the counter all looking the same, middle aged, slightly overweight, and wearing the same clobber, dark suit trousers, white shirt and a dark tie, and realised what they reminded me of - used car salesmen. Then the penny dropped, a big caravan sales yard at the other end of town closed recently, I'll bet that they have just recycled a bunch of caravan salesmen.