These are both very unprofessional and lazy practices you have experienced. There is no excuse for such customer disservice.
Cheers Stephan
just to counter this, i was in a shop recently, trying out the AFD100, and there was just the one guy working. he set up the amp and a 4x12 for me, and dragged out another marshall head to compare it to, and offered any guitar in the place i might want to try with it, while building up and dismantling an entire drum kit for a 12 year old to try out, getting tea for me, him and a couple of other customers, answering the phone, and dealing with a man from the electric board! all the while maintaining an air of relaxed cool :)
Guitarguitar in newcastle treated me similarly. I wandered in, declared that I wanted to try out high end metal amps...que 3 hours of them changing heads for me, trying out all the heads with different cabs, trying them boosted, giving me nods when the shop was clear enough to crank them, and getting me coffee. Left with a powerball and ubercab. A couple of days later the manual, that all of us forgot at the time, was posted through my door.
I cant stand it when the gear is in sub-par condition or the staff only grudgingly let you try anything, guarding their precious stock like they dont want to sell it and treating you like an inconvenience. I dont buy anything from those shops. Dawsons manchester have done this with me, and I wouldnt so much as get a set of strings from there.
On topic though: Guitars in E confuse me. Give me one of my guitars, in drop B or C# and I noodle around and bash strings just seeing what I come up with, and never actually play anyone elses songs. Give me a guitar in E and I default to metallica, maiden and random blues and shred nonesense. I do apologise to any guitar shop people for this :lol: But then in part because of that, I'm never in a guitar shop to try out guitars, and will take one of my own if I'm after an amp.