"micro Four-Thirds is just a generic term."

I was a bit surprised to hear this the other day.

I went into a chain store that has locations all over Ohio, Dodd Camera.  This location was near the Dayton Mall near Miamisburg, OH.

They advertise this location as having all the goodies in the Dayton metropolitan area.  Back in 2006, Dodd Camera bought Click Camera and this is one of those Click locations.  I went to Click once way back in the 1980s and wasn't impressed.  I had been selling cameras and their people seemed to know less than I did and I certainly didn't consider myself an expert of any sort.

So, when I went to the store the other day, I figured I'd see what they had in micro Four-Thirds equipment since they actually advertise that on local TV.  There were two women and one man working in the store.  It was small but no smaller than the Cincinnati store, and bigger than the other two stores I'd visited in the Dayton area.

A woman to the right welcomed me, and asked me if there was something specific I wanted to see.  I responded with "micro Four-Thirds equipment", so she took me to the Sony case, and started talking, and i tried to interrupt, but she ignored me.

She then, took me to the Nikon case, to show me the Nikon 1 system and said that they had the J1 in stock there.  As she paused, I explained again that I wanted to see micro Four-Thirds equipment.  I tried to remind her that Panasonic and Olympus are responsible for the format and she replied "No, micro Four-Thirds is just a generic term." and I said "No, it isn't.  You're talking about micro Four-Thirds as if it's all of mirror-less."  So, she went over to the computer and started looking for Olympus equipment, to which I said "Don't bother." and proceeded to walk towards the door.  She ignored me.  The man working there said "Thanks for stopping." as if everything was just fine.

I'm sure she blames me for being stupid, as in "why doesn't he know that it's all micro Four-Thirds?" sort of question.  It's sad.  Would you trust your money to someone who can't even make a simple distinction?  Update 2014.12.02: the store had been closed some time in 2014.

Update: Apparently someone at the new Polaroid thought the same way.  Here is the micro Four-Thirds (or Four-Thirds depending where you look) mirror-less camera from Polaroid:

Oh, and Nikon just filed suit against Sakar over this model: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/10/15/nikon-sues-sakar-inc-for-infringement-with-polaroid-im1836-android-camera?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_2

Update 2016.04.05: It's interesting to me that many people confuse ratios (4:3) and fractions (4/3) when talking about micro Four-Thirds.  The sad thing is that the sensor's ratio happens to be 4:3, like 6x4.5 film and it's roughly twice the size of the 2/3" type sensor that Olympus was using in the E-10 and E-20 Zoom Lens Reflex cameras.