Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy Invaded By Blue Shirt Improv Artists
deviantphil writes "About 80 Improv Everywhere agents invaded their local Best Buy store wearing blue shirts and Khakis. Eventually they were asked to leave, but not before capturing some great photos and video." From the article: "Security guards and managers started talking to each other frantically on their walkie-talkies and headsets. 'Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!,' one employee shouted. They were worried that were using our fake uniforms to stage some type of elaborate heist. 'I want every available employee out on the floor RIGHT NOW!'" Their inspired cellphone symphony from this February is also well worth checking out.
What a waste ... they were probably more helpful than the regular employees
Well, in some other countries the manager and the security people could get jail time.. lots of it for stopping a person from leaving without a serious enough actual law having been broken. Over here they could get upto 2 years of jail.
I can appreciate the humor but I also understand why the Best Buy folks were freaked out by it.
One time when I was working in the UC San Diego college bookstore back in the 1980's, a bunch of activists came in with cameras to film everybody and the inside of the store. They were eventually escorted out by Campus Security, but it really unnerved some people, because we weren't sure who they were or what they were going to do with film they shot. There was talk that the activists were going to identify us and attack us another time away from the store to get back at the "establishment" and those of us who were helping the "establishment".
So I understand why the Best Buy folks might be a bit unnerved by this event. I suspect if I was an employee, I would have been also.
That's the thing. They weren't "impersonating" anyone. They were just wearing clothes that happened to be quite similar to the employee uniform. If you RTFA, you'd find that NONE of them EVER said that they worked there.
If Best Buy doesn't like it, they can make a "No blue shirts and Khakis" policy. Barring that, they have no recourse.
The 911 number is not for enforcing store policy.
No one claimed to be an employee.
"Best Buy didn't have enough real staff to throw out 80 people and keep the store running at the same time"
Still not a 911 emergency.
" it was confusing the customers "
And this is an emergency, how?
"and it's her responsibility to prevent that from happening"
Still not an emergency.
She should have called the desk sargent and asked for a patrol.
My beef was calling '911', not having the police there.
Your not one of those people that think 911 is just a convient way to help you for any ol' thing, are you? I hope not, I hate those people.
Finally:
Get a sense of humor.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
To all of the people who complain about the stunts, the immaturity, the panic, the idiotic ideas...lighten up!
I hate to generalize (Ok, I love it, but pretend for a second I don't) but our society today needs some humor. We hear "terrorist this" and "gas prices that" and "x troops killed today in Iraq by insurgents..." every day. We seem so drenched in sadness and tragedy sometimes we forget what we are: free!
As long as a flash mob/stunt doesn't injure innocent bystanders and cause undue distress to officials I don't see the harm. The way that these people carry out "missions" with their "agents" is harmless. I admit that there is no screening process and no, I wouldn't want to be a manager on duty that day at Best Buy. But these stunts are things that you can look back upon 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years later and grin. We need humor! I give my props to the people who have the audacity to go out there, do something very strange while surreptitiously documenting it, and post it for the rest of us to enjoy later! Way to go!
In a world filld with bad news, depressing ideas, and bad people, it's enlightening to smile at the deeds of others without having read it on Fark or the Darwin Awards.
I know I enjoyed the missions (the pantsless ones are priceless!) and I think that they have a great way of making people laugh. If you don't enjoy, that's fine. I don't get British humor and I hate Monty Python. Some humor isn't for everybody. But lighten up!
"This food is problematic."
There are fines or jail time for misusing 911 here too. When I read that bit that security held the guy for twenty minutes waiting for the cops the first thing I thought of was unlawful imprisonment too. I guess in the US in the name of national security you can get away with quite a bit. After all, blue shirts! BLUE SHIRTS!
The store is not a public space. It's privately owned and open for customers. They can refuse service to anyone for any reason, barring specially protected classes of discrimination such as race. Their recourse is to call the cops and have the people removed, which is what they did.
Overall, this wasn't funny or clever, just disruptive. Any moron can disrupt people.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
That's the problem, the employees made it conditional. You don't make it conditional.
"Excuse me Sir, you have to leave now" would have worked. Still, any of the 'performers' who refused could have been hauled into court for trespassing.
I don't read AC A human right
They were? Here's the legal requirement for a fraud charge in the US of A:
Fraud must be proved by showing that the defendant's actions involved five separate elements: (1) a false statement of a material fact, (2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue, (3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim, (4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and (5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.
They were specifically told NOT to claim they were employees, but rather state they were not, if asked. #1 down. #2 is meaningless without #1. #3, perhaps. #4 - again, no statement. #5 - injury? Give me a break.
So... out of the five required points there is a maybe on 1. Prosecutor, you have wasted the court's time. I find you in contempt.
I heard the This American Life thing as well.
I think the leader of this group isn't very aware of himself emotionally/psychologically. He's too comfortable manipulating people. These kinds of "performances" seem to come from having difficulty in asserting boundaries and allowing other people to assert their boundaries. He's not very empathetic and expects people to have the emotions he imposes on them and he even expects them to like it and is unreceptive if they don't.
This touches on the fascination with Andy Kaufmann. Fans were interested in him for manipulating the emotions of other people with his pranks, but when they show up and he manipulates them by reading from a boring book, all of a sudden they're angry. "It's fine if he doesn't respect other people's boundaries but he better respect mine."
I'm not saying these types of performances are unethical, but at least acknowlege them for what they are.
Pranks that don't take into account the emotions of their targets are about exploiting other people for your own amusement. I don't look up to people who deny this. It just makes them more self-centered in my eyes.
Jesus saves....And takes 1/2 damage.
she lost control of her store at the time she didnt know what was going on, they never called her in advance and told her what was going to happen
So let me get this straight, if 60 people want to go to a store in Manhattan they should call in advance for a reservation? This giant, 2-story Best Buy has never had more than 60 people in the store before?
How did the manager "lose control"? 60 people showed up and hung out at the store for a while. They weren't claiming to be employees, they weren't robbing the place, they weren't trashing the place, they weren't running up and down the aisles naked and screaming, they were just standing around.
If it unnerved her so much, she should have used her managerial authority to walk up to them one at a time with a security guard and say "Sir, I'm the store manager and you need to leave right now, please walk this way." If they refuse, then they're trespassing. The only times they *asked* (note the word ASKED) someone to leave and he sought to clarify, it was made 100% clear that he was NOT being TOLD to leave, only asked.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Demonstrating? What article did you read? What was their message? Did they even associate with each other in the store? Sorry, try again. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it a crime. For crying out loud, they didn't even initiate contact with other customers or stor employees. They simply walked into a storre en masse wearing clothing similar to the employees. Not. A. Crime.
Further, they left when asked. The trouble was the manager chose to call the police before asking them all to leave which was a mistake. The police have no cause to ask a person to leave if no store employee has even asked them to do so. For then where would be the complaint.
RTFA, my friend.
Sorry, the court laughs at you and doubles your contempt sentence for comparing wearing a blue shirt and khakis to dressing as a police officer. If the shirts had Best Buy logos on them then the prosecution might have a case, but plain blue shirts bought at random stores? Nope. At the VERY least that one falls down on "justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement" but I'm not willing to even stipulate that it's a statement at all.
If I ever lost my job and self respect and became a manager of a Best Buy and this happened, I would do the following:
1. Call the police - store managers in a large retail chain should have the proper orientation/training to know the procedure that is best in their jurisdiction. In Vancouver here, I believe the procedure is to call 911 and someone will triage the call and dispatch the appropriate response. Calling the police is the appropriate response because you really don't know the intentions of the "invaders". Employee and/or customer saftey or company property could be at risk.
2. Make some sort of an announcement using the store PA system advising customers and staff not to approach anyone dressed as a BB employee unless they have a Best Buy ID badge or what ever ID is used by BB. This is a judgement call - as it draws attention to the issue, but if I believed customer safety was an issue, it would be important to advise customers not to assume that people dressed in blue/khaki are not necessarily BB employees. If you didn't do this, and someone got hurt, I could be liable.
3. Assemble a security team + any available assistant managers. Give them explicit instructions that there role is to diffuse, not inflame the situation. They are to politely but firmly inform the "invaders" that the store is private property, their presence there is a privalege not a right and is now confusing customers and disrupting business and they have to leave immediately. There is no need to get personal, angry or physical, I would just ask them to leave. If they don't, have them arrested for trespassing.
There is a judgement call here. If I thought they were going to resist and put staff, customers or property at risk, I might give the instructions but wait until the police arrive. You can test the resolve of the group by simply asking several of them to leave. If they go peacefully - continue until you have the store under control. If anyone resists, assign a security dude to simply shadow them until the police arrive.
At no point is there any need to panic.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
"But it is valid to use it to report criminal trespass. If they were asked to leave and did not it was perfectly for them to call the police."
Except they WEREN'T asked to leave - that's the whole point! RTFA, buddy.
Are people really that scared of single adult males, now? Because it probably wasn't to do with his appearance...
What does this say about us? 20 years ago, women tried to guess what type of job you had based on what sort of business attire you wore.
Now, anybody can guess where you work based on the color of your polo shirt.
Tell me again how we're not engaging in a "race to the bottom" of the McJob Market...
Wow... this poster is the perfect example of why we need more stunts like this, not less. Anything out of the ordenary happens and chicken-littles like this decide the sky is falling. "We can only fight terrorists by maintaining a constant state of alert!" they cry... in fact we can only defeat terrorists by refusing to be afraid.
You know what age we live in? We live in an age where some pathetic mouthbreathing pantswetters are so fucking scared that they want a fascist, rigidly coontrolled police state to prevent the terrifying prospect of a bunch of people showing up wearing the same color shirt.
This space available.
Walking into an electronics store wearing the same color clothing as your friends equates to joking about bombs in airports? Please. That attitude is exactly why this stuff should happen more often.
This is just a special case of a general phenomenon -- people in a uniform, even if it's just a shirt color, tend to become defensive about that uniform.
I once had a temp job at a hospital loading dock. Horrible, crummy job, but it was a job. So all the people on the loading dock wore brown polyester pants, white shirts, and black shoes. So, my second day, I wore brown polyester pants, a white shirt, and black shoes. I was reprimanded for "wearing a dock uniform", paid for a half day, and asked not to return.
A different situation: There was a Greek Festival, where all the food service people were wearing black pants or skirts, white shirts and a black hat. My girlfriend and I happened to both be wearing black pants, white shirts, and we each had a black hat, all coincidentally (we didn't even know about the festival, just chanced upon it), and so we just sort of hung out for a while and all the workers treated us like we were hosts not patrons. We ate and drank for free and hung out while everybody partied after the festival was over.
Anyway, if you wear a blue shirt to Best Buy I'm sure they can throw you out if the laws of your state allow it, "for any reason", but not just because you wore a blue shirt, unless they eject *everyone* wearing a blue shirt (not just you.)
The band of pranksters could test this by being not just a bunch of clowns, but some organization whose uniform is *also* well-established as blue shirts and khakis, go in the store with legitimate business, and get kicked out for no reason other than their attire, they might be able to force the store manager to explain to a judge why he considered a shirt and khakis to be inappropriate attire, or whatever was his bais calling the police was.
But in this case, it is clear that the group was intentionally creating a disturbance, and that it was not terribly difficult to get a police officer to agree. If a reasonable person believes your intent is to disturb the peace (which it clearly was) then I hope it was enough fun to be worth the potential legal hassle.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If I follow you correctly, you're saying that anybody who goes into a Best Buy is a criminal the instant Best Buy decides they don't like that person. The only difference between a law-abiding citizen and a "criminal trespasser" is Best Buy's opinion of that person.
Do I have that right? Because that seems very strange.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Yes, you aren't exactly doing something "illegal", but your intention is obviously to make life harder for other people, which in my book counts as "immoral" (at least as long as these "other people" haven't done anything wrong towards you!)
I find the whole episode comparable to someone who have gotten hold of some disappearing ink, spray it on random peoples shirts, and then write a web-page about it where they talk about how angry some people became because of this, even though it was just an innocent gag.
I'm sorry, but if some random person sprayed my shirt with disappearing ink, I would not find it funny. And if some random crowd of people had agreed to enter my store with clothes similar to the uniform of my employees, I wouldn't find it funny either. Now, had the random person in either case, been someone I knew and trusted, I might have reacted otherwise, but this depends a bit more upon the situation. When doing practical jokes, it's a fine line between what's funny and what's just cruel.
Oh, by the way, I killed your dog just to see how you'd react. But don't worry, here's a new one...
No, you RTFA. It says that when employees asked them to leave they refused and said they were waiting on someone.