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How Best Buy Tried To Whip The Geek Squad Into Shape
The Consumerist site is featuring a follow-up to their Geek Squad porn collectors story, a feature we discussed back in July. According to Consumerist, Best Buy set up their own rigorous internal investigation to catch the culprits soon after these revelations became public. At that point, of course, employee morale went out the window. Draconian interrogation methods were apparently used, and innocent employees lost their jobs. "There were three Geek Squad members fired from my store including myself. The first two were fired for burning a non-copyrighted CD for another employee on a non company issued blank CD-R. I admitted in my interrogation that I was aware of this, and that I stopped these events after that occurrence. I was fired for being aware of this non copyrighted CD being copied. To quote, I did not provide the proper example of leadership. Keep in my mind I removed over 100 illegal tools and pirated discs upon my arrival as supervisor, as well as some remnants of an internal porn scandal."
So at Best Buy you show your management potential by collecting scalps. How is this different from too many other places?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No, but $100-200/hour depending on the skill levels required sounds perfectly acceptable to me.
I was priced out of the market in computer and networking repair in my area because of every Joe and Sally who'd taken a crash course, read a few books or were just "the smart computer person" in their house opening up shop and charging ridiculously low rates for repair work.
Sure, for on-site work I was billing myself out at $60/hr and they were billing out at $20/hr. Sounds great, right? Sure it does; until you realize it takes them 5 hours to perform the tasks I can perform in 1 and mine won't be a cobbled together nightmare.
Sure, a few clients realized this and called us back in to fix the problems these cheap techs caused them (usually more problems than solutions) but it simply wasn't enough. We couldn't compete with the prices, we couldn't stand (or afford) to contract ourselves out for such low rates and we wouldn't dream of resorting to the tactics these places used to ensure job security (namely "leave behinds").
I've said for years that there should be a standard body for establishing credentials for computer technicians that includes proof of skills and semi-annual retesting to ensure skills development matches the pace of the industry and that a standardized set of fees should be established by this body to be charged by its members. If an organization chooses to have their work done by a non-member they do so at their own peril.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
You mean something like CompTIA?
I've mentioned this guy before; he had graduated from a local technical school and was even a card-carrying A+ tech. As this school had the reputation of "pay to pass", I decided to test him, and pointing at an open box, asked him to point at the motherboard.
No, I specifically avoided mentioning them because I firmly believe their organization and the certificates they provide aren't worth the paper they're printed on (even if they provided PDF files). It's also widely known amongst the technically literate which "schools" are little more than diploma factories (if you pay your $8 grand, hell, here's your diploma! You're now educated!) I've dealt with way too many "I have ${cert} so I'm qualified to make six figures! Hire me or your company will wither and die!" types to mention.
My boss informed one of them that he should be a garbage man. See, he was trying to string together an ethernet LAN without using a hub or switch (because that's wrong, or something) but instead by installing two network cards in each of the fifteen computers and cabling them one to the next to the next in a lovely bastardization of, I dunno, token ring with ethernet with thinnet with ...
What we need is a professional standards body that actually measures skills and mandates periodic skills reviews to maintain certification according to accepted industry guidelines. Practical examinations as well as an apprenticeship period would be preferable to ensure capability.
If I'm not mistaken, one can still go out and buy a CompTIA A+ certification book, schedule a time to take the test and be certified without ever actually opening the case on a computer, which was also the cause of the complete industry-wide invalidation of the MCSE certification when it came out.
Take for example Cisco certs (yeah yeah); the CCNA means nothing in a practical sense, but it does indicate that you have some grounding in networking fundamentals. Ok. So you can assist our network techs and troubleshoot problems at the LAN level. After a couple years experience you write the CCNP test. Now you're able to move into the bigger office and assist our WAN techs and touch the real routers. A few years of this and you enroll in the CCIE program. Combine that with 10+ years in the trenches and suddenly four letters mean you can pretty much write your own ticket.
However if you somehow do manage to aquire even a CCIE but don't have a decades worth of relevant experience you may as well have saved yourself the few grand and just written your CCNA because, hey, you're our new tape switcher.
Combine all this certification nonsense with HR people and management who don't understand anything about the computer industry but who do recognize "industry recognized certification body" and associate it with "skilled professional" and make the leap to "qualified for this position" and you have a very large disconnect from reality, compound that a million fold and welcome to today.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Do we really want $350/hr computer technicians?
As a computer technician I say yes, absolutely.
I don't. It is for the same reason we don't use $100/hour TV repairmen. It's cheaper to replace it than fix it. I used to fix VCR's and Camcorders when they were well over $500 items. Now that many of them can be replaced for about 2 hours of labor or less, I have found other employment. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it and have no work.
The truth shall set you free!
I don't know about you, but adherence to moral principles is worth a whole lot more to me than a measly $1-2k extra annually. You misrepresent the anti-union group's arguments by casting the issue in purely financial terms.
Anyway, $100 a month ($1200 annually) for $1000 return would be a rather poor deal even without considering the strong moral and ethical arguments against coercing others out of work for your own benefit.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat