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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."
You want techs that can look at the data to trouble shoot and remove viruses, etc. but at the same time won't look at the data that may be of a personal nature. The answer is obviously zombies.
Heck, I'll make my own Geek Squad. With hookers, and blackjack...
Sounds like you did all the right things - I'd hire you in a snap. Don't let the micro-managers of the world get you down - their heads will be rolling down the same street soon.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
rarrrrrr, I'd love for the Geek Squad to whip my naughty ass and punish me anyway they see fit for my transgressions and pirating.
Warmest regards,
CmdrTaco
I bet those $35k/year managers felt good after getting a chance to swing their dicks around. On a more positive note, I'm sure these guys will end up with better jobs now that there's motivation to look for one. That usually tends to be the case with talented people stuck in shit hole jobs.
In Canada, you might have a case for wrongful dismissal. You stopped the activity from occurring after it occurred. Your not supposed to fire employees after every small infraction occurs. You need to try remedial action first. If you fired everyone that made a small mistake, you would run out of employees pretty quickly.
Suggestion: wrongful termination
Or try "employment lawyer." Beware: the US is largely employment-at-will. So, unless you're a minority, pregnant/a woman, handicapped, over 50, or in the military...you're pretty much screwed.
Shame, as it wasn't always that way, and the US is one of the few places where at-will employment is the norm.
Please help metamoderate.
> "The first two were fired for burning a non-copyrighted CD..."
What do you mean by "non-copyrighted"?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm a GS agent as well and in our precinct we went through the same sort of thing, although we didn't have any of those torture session or anything. Corporate confiscated all of our harddrives and external backup devices and said they were checking for SOP compliance. About three weeks later or so we got a message from them saying we were 100% compliant with approved tools and such so as far as corporate was concerned we were angels. Any agent that has the time to look through someone's personal files must either be bored, in need of more work, or just waiting to be fired. I honestly don't have time to look through everyone's personal image files and mp3 caches. I grab your information, associated you with a service order number, and go from there.
I think they were right in sacking the agents who weren't working while on the clock. Our budgets are pretty harsh, so we don't have the service budget to give you hours to burn porn on the clock. Being sacked for being the supervisor trying to fix things is BS though, sounds like upper management trying to disguise the fact these things had been going on under the noses.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
Based on the side of the story told in the article, I would guess that they couldn't find anybody "guilty enough" to fire. Maybe the one guy they caught with the illegal data and didn't fire had connections of some sort. Still, they wanted to fire somebody to make an example and their numbers came up. The CD burning incident was probably an excuse after the decision was taken.
Still, it is only one side of the story and I don't know the author of the same so I'm basing my speculation on his word.
After an embarrassing corporate incident, it's easier to look "tough on crime" and fire somebody than actually fixing the problem. "Yes, we had a security incident a while ago. 200 employees were fired as a result. We take this things seriously".
No sig
As a computer technician I say yes, absolutely.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
You seem like a smart guy. You don't belong working for geek squad. Find yourself an IT computer support job at any office and you will be much happier. I worked for CompUSA for 3 months... it was a harsh 3 months let me tell you. The pay is horrible and the management is bad as well. I quit my job at CompUSA and started an IT support position for a local telephone company. It was basically the same work, but I didn't have to deal with annoying customers or managers as much for almost double the pay. It also allowed me to work my way up inside the company. I only worked in IT for 11 months before I became a network admin. two years after that I was a network engineer.. and its been only getting better since then. Now I work at a large networking company and when my PC breaks I call someone to come fix it :) (if I dont have the means to fix it myself of course :))
Start searching www.dice.com and www.craigslist.org for some new opportunities. You'll be much happier soon, keep your head up.
I would. I hate my enemies.
Long ago, in college, I worked at Best Buy in Indianapolis. I worked in the Audio/Car Audio departments. So anyways, one night I'm coming into work and get pulled aside by the LP guy (the goofy guys where the yellow shirts that think they're important). I thought he was just going to ask me to watch the front while he took a break but instead pulled me in one of the front offices. Told me he'd be right back after asking me to sit down.
A few minutes later, he comes in with one of the assistant managers with him, they both sit down and hand me a clipboard with paper and pen. They ask for me to write down everything I've stolen. I'm like, WTF? I haven't stolen anything is my only reply to every question. The LP guy kept getting in my face, yelling and moaning that I've stolen something. He gets pissed and threatens to call the police, I say, call them, I'd love to explain to them your false accusations without any proof even if I did steal something.
The LP guy leaves and the manager there has nothing to say. Granted, I was shocked cause it was the only manager I liked. The only thing I said at that moment was, "I've lost all respect for you at this time!"
So the LP guy comes back and then threatens with police and polygraph test, I'm all open for the idea, this just pissed him off more. We exchange more words, he keeps demanding I write down everything I've stolen so I just dropped the damn clipboard and pen. I proceed to tell them, if you have nothing on me as I have not stolen anything, I'm leaving. LP guy walks out again all pissed, comes back in a few minutes and tells me I'm suspended til further notice. He escorts me out.
By the time I get home, I get a call from a co-worker who's pissed off and tells me the same exact story. They pulled him in right after me, same type of interrogation. We later found out they did this to all but 2 employees in the Audio/Car Audio department. 6 out of the 8 that is.
If we go back in time a little, they were opening a new store and had others help out from the surrounding stores. Guess which 6 helped, the 6 let go. While we were helping the store, they said we would get paid retro type pay since the other store didn't have us in their system. So we determined this was just a way for them to just not pay us after we kept insisting on our paychecks from the overnight work and days off we spent at the other store.
Funny to think two weeks later we show up for our final check and they tell us we've been fired, our only response was, "Really, cause we already found other jobs, why would we want to work here after what happened?"
We all talked to a lawyer but the amount owed he said just wasn't worth it to sue.
Moral of the story, Best Buy = Shitty Place to Work
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.
Can we start a union of computer workers so we have a little more barganing table? If Hollywood writers, janitors, garbagemen, Disney employees, etc. can unionize and fight back for some rights, we can too.
Imagine what kind of mess they would be in if there was a strike?
Is there any reason that we CAN NOT have a computer tech or programmers union? Seriously.
http://Communityville.com - A free place for new and old neighborhood webmasters to hang out.
(and while I'm dreaming of writing up an invoice big enough to make a DoD contract agent drop his jaw in fear... well, I'd like a pony while I'm at it.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
then all you motherfuckers at the Enterprise level best be prepared to have your A/R department brace for impact... (evil grin).
I would imagine that their Accounts Payable department would be more shocked. But then again, maybe actually understanding the difference between 'receivable' and 'payable' is the reason why the "beancounters" typically make good wages.
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.
He pointed at the case. I repeated the question, wording it differently.
He pointed back at the case.
Standards organizations only work when they're not cash-oriented, and there's always some unscrupulous ninny willing to trade cash for sheepskins...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
So go out there, and start a union/guild.
That's the traditional thing to do when faced with a field where skilled, expert labor cannot compete with unskilled labor doing the same jobs.
I was never a fan of organized labor as a negotiation tool - it's full of lose-lose situations, like whether to allow an airline's retirement benefits to lapse or allow the company to go bankrupt (resulting in those benefits being cut).
But it has two other roles
As a political action group, it can achieve things that no amount of corporate negotiation ever can. Laws can be passed which mandate particular benefits - benefits which two competitors individually would otherwise have incentives to cut in order to better compete.
As a standards organization, it can ensure that its members are respected in a way that no amount of advertising ever can. A level of skill can be assured and a level of job mobility acquired by good performance, when in a corporate setting your expertise only potentially grants you a promotion to a level that your skills are irrelevant.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
A very funny answer for sure, but it is a simple economics question. not how much do we pay X, but rather how do we get people to put higher value on X's services (sorry, I teach econ.) or more importantly, how to get them to opportunity cost of data loss. My school has a job shadowing program. I like to tell my students that they should not shadow jobs they might want, but rather spend time at McDonalds shadowing a burger flipper. That way, they will learn the cost of not not getting a good education. sometimes, most times, we don't really know the value (really the opportunity cost, that which we give up) of something.
I'd gather that most people who pay $15/hour for tech service have never had a major data/security failure. $350/hr tech service is cheap if your data is worth that much. I'd guess that even for most people, this holds true, though they don't realize it. when they do, it'll be to late!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Insightful? You have got to be kidding!
You think you pay that much just for privacy? Hell, pay me $350/hr and I will keep your secrets. Nah brother, what we need are techs who are honest and ethics because that is right.
Welcome to corporate Amerika.
As the years go by, you'll recognize that this type of behavior is normal. The company that I work at reorgs every 12-months with random no-cause firings in between.
Don't try to understand it. "Right" and "wrong" are concepts that cannot apply.
Fry's is, as I understand it, better than those two...
Hehehehe. You've clearly never shopped at Fry's. The advantages there are that they have inventory and good specials. Otherwise the salespeople are the same caliber as what you find at BB/CC/CompUSA, but they think that they're better than their counterparts. This always leads to moments where you cringe when you hear one of them giving tech advice to other customers. But if you have a question for them, just expect the same blank stares you get at the other places.
This guy's the limit!
13/h?
When I worked at staples, they paid me 7.70/h to do it. As an actual "easy tech". And I was the "business machines specialist" - AKA department supervisor.
Talk about underpaid.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Quack, quack.
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.
It is quite difficult to tell from your remarks how far you went in stopping this. Point of fact, you were in a supervisory position, it was YOUR JOB to nail anyone to the corporate cross for doing anything that even remotely resembled breaking the privacy rules or repeating the previous behavior.
The bottom line is this: When someone hires you to work on their computer, your job is to fix it not snoop around, not make copies of anything unless it is to preserve their data, and then you hand the customer the CD!
I am consultant. I work on large systems and networks which frequently requires me to have ROOT passwords, all access, ect. I don't peek, I don't poke, I don't even ponder what might be hidden away on some corner of the corporate hard drive. I do the job I am being paid to do and wrap it up.
If you get another job in a supervisory position of technical people who work on other peoples computers, especially if its ala GeekSquad, I suggest that you immediately, if not sooner, burn anyone you catch doing something like that, tack their hide up on the wall as an example for others and do your job.
My guess is that the people who found their shit other then where they kept it are hiring or have hired lawyers and that Best Buy / GeekSquad are going to be dragged into court and taken to the cleaners for a lot of money.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
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 would also like to add that doctors and lawyers are protected by the law when they need to keep secrets private. A doctor can tell to his boss that a given practice goes against medical secret or medical ethics. There are no such things in IT.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
My boss says to just use your back button and that will delete the comment.
rewriting history since 2109
All management types know what to do is how to kiss their superiors ass, and blame/fire the guy who isn't the problem. Target management seems to act the same way at most stores.
The problem with the reason the person here was fired was now its opened the door for something that will only aggravate the situation. If Geek Squad ethical problems were bad before, it'll get worse now for a reason.
The boss fires the employee who didn't come forward who admitted he indeed knew there was a problem.
So what happens? News spreads, employees learn that one of their colleagues was fired, even if he wasn't technically involved. Those that were in the same position as the fired employee suddenly get very tight lips and shut up. They protect their jobs, but now there's an underground system of copied data that could run through any Geek Squad.
Firing an employee for holding back this information looks to me more like the boss was trying to keep his own job protected. But that's my opinion. Take it or leave it.
I really doubt this is the case. I worked for BestBuy for two years, and despite all the pressure from managers, most floor salesmen that I knew, myself included, weren't out to screw the customer. We get no incentives to sell you more, except we don't have to hear our managers bitch at us (as much.) In the two years that I was there, there was one contest for selling, and the prize was a $20 flash drive. So in your case, I don't think they were withholding stock from you. None of us kept track of stock in our heads, and the inventory system at bestbuy isn't very accurate, nor is it quick.
the funny thing is Best Buy contracts there Enterprise IT needs... to the company I work for. They will not let the geek squad touch any Best Buy corporate machine.
...because the geek squad will find all the porno.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Dude, you know you're talking to Americans right? American tech workers would rather die of starvation then pay a measly $100 a month (or less) in union dues for a union that gets them an additional $1k-2k more income.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Oh. At which retail outlet can I replace the last decades' worth of financials and client data for my company? What's that worth, the cost of a CD-R and some shrink wrap?
It's not the cost of the vessel that matters, it's what's contained within that's worth $350/hour. I have nothing critical in my television set, however I would like the DVD back when I throw away my DVD player.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
If you're going to lose your job anyways over something you didn't do, take the time to put a black mark on their record as well. If you don't get fired (as you've put them in a place where all eyes are looking to see if they do the right thing), it's the last time anyone will accuse you of anything you didn't do. Ever.
These type of people are bullies, and they get away with whatever they want until someone calls their bluff and one-ups them. They always pull you aside since they have no authority in a group; the more public you make the whole ordeal, the less power they have. Even if it's a crap job, the experience will pay off later down the road.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
These types of associations exist in other practices, and they usually end up hurting the members because there will always be lowballing bastards ready to do a poor-quality job, and clients usually don't know any better. The sweet spot is usually in the middle, higher than the cheap morons, but lower than the pros.
:) A while back, I was working for a pretty big computer supplier, and the boss was sharp as a tack. We had three basic power supplies: a cheap one, a decent no-name and a quality brand-name . The cheap one cost us $5.00, the no-name $15, and the fancy one about $60, yet we sold them at $40, $80 and $100 respectively. Being a naive, un-greedy Canadian, this seemed odd as my instinct at the time was to price things relative to cost, like maybe $10, $30 and $85. Note the biggest difference is in the mid-range prices. I priced it $50 cheaper than the other guy, and even my mid-range was lower than his cheapie.
This calls for an anecdote
His logic was sound: only gamers will buy the top-end unit, and contractors will buy the cheapest one. Everyone else will buy the mid-range unit, so make it the most profitable of the bunch. Even though the Antec (with the better warranty) is just $20 more, very few people would go for it. In Canada at least, $20 is the the mental dotted line for most people. Below 20 they don't flinch, but above 20 they think long and hard about their choice. It's kinda weird how currency denominations affect people's spending habits!
It did mean that his high-end stock wouldn't move much, but that's okay because he didn't really care about that clientele, they are few and far-between. Unfortunately for me, even though I got stuff at cost, it didn't benefit me much at all because I've always been a high-end kind of guy. Even on a budget machine I splurge on the power supply; nothing sucks worse than blowing up $300 worth of motherboard, ram and hard drives because you tried to save $20 on a cheap power supply. Well, nothing except blowing up $1500 worth of gear on a cheap power supply. That would be a damned shame!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
1: What you do is persuade your local representative that government contracts require the professional certification.
2: You persuade your representative that certification is required to practice at all.
3: That's when you hit paydirt. Profit!!!
The key to profit is scarcity. Induced naturally, by law or by whatever means you can arrange. It's how the doctors and lawyers have arranged to become wealthy.
Deleted
The supply. That drives up prices too. If it costs more, both in monetary terms and non-economic things like time and intelligence, to do a given job it will raise the end cost of that position. If it costs more in terms of schooling and licensing, you have to charge more to make all that worth it. Nobody is going to take on $250,000 in university debt for a job that pays $6/hr, you'll never earn it back. Likewise the more skill something requires, the more options the people in it have and thus if they pay isn't high enough they won't do it.
So it isn't just "They can charge more because people are willing to pay it," it is also a situation of if they couldn't charge a certain amount, they wouldn't do it. As such if you raise the cost of becoming a computer tech, the cost of services will go up. If it goes past a level people are willing to pay it won't result in lowering of prices, it'll just result in the disappearance of that job.
That's like saying that Webcor employs steelworkers and not their facilities guy to construct their skyscrapers even though hey they both know something about welding. The average home that geek squad goes into probably isn't running a 5,000 user Exchange server or optical switches for their SAN fabric.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
The story told by the geek squad supervisor is a sad an unfortunate one. However, (im sure you could see that "but" coming ;) what do you expect from a company who holds interviews for potential employees through a human voice translator? I know this because a couple of years ago while i was in college (circa 2003) I needed a job and someone told me best buy was hiring, while apprehensive, I went for it anyway. It turns out the interview was conducted over the phone via a human like operator, and if you pressed a wrong key you would fail the interview. I was told this ahead of time and of course I still did it, and it cost me getting the job. How could of made that mistake even though I was told ahead of time? No idea, maybe it was fate intervening. I'm a nix admin now 4 years out of college, not making bank, but doing ok, and I gotta say I'm happy that i pressed the wrong key that day. I'm glad i never worked for the technology sector's wallmart. It also makes you wonder how many future managers or talented employees they have lost due to someone getting a case of fat fingers during those "phone interviews". My advice to this poor supervisor; absorb the harsh lesson laid upon you. You didn't do anything wrong, but dude, its best buy, just avoid them in any way you can in the future, they don't deserve anyone's business or career.
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
Oh. At which retail outlet can I replace the last decades' worth of financials and client data for my company? What's that worth, the cost of a CD-R and some shrink wrap?
Data Recovery services is another specialty. That can command high prices for data that is a lot more valuable than the hardware. Often computer repair is wipe and reinstall. You pay more for data recovery.
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
That, and on a serious level it's another sign of how little BB trusts their employees (read: not at all).
They'll have seminars, classes, training materiel about honesty, respecting the company, having pride (sic) in your job, and they essentially treat you like a criminal. Oh, and the pay is crap too.
Does anyone really wonder why geek squad "techs" have little to no interest in their jobs and would rather look for pron (or pics of the guy's wife even better) then do what they're supposed to.
Honestly, i have access to every file, every email, every profile, every hard drive in my company. Want to know what I do with all that power? I check my CEO's calendar to see when he'll be traveling our of the country (international blackberry swap) or in a different office (start up and log in that computer) and let my techs know so we stay ahead of the curve.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
It's not hard. Takes a hell of a lot of years of schooling, and it is competitive so the schools are generally high dollar. I work for a state university and our tuition is fairly average, which in this context means around the mean or median tuition. For an out of state undergraduate, it is about $13,000 a semester. That's over $100,000 just for your undergrad assuming a normal 4 year. Law school is more, $14,000 per semester. I don't know how many semesters it is, but it is at least 4 and I think it is closer to 8.
Now please remember that we aren't high end. We are a good state university, not a top private school. You can easy quadruple those semester fees if you try. Also this is tuition ONLY, no books, housing, anything else, just what you have to pay the school for the privilege of being allowed to attend.
So ya, really, people can accrue a quarter million (or more) in debt getting certain degrees, especially law and medicine. There are more than a few people who fall in to the category of having parents that make too much money to qualify for need based aid, yet either don't make enough to pay for it or just aren't willing to (there are many parents who believe their kids should earn it on their own). If you are in that situation your only option is student loans. Even if you get some scholarships or aid, it still can leave a large gap to cover.
I rented a room to a guy in his last year of law school here. He wasn't quite that high, having gotten some undergraduate aid and a bit of family help, but he was well over $100,000 in debt when he finally passed the bar.
You add in the amount of money, plus the years of your life, plus the hard work (law school is an amazingly heavy course load), plus the fact that you have to be fairly smart to do it and you end up needing a reasonably large payoff at the end if you want a lot of people to do that.
It is not a lack of education that makes you flip burgers, it is a lack of motivation and thirst for self-improvement. Rather than trying to "scare a kid straight" you would do better to encourage them to expand their base of understanding and knowledge and follow their interests and talents and most of all- learn to take risks. Telling a kid- "go to college or you will end up like this" puts in their head "If I go to college I will have a good job waiting when I graduate" and they end up on their parents' couch.
Real geeks and geek squad are two different things.
A real geek can go into the local parts store, order mobo and all the parts. Put one together, load the OS and then program the thing. Setup their own firewall and probably run Linux, BSD or other non-Windows OS. They get into wireless, networking, sniffing and software to depths geek squad could never go.
Geek squad on the other hand is really a salesperson in disguise. The idea is to bilk you for services you do not need.
CBC Marketplace video explains. These are not geeks or nurds, they are modern day snake oil salesmen.
Don't insult real geeks. Real geeks would have all these problems fixed properly in less than 10 minutes or recommend that the system is so old it is cheaper to buy a new one. But real geeks don't drive stupid vehicles and they sure don't work for $30/hr or less.