Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
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.
(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!
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.
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.
We could, but the question is - would you really want to?
I mean, Unions are great for certain career fields, but this ain't one of them. While yes a Union would curb management excess, it also tends to retard employee excellence.
Case in point - Seniority. You, I, and pretty much most folks who think it through know full well that time-on-the-job does not equal competency-on-the-job. Problem is, most Union shops (I've worked in a few as a member) eat, sleep, and breathe Seniority. This means that merit no longer counts.
Admittedly, these obstacles are few, but some of them can be rather large ones.
Go on strike? Err, why, because some poor bastard in some other company or division thereof got a raw deal by some jackass manager? Screw that. I saw something similar as a teacher once. The whole damned state union (UEA) wanted to walk out on a week of school days, because they only got a modest annual raise instead of a large one... Meanwhile, I had just got on, and had fully negotiated my own salary and benefits --to my satisfaction-- before I accepted the position; just like each and every one of them could have done (Utah state law fully allows this).
I don't know... I guess I just prefer the free agency of it all. I like the fact that I can advance without waiting for someone ahead of me to die off or retire. I like being able to move into a senior position at a new place without having to pay the dues (both monetary and otherwise), or being locked into something I know I can get a better deal out of - if only I am allowed to negotiate it independently. If I want to do something after-hours, I can (okay, sometimes it's a have-to deal, but I knew that going in and I get paid overtime for such cases, so...)
Anyrate, it's a whole other culture, and not exactly the panacea that it appears to be. Having been in good Unions (Ironworkers, local 493) and bad (Utah Educators Ass'n), I know that it's a whole other world that what most folks expect.
(and if you think outsourcing is ugly now - just wait'll the PHB's realize you gave them a friggin' union to deal with. Your job will disappear faster than grain alcohol in a frat house).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
My boss says to just use your back button and that will delete the comment.
rewriting history since 2109
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.
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.
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
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.
Nobody is going to take on $250,000 in university debt for a job that pays $6/hr, you'll never earn it back.
Please use google to lookup "Liberal Arts Majors"
What do you call a liberal arts major? "Check please!"
Badabing!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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