I have no problems talking to computers, I do it all the time when trying to fix 'em. The day they can understand what I'm saying *and reply in kind* is the day I find a new profession. Veterinarian perhaps...
I worked for Geek Squad prior to it being called Geek Squad and after the name change.
Ermm.... Geek Squad was ALWAYS called Geek Squad. Perhaps you mean you worked for Best Buy prior to the name changes?
Before Best Buy picked 'em up, they were their own company. Started by Robert Stephens, a guy tooling around the University of Minnesota campus on his bicycle. The Squad was a bit bigger than that by the time I joined them, and we LOVED seeing computers with Best Buy stickers. Great source of revenue; we could be almost 100% certain they were messed up since Best Buy techs generally did not have a good reputation around the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. Sure, there were a couple of good ones, but they were far outnumbered by the clowns who didn't give a rat's... well, you get the picture.
Geek Squad had an excellent reputation in those days. Best Buy picked 'em up to improve their own rep, and hopefully get some quality back in their support. Unfortunately, they ended up slapping a good name on the same old (generally) bad techs... dragged a good name down. Doesn't sound like there's been much improvement over time, unfortunately.
Sure we'd joke from time to time when we ran across machines where the Windows desktop was risque, and we'd make backups of customer data whenever they requested it. However, you didn't touch those backups unless your name was on the ticket, and you never went digging through a customer's files on a whim. That was the game the "other guys" played - we considered it beneath us. It wasn't professional, and there were always more machines to repair.
It boiled down simply: Back then, for most at the Geek Squad it was a profession. For most at Best Buy, it was a summer job.
When I started at a certain (then) small computer repair company, among the titles were "Dr. No" (in charge of all things finance), "Minister of Transportation" (he ran parts and software out to techs who needed 'em), and "Minister of Information" (code monkey, also managed the parts closet and made software toolkits for the techs).
At the interview, I was told my job title would be for a new position they were opening up: "Minion". After putting in some hard work and proving myself as a tech, I found a way to get a new designation. We were given the chance to order business cards, and could put pretty much anything we wanted on 'em. Since already was an "Intelligence" section, I suggested "Counter Intelligence" for those of us doing triage on computers coming in. (We worked at the counter... used our intelligence... it seemed to fit.) I still have some of those old business cards.:)
Time went on, promotions came (Rookie Agent, Parts Manager, Special Agent). Now I hear my old Counter Intelligence section's become CIA and some of the glamor of the title's been tarnished. Sorry to see it... but it's been an interesting set of titles to put on the ol' resume!
- Brian L.
(Formerly) Special Agent 45, Geek Squad
Heh, yeah we've got the Ethernet (RJ-45 to 120V conversion) ones here at work too. One guy read a little too much of the early BOFH, and got the idea to make 'em. We call them "Network Accelerators" though - since EVERYTHING goes faster with more power, right?
From your description, you were working in the computer field when I was just starting to look at it and say "Hey, that could be fun." Back then, most repair techs actually knew what they were doing and wanted to do a good job. They had to, because only the truly dedicated had learned enough to do the job. In those days hardware and operating systems weren't nearly as forgiving of incompetence as they are today.
Geek Squad was started by someone with much the same motivations. A couple years after they started getting big in Minneapolis, I joined them. We worked hard, and most of us were there for love of the challenge. When we looked at the competition, we saw two types: Small, independant repair stores who were quite good and worked hard. Large, corporate entities (Best Buy, CompUSA, that sort) - staffed by kids with little training and only there "as a summer job".
Job for them. Career for us. Who was going to do the better work?
Sure there were good Best Buy techs, but they were rare. SERIOUSLY rare. The good ones were rarely seen at the repair counters - I think they were locked away in a warehouse somewhere, but I digress. We LOVED Best Buy and CompUSA - they sent us so many good customers. Our reaction to their techs was the same as your reaction now to the current Geek Squad. The other "independant" repair shops held similar views - Best Buy repair techs made all of us other repair techs look bad.
My understanding of the Geek Squad/Best Buy purchase thing was that Best Buy execs realized they had to do something to improve both the reputation and the skill level of their bench techs. I may have been wrong, but I believed that the Squad techs were to provide training to the Best Buy techs and bring them up to a respectable skill level. It wasn't a "marketing gimmick" or a "high level marketing concept". Sure, there was marketing involved - show me a corporate decision that doesn't have that taken into account. It just wasn't the only, or even the major, driving force behind the buyout.
The trouble is, at the big box computer stores you still have most of your techs who treat it as a "summer job". They won't take it seriously or do quality work, no matter what name you give 'em. It isn't the same priority in life to them as it was to me, or from the sound of it, to you. The solution? Wish I knew, I'd be a millionaire if I did. How do you instil a strong work ethic in someone who doesn't want it or care about it?
Of course, this being Slashdot, anyone who reads this already has a strong work ethic, a love of his or her field, and can't really identify with the losers out there who give us all a bad name. Maybe we should lobby our governments for some kind of manditory "computer license" thing... certain minimum skill levels before you're allowed to own a computer, and an even higher minimum skill level before you're allowed to repair them...?
The VW's actually were pretty cool at the start. (l33t? Bah. Humbug. Not many 14-year-olds are likely to be driving, and anyone older should have outgrown such talk.) We used to have a Ford Falcon, an old delivery truck painted to look like a SWAT vehicle, and everyone's favorite, the Morris Minor. ("Zero to sixty in one afternoon" as one British gentleman described it to us.) Then of course there was Geek One, a beautiful classic limo the owner occasionally brought out. I was always kinda hoping we'd get black/white Harley Davidsons, but that just wasn't going to happen. Still, having a "swarm" of the VW's driving around downtown Minneapolis was kinda fun.
Ahh, memories. Heh, I could start liking this "old coot" thing. Too bad I didn't bother getting a Slashdot account until recently. Won't get any cred from the other old coots around here with this number.:)
Hrmm, I wonder what kind of reaction I'd get flashing my old badge at the local Best Buy?
Actually, this does look to be a pretty good thing. Now if they can just shrink it down to, say, the size of a mouse or a gerbil, my days of threading network cable through walls and ductwork will be FAR simpler!
Always thought it'd be ideal to have a little robot to do that dirty work. I've had a heck of a time training real mice and gerbils to climb walls for me. They'll climb all right, but won't go where I want 'em... and they get downright hostile if I try to attach Cat-5 cables to their tails.
Unfortunately, the candygram deliveries have fallen off drastically too. They used to tell me I could protect myself from LAND sharks simply by ordering candy and having it delivered to the distribution center's address. The poor fish would get confused, losing its packets and forgetting to eat people.
Rather than being a simple defense, I now suspect that this was actually a sort of LANDshark Attack, one capable of killing off dozens of innocent candygram-servers... err... heartless eating machines.
"Maybe they don't want to pay $25.00 a month (Plus the FUSF fee, plus the taxes at $49.99/month, plus some sales tax for some equipment which you never used) to have the ability to browse an Internet full of advertisements."
That pretty much sums it up for me. I've never figured out why I'd want to pay for a service that I'd rarely use. Any high speed Internet access I need is job related, so I use the T1 at work to do it. A cheap dial-up connection is all I really need for home, because except for a few hours when I try to sleep, I'm never home to USE broadband.
Heck, it's the same reason I don't even have cable TV. A couple of bent coat hangers work well as an antenna - why pay to have cable access when you only watch TV for the weather reports? Okay, so I'm cheap. Or frugal... yeah, that sounds better... but broadband at home just has no appeal for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Translation:
Fixed that for you.
I have no problems talking to computers, I do it all the time when trying to fix 'em. The day they can understand what I'm saying *and reply in kind* is the day I find a new profession. Veterinarian perhaps...
I worked for Geek Squad prior to it being called Geek Squad and after the name change.
Ermm.... Geek Squad was ALWAYS called Geek Squad. Perhaps you mean you worked for Best Buy prior to the name changes?
Before Best Buy picked 'em up, they were their own company. Started by Robert Stephens, a guy tooling around the University of Minnesota campus on his bicycle. The Squad was a bit bigger than that by the time I joined them, and we LOVED seeing computers with Best Buy stickers. Great source of revenue; we could be almost 100% certain they were messed up since Best Buy techs generally did not have a good reputation around the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. Sure, there were a couple of good ones, but they were far outnumbered by the clowns who didn't give a rat's... well, you get the picture.
Geek Squad had an excellent reputation in those days. Best Buy picked 'em up to improve their own rep, and hopefully get some quality back in their support. Unfortunately, they ended up slapping a good name on the same old (generally) bad techs... dragged a good name down. Doesn't sound like there's been much improvement over time, unfortunately.
Sure we'd joke from time to time when we ran across machines where the Windows desktop was risque, and we'd make backups of customer data whenever they requested it. However, you didn't touch those backups unless your name was on the ticket, and you never went digging through a customer's files on a whim. That was the game the "other guys" played - we considered it beneath us. It wasn't professional, and there were always more machines to repair.
It boiled down simply: Back then, for most at the Geek Squad it was a profession. For most at Best Buy, it was a summer job.
- (Formerly) Agent 45
When I started at a certain (then) small computer repair company, among the titles were "Dr. No" (in charge of all things finance), "Minister of Transportation" (he ran parts and software out to techs who needed 'em), and "Minister of Information" (code monkey, also managed the parts closet and made software toolkits for the techs).
:)
At the interview, I was told my job title would be for a new position they were opening up: "Minion". After putting in some hard work and proving myself as a tech, I found a way to get a new designation. We were given the chance to order business cards, and could put pretty much anything we wanted on 'em. Since already was an "Intelligence" section, I suggested "Counter Intelligence" for those of us doing triage on computers coming in. (We worked at the counter... used our intelligence... it seemed to fit.) I still have some of those old business cards.
Time went on, promotions came (Rookie Agent, Parts Manager, Special Agent). Now I hear my old Counter Intelligence section's become CIA and some of the glamor of the title's been tarnished. Sorry to see it... but it's been an interesting set of titles to put on the ol' resume!
- Brian L.
(Formerly) Special Agent 45, Geek Squad
Heh, yeah we've got the Ethernet (RJ-45 to 120V conversion) ones here at work too. One guy read a little too much of the early BOFH, and got the idea to make 'em. We call them "Network Accelerators" though - since EVERYTHING goes faster with more power, right?
Mostly just used to scare the users. Mostly.
From your description, you were working in the computer field when I was just starting to look at it and say "Hey, that could be fun." Back then, most repair techs actually knew what they were doing and wanted to do a good job. They had to, because only the truly dedicated had learned enough to do the job. In those days hardware and operating systems weren't nearly as forgiving of incompetence as they are today.
Geek Squad was started by someone with much the same motivations. A couple years after they started getting big in Minneapolis, I joined them. We worked hard, and most of us were there for love of the challenge. When we looked at the competition, we saw two types: Small, independant repair stores who were quite good and worked hard. Large, corporate entities (Best Buy, CompUSA, that sort) - staffed by kids with little training and only there "as a summer job".
Job for them. Career for us. Who was going to do the better work?
Sure there were good Best Buy techs, but they were rare. SERIOUSLY rare. The good ones were rarely seen at the repair counters - I think they were locked away in a warehouse somewhere, but I digress. We LOVED Best Buy and CompUSA - they sent us so many good customers. Our reaction to their techs was the same as your reaction now to the current Geek Squad. The other "independant" repair shops held similar views - Best Buy repair techs made all of us other repair techs look bad.
My understanding of the Geek Squad/Best Buy purchase thing was that Best Buy execs realized they had to do something to improve both the reputation and the skill level of their bench techs. I may have been wrong, but I believed that the Squad techs were to provide training to the Best Buy techs and bring them up to a respectable skill level. It wasn't a "marketing gimmick" or a "high level marketing concept". Sure, there was marketing involved - show me a corporate decision that doesn't have that taken into account. It just wasn't the only, or even the major, driving force behind the buyout.
The trouble is, at the big box computer stores you still have most of your techs who treat it as a "summer job". They won't take it seriously or do quality work, no matter what name you give 'em. It isn't the same priority in life to them as it was to me, or from the sound of it, to you. The solution? Wish I knew, I'd be a millionaire if I did. How do you instil a strong work ethic in someone who doesn't want it or care about it?
Of course, this being Slashdot, anyone who reads this already has a strong work ethic, a love of his or her field, and can't really identify with the losers out there who give us all a bad name. Maybe we should lobby our governments for some kind of manditory "computer license" thing... certain minimum skill levels before you're allowed to own a computer, and an even higher minimum skill level before you're allowed to repair them...?
-- (Formerly) Agent 45
The VW's actually were pretty cool at the start. (l33t? Bah. Humbug. Not many 14-year-olds are likely to be driving, and anyone older should have outgrown such talk.) We used to have a Ford Falcon, an old delivery truck painted to look like a SWAT vehicle, and everyone's favorite, the Morris Minor. ("Zero to sixty in one afternoon" as one British gentleman described it to us.) Then of course there was Geek One, a beautiful classic limo the owner occasionally brought out. I was always kinda hoping we'd get black/white Harley Davidsons, but that just wasn't going to happen. Still, having a "swarm" of the VW's driving around downtown Minneapolis was kinda fun.
:)
Ahh, memories. Heh, I could start liking this "old coot" thing. Too bad I didn't bother getting a Slashdot account until recently. Won't get any cred from the other old coots around here with this number.
Hrmm, I wonder what kind of reaction I'd get flashing my old badge at the local Best Buy?
-- (Formerly) Agent 45
Actually, this does look to be a pretty good thing. Now if they can just shrink it down to, say, the size of a mouse or a gerbil, my days of threading network cable through walls and ductwork will be FAR simpler!
Always thought it'd be ideal to have a little robot to do that dirty work. I've had a heck of a time training real mice and gerbils to climb walls for me. They'll climb all right, but won't go where I want 'em... and they get downright hostile if I try to attach Cat-5 cables to their tails.
Unfortunately, the candygram deliveries have fallen off drastically too. They used to tell me I could protect myself from LAND sharks simply by ordering candy and having it delivered to the distribution center's address. The poor fish would get confused, losing its packets and forgetting to eat people.
Rather than being a simple defense, I now suspect that this was actually a sort of LANDshark Attack, one capable of killing off dozens of innocent candygram-servers... err... heartless eating machines.
Those poor, poor sharks. How I miss them now...
"Maybe they don't want to pay $25.00 a month (Plus the FUSF fee, plus the taxes at $49.99/month, plus some sales tax for some equipment which you never used) to have the ability to browse an Internet full of advertisements."
That pretty much sums it up for me. I've never figured out why I'd want to pay for a service that I'd rarely use. Any high speed Internet access I need is job related, so I use the T1 at work to do it. A cheap dial-up connection is all I really need for home, because except for a few hours when I try to sleep, I'm never home to USE broadband.
Heck, it's the same reason I don't even have cable TV. A couple of bent coat hangers work well as an antenna - why pay to have cable access when you only watch TV for the weather reports? Okay, so I'm cheap. Or frugal... yeah, that sounds better... but broadband at home just has no appeal for me.