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How Best Buy Tried To Whip The Geek Squad Into Shape
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Nov 30, 2007 06:30 PM
from the deeply-shocked-by-the-lack-of-subtlety dept.
from the deeply-shocked-by-the-lack-of-subtlety dept.
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."
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[+]
Best Buy 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software 476 comments
Alien54 writes "Texas software company Winternals Software LP has sued Best Buy Co. Inc. in federal court, alleging that the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer was using unlicensed versions of its diagnostic equipment. Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off. A restraining order has been granted."
[+]
IT: Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn 686 comments
mekane8 writes "Consumer-advocate blog Consumerist ran a sting operation to catch a Best Buy Geek Squad member searching for and stealing media files from a customer's computer. The article includes the story with screen captures and a video of the technician's actions. From that piece: 'Reached for comment, Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens expressed desire to launch an internal investigation and said, "If this is true, it's an isolated incident and grounds for termination of the Agent involved." This is not just an isolated incident, according to reports from Geek Squad insiders alleging that Geek Squad techs are stealing porn, images, and music from customer's computers in California, Texas, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere. Our sources say that some Geek Squad locations have a common computer set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.' A related story from a former Geek Squad employee details the decline of the Geek Squad and Best Buy ethics in general."
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Best Buy needs wasps. (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, I'll make my own Geek Squad. With hookers, and blackjack...
Re:Best Buy needs wasps. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Butlers (Score:5, Insightful)
While I did smile at your joke, I would mod your post insightful. As I said the last time this got brought up, techs are like doctors or lawyers, [slashdot.org] without the years of rigorous training or state ethics boards.
But there's a reason Doctors and Lawyers cost so much. Do we really want $350/hr computer technicians?
(Pauses for "Have you checked Best Buy's prices lately?" comment.)
Well, however you feel about it, if you don't either (a)know how to fix it yourself or (b)know someone you genuinely trust to fix it for you, don't put sensitive data on your hard drive. Until we perfect that whole zombie thing, you're SOL, no matter how crazy Best Buy goes on their $13/hr technicians.
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Re:Butlers (Score:5, Funny)
As a computer technician I say yes, absolutely.
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Funny)
(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.)
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Insightful)
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!!
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Butlers (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean something like CompTIA? [comptia.org]
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...
Parent
Diploma mills (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Best Buy needs wasps. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they going to do that? Goes without saying, the answer is no. Running a group of techies, especially bench techs, is like herding teenagers. They're all going to think they're smarter than you, they're all going to know the "right way" to do everything, and they're not going to listen to some low tech Bob whose community college associates degree entitles him to a big sexy manager job at best buy.
Just another example of a big corporation trying to expand into a field it doesn't know a damn thing about.
Parent
Re:Best Buy needs wasps. (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you can sit at a desk with a CEO and help him format his confidential IPO document but don't read one word in the process, you have succeeded.
Parent
Doing all the right things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doing all the right things (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the whole problem that BestBuy had was techs copying material from customer computers. It sounds like the rule was "no copying of CDs, period" because that's a clear bright-line rule that is easy to enforce. If a CD is being copied then there's a problem. The alternative rule ("no copying unless you can prove it's yours") introduces a nightmare of proof and its own maze of privacy violations: if a supervisor suspects that a CD of personal data is being copied then he'd have to look through the files on it, which could be the employee's personal files or the customer's personal files. Inevitably there would be disputes as to whether the files could be copied or not ("I swear I was just copying software, not documents, from the customer's computers" or "this is my friend Billy's computer and he said it'd be OK") and the problem wouldn't get solved.
In large organizations with a bunch of employees, bright-line rules are fair for everyone as long as they're well-publicized. Employees know exactly what behavior is and is not allowed, and the company can protect the privacy of its customers.
Look for a new job, kid. It sucks that you lost this one, but there are a lot of better jobs out there.
Parent
Wrongful Dismissal? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Non-copyrighted"? (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you mean by "non-copyrighted"?
Re:"Non-copyrighted"? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's "open source" (and other licenses that permit copying), "fair use", "copied by copyright owner" that would all be legal, and very occasionally "public domain".
But the copyright always belongs to someone, even if they have licensed that right widely.
Parent
So at Best Buy... (Score:5, Insightful)
So at Best Buy you show your management potential by collecting scalps. How is this different from too many other places?
One-sided guess (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Not Suprised (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Suggested google search (Score:5, Informative)
The Best Buy situation described here is far different than that of a small cafe owner like myself, and the situation at hand was much more complicated than those that I deal with. For instance, in the case of the oblivious employee I mentioned, I caught her sitting in the sun with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be out on a delivery. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the other four people back at the cafe were up to their eyebrows in deliveries backing up because she hadn't returned, and we had a line of customers at the counter. This was after several instances of stern discussions with said employee about her insubordinate attitude, being late all the time, and lack of focus. When I fired her, I explained simply that, "it isn't working out," and that was the end.
I, for one, am glad for the at-will employment laws. But, as with anything, they can be abused.
Parent
Re:Suggested google search (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're fired because you're white, you have a claim, just as you would if you were fired because you're black. If you're fired because you're a man, you have a claim, just as you would if you were fired because you're a woman. If you're fired because you're not pregnant (that'd be an interesting situation), you have a claim, just as you would if you were fired because you were pregnant. If you're fired because you're Christian, you have a claim, just as you would if you were fired because you're Discordian.
On the other hand, discrimination on the basis of age is only actionable for any age over 50 (so if you were fired because the company preferred to have 60 year olds instead, you'd have a claim, but not if you were fired because of your youth below the age of 50). The ADA only covers the disabled, so there's no recourse there if you're fired because you're not disabled, and while I haven't dealt with military discrimination in the past, I believe the law is structured in a similar manner (it would depend on whether it was written as barring "discrimination on the basis of military status" or something similar, or if it was written as barring discrimination against people because of their current status in the armed forces).
More on-topic, at-will employment does indeed suck.
Parent
Re:Suggested google search (Score:5, Interesting)
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