My story begins with Best Buy Store #570 in Polaris, OH and ends with the Tuttle Crossing Store 156. The GM (General Manager) at the 570 store is existentially a, for lack of a better word, 'tool'. What was his name?! Can't remember! But a Loser! no doubt!
Anyways, I worked at 570 at the help desk/service desk (now called 'Geek' Squad) portion of Best Buy for about 8 months as a night job, after working a full day at local brewery as an software engineer. That was when you had to be A+ certified as a Tech at BBY, and had to be able to handle a soldering gun. We did all of our own servicing in the store and repaired 80% of things without shipping them out to Cleveland. You name it, we fixed it. Coming from the East coast, and an avid sales rep for cell phone companies, I knew how to sell. I was the ONLY tech to sell 140 PC's in one month, and also repair 20 PC's and 10 TV's in one day. Even the Tech Manager couldn't keep up and was so delirious, he quit and moved to another department because he couldn't handle the pressure. Plus, I am a Electrical Engineer from Purdue, so I am not a dumb guy. I SAW EVERYTHING managers did!
Moving on, One day, a friend ,that worked with me full time at the Brewery, came to Best Buy and was in a frenzy to find a anniversary gift for his wife. He couldn't afford too much, so I offered to help him with my discount. I told him I would buy it for him as a gift from me to him and that he could repay me whenever. Long story short, I asked my GM if I could do that, and the GM said "No Problem". What happened was the guy gave me his credit card and I ran it, and he signed it. This was my mistake! I knew that, so I told the GM that he had paid, and I should have paid for him instead. His words, in front of 4 people, "No Problem , I will take care of it". What had happened was, my friend used his WIFE's credit card, and signed HIS name. This would come back to bite me in the butt later on. (Just a reminder, especially in Ohio, always carry a DIGITAL recorder with you for convo's between you and a manager, because a verbal agreements NEVER hold up in court. Got it! IT'S LEGAL! SO DO IT!) They are 20$ after Emp Discount!
What did happen was we had some BAD eggs in our department. Guys were opening software and copying it. (which STILL happens at ALL Best Buys) look at the suit between Sysinternals and BBY) Anyways, I didn't have a clue what was happening since I worked from 6-9 each night. One by one girls/guys disappeared in that dept. REMOVED, the "god" started to fire them. I found out because there was a hidden camera behind the test bench. Nice! Right near the MS Access 97 driven tech entry system.
People don't bring your PC's to BEST BUY EVER, they don't fix stuff sometimes they even take GOOD parts out and put BAD PARTS in.
Well, what happened was they CLEANED HOUSE to make sure nothing else would happen, so one day I got pulled into the LP office and sat down in front of Corporate LP with my GM with a smirk on his face. The first thing the guy says to me is "When was the first time you ABUSED your employee purchase program?" I was flabbergasted! Honestly, I had no clue what he was talking about! He asked me all these CRIMINAL questions and accused me of stealing. I honestly should have asked for a Lawyer! (And had a recorder in my pocket). My GM just SAT there and smirked. He made ME take the fall for all the crappy numbers his store had including SHRINK, and it made him look good for actually terminating people.
Then, they pulled out this paper that was a NOTICE of TERMINATION, which had a list of reasons. They wanted me to sign IT! SIGN A TERMINATION! WHAT?!!! I got up, the guy literally PULLED me back down. I got up again and said," not only do I quit, but I will make sure both of you are reprimanded for this BS." I tour the paper up, grabbed my jacket, and left. I immediately went to my cousin, the lawyer, and he said not only could I sue them, but I also had plausible case to work for them again if I wanted. Plus, they had no proof. (the funny thing is, I still had the ripped up termination form)
SO! What I did was applied to another BBY store 4 miles away, store 156. This time an Irish GM, GREAT GUY, interviewed me. I didn't tell him I worked for another BBY, but I did tell him I wanted to increase his PC sales by 60% . He hired me on the spot. Guess what I did!? I increased the PC sales from September to January by 72% ! We were the number one attachment and PC sales store in the country.
THIS IS THE BEST PART! Since we were number one, and I was now "TOP GUN", GM's from around the country were coming to our store to check out WHY we were so good. GUESS WHO SHOWS UP?! That's right, Loser. He took ONE look at me and almost DIED! LoL! The funny part was, he went to the GM and told him who I really was, and the GM shrugged it off and told him to take a hike. HA! The next day, I went to store 570 and used my employee discount. The GM stopped me at the door and told me to NEVER come back My words were "Try and stop me!" Anyways, after a year of working as an engineer, I got a job with AMD in CA, so I decided to give my TWO weeks.
jerk met me at the door on my last day, and told me I would never work for BBY again Which is funny, because I worked for them 2 more times after that and bought thousands in employee discounts
Moral of the story, NEVER BACK DOWN! They can't fire you unless they have plausible cause even then, their word is against yours. SO! DOCUMENT EVERYTHING! Record your conversations between your managers too. Even if they are your BUDDY, it doesn't matter, NO one is your Friend in RETAIL! NO one! SO! Never be afraid of BBY managers, LP, Super-dupers, seniors, or any other hierarchical position. YOU control your FATE, so let them have IT!
By the way! BBY should have made me Regional Director=85I would have cleaned the house in those three stores, and made them the best, HONEST, stores in the country. BUSINESS ETHICS!
To this day, I have not shopped at BBY Go AMAZON! Online is the way to go
1 POINT FOR THE LITTLE GUY Best Buy ZERO
