Yes. It is true... I am fired. Best Buy has given me the boot. And I deserved it. Or so the story from corporate goes. I was terminated on ethical grounds pertaining to the customer rewards program Reward Zone on October the seventh, two thousand and six... The day was an... interesting day. I was working that day. Which didn't need to happen by the way. The day that I sold the reward zone tickets, the event that would eventually lead to my termination- was several days prior. It was all very complicated and not worth recounting. Basically I wrote up a statement and they faxed it to corporate Best Buy, then told me not to come back for a few days. I came back anyway because I knew that if I didn't, I'd get more people mad at me because someone would not have passed on the memo that I might be fired, there would only be one person opening the store in my department and they'd get slammed with customers and then... well then they'd hate me for doing what I was told and not showing up. So I showed up. It was a good thing because when I walked in there the first thing I see is Dave on the phone trying to call me to tell me to come in.

I think I've said all this before... We skip ahead now to the part on saturday, when corporate returned the fax. It was a truly horrible day by the way. That morning my laptop crashed hard-core and completely died. Then I went into work, gave it to the geeksquad guys to fix it, they took it, and I got on the clock. I hadn't eaten and I had a long shift. So I was getting just a little hungry. ... A lot. The ironic thing was that there were catered ribs and barbecue in the breakroom as a part of the celebration that we completely rocked last month and made number one in the department. 12 in ONE! YEAH! Half my coworkers keep mysteriously dissapearing into that room and I run the floor till they get back. When they get back we get totally plastered, Customer Madhouse. FOr two hours. I get off the clock in about an hour, we finally slow down, I'm starving to death and I tell the guys- "Hey, I'm taking my lunch break." I tab out for my lunch break, half an hour, and I go back to the breakroom. The place is loaded with food. Oh... YES...

I gather a plate and start piling stuff onto it. When I've got it all there and forks and napkins and sauce and all of it, I set down to eat and the intercom rings and tells <caleb to admin please, caleb to admin> I nearly laughed. I get up from my plate, leaving it where it is, knowing it will be there when I return. I get to the admin office, step inside and someone closes the door behind me.

...

A few minutes pass and I step out a bit more shaken than I was when I walked in... A solid month and a half of working 15 hour days, barely sleeping, hardly eating, and gritting through it all suddenly caught up to me like the wave overtaking a ship and I suddenly realized how very tired I was. They told me to just... go home. I was on lunch break so there was no need to clock off. Just go.

I went. I walked out to the car, stood beside it for a few seconds. Just standing there, knowing. Because I saw that the window was up when I walked up to it. I knew I was locked out. I tried the handle anyway.

Yep... locked.

So I walked up the road three or four blocks to Hardees. I keep a coat hanger there. Just in case. Fortunately the weather has been cooling up a bit, so it wasn't so bad a walk. Then I turned around and jogged back. Stuck that coat hanger in the car door, got the car open in about four seconds- grabbed the ey, rolled the window down, sat down... and got back up and started walking back into Best Buy.

The GeekSquad still had my computer.

I went in and went to the counter and asked. It had been in the service center for nearly six hours and I'd almost entirely forgotten about it. They told me the hard drive was entirely toast. There was nothing they could do barring an $800 data recovery attempt. And even that might fail. So basically everything was gone. Three years of writing, two years of special projects in rpg maker, sketchup, powerpoint, and intensive C# code programming. Gone. I had the documents backed up to a certain date, about two weeks ago, the rest of it... I'll never see it again. I left the computer there. They said they'd reinstall the operating system, replace the hard drive, and do some basic diagnostics. Great.

I went home.

Now- as bad a day as that was: the entire situation really is less sour than it could be. For instance- there are several other business positions opening at the hospital nearby, good jobs that pay well. I could also become a telemarketer... Above that, when I finally got the computer back, turns out they couldn't find a 100gb HD to replace it with, so they upgraded me to a 120gb. Free storage space. I have resources, and marketable skills, and nearly every supervisor told me they'd be more than happy to be my best reference on an application. So there is some good that cames from that as well.

There is a lot I could say about the particulars of that event, the day, the job, the loss and all the drama drama drama that could come of it but won't. What this article is really about is my status at Best Buy- right now. You see, shortly after my termination, several rather unusual things began to reveal themselves. For instance, when the GeekSquad finished my computer- they installed several anti-virus and anti-spyware applications and generally cleaned it up for me. I gave them the okay to run that service charge. When I get the machine back and pay for the extra service, I notice it's quite a bit lower than normal cost for these things. I would know, I sold these things like a dynamo for a month and a half. When I ask to see what's up, the guy at the desk laughs and tells me "Employee discount, man." As if I should know this. I check the receipt. Sure enough, he'd run it through as employee, used my number, and it went through without a hitch. He hadn't been told I was no gone.

My employee discount is still active. On this date, it has been a full week since my termination and I purchased something there just today, and it still registers. Why.

Ready for this? I'm still on lunch.

According to Best Buy's internal employee tracking system, I never legitimately clocked off. I just went on lunch. At current status, that system quotes me as having been on my lunch break for seven days, four hours, and twelve minutes at least. Which is one doozy of a lunch break. Doing some research, it takes Best Buy's system at least a month to completely remove an employee from the system. At the end of that time, I will be completely expelled and the discount, at least in my understanding, will no longer work. I have a month to buy everything really really cheap.

Talking to those at Best Buy, each and every employee I have asked has told me- buy everything I can while I can, now don't tell anyone I said that- but do it. I mean what can they do? Fire you?

Well, they could count it as stealing... I guess. So basically I've been buying plenty of Best Buy stuff recently. I figure, heck, I never did get to eat those ribs and barbecue- as long as I'm still on lunch, I might as well pick up some product. I feel so evil...

By the way Jess- it's a unit weekend, my siblings are over for the next two days and we're hosting, so I doubt I'll be on much till tomorrow. (it was great talking to you though... Whew... wow. :D Missing you greatly) Talk to you all later!

-Monsterbox

Yay, dirt is yummy

A massive and (hopefully) quick recap over the past week: (this will probably be a long post...) Ladies and Gentlemen- it all began on Monday:

First though- Reward Zone. Reward Zone is Best Buy's customer rewards program. You join it by getting one of the little cards peppered all over the store, buy something and have the cashier scan the card. You earn points on everything you buy and those points accumulate, eventually earning money back and you get it in the mail in a few weeks or so. Please note: Employees are not allowed to have Reward Zone membership.

A week or so before I was ever hired at Best Buy, I purchased a laptop. And a service plan. The laptop and service plan came together to price out at around $1100. I signed up for Reward Zone and supposedly was getting $35 in the mail... some day. A week later I am hired at Best Buy and begin work. YAY!

About a week ago- I recieve $35 worth of reward zone certificates in the mail. Oh... well there they are. These little guys are about worthless to me. Completely worthless. As an employee at Best Buy I am not allowed to spend them. So what am I to do? Might as well put them to good use. I sold them. I sold the lot of them for $16 to a customer with which I had a brief relationship. Cool...

Thinking about it later I... I don't know. That was free money I just gave a customer. Hm... That... I don't know. I became uneasy about it. So I asked some of the other employees about it. Wow. I was right. That was a bad idea. Steven (the department senior) rightfully took the issue to the store employee relations someone-or-other. Basically this woman named Debbie. A little while later I am asked to come back into a quiet room with the two of them. Debbie hands me a sheet of blank paper and tells me to write out a statement explaining anything I might have done today that involved Reward Zone. I figured she could just out with it and say it... but, I guess I can see where she would want to be cautious. She wanted these to be my words, and if she said anything specific, it might contradict either what Steven had told her, or what I had really done. And depending on the person you're working with, that kind of thing can be good for starting an argument, the very last thing she wanted. I understand that entirely.

I wrote out everything that happened. She talked to me about what happened. It was all very awkward and somber. So somber in fact that Steven didn't say a word for the entire time. I think he felt bad. He told me later he didn't know what it would amount to, but he knew that if he didn't tell his upper staff that HE would be in trouble. And I understand that as well. Steven is my buddy who helped me ring out that 9 in 1 a week before. It was very somber indeed. Debbie very calmly told me then that they would fax the statement to corporate to decide if I was to remain in employment at Best Buy and that I should not come in to work for the next week till I heard from them. I was scheduled to work the next two days and off two days following them. She told me to go ahead and finish the rest of my shift today, then to stay off the clock. I said okay, and then shakily stumbled back onto the sales floor with Steven in tow. He said he was sorry I told him no- I was sorry, that he did the right thing, I screwed up, just... wasn't thinking.

I worked the rest of that day, then went to work at Michael's and then I went to Hardees to use the wifi... and then I went home. Kinda went home anyway. The internet kinda cut off halfway through and I went zipping all over town trying to find a wifi connection that was working. I finally found it outside my own home, down the block from the my driveway. I sat there for a short while composing an email to my dearly beloved explaining what had happened. (It was the DNS and the ISP darn it) and somewhere near the end of that this light shines through the window onto my laptop from behind me. It's a flashlight.

Hello officer. Apparently it's four AM and someone noticed me just sitting outside the houses in my car and called the police on me on report of suspicious behavior. So he wants my license and wants to know what I'm doing and I tell him exactly what I'm doing, hand him my license and he goes back to the squad car which has snuck up right behind me. Clever him. If I was doing drugs or something illegal and was going to book it when he showed up, not using the lights definitely made him less noticeable till he was standing right beside my window. I continue to type, I figure I ought to probably wrap up the email and move along. The officer agrees and that's what happens.

The alarm sounds the next morning. Time to go to work... wait... wait no I don't have work. She said not to come in. I can't go in there. No wait... no- that would leave like... only one guy on the sales floor. No.. no that would be suicidal...

...

Dang it.

I roll out of bed and get ready for work, the shirt, the pants, the belt, the whole nine yards. I freshen up, snack on a little something and head out the door to save the world... What? Failures save the world all the time, didn't you ever see Spiderman? I continue to reassure myself that this is crazy and stupid and pointless and atop all of those things... on top of all of them I'm no stranger to any of those things and that I am doing the right thing... I hope.

I roll into the parking lot at work, moments before Best Buy opens. And I sat there in that parking lot for several minutes, just thinking several things that I'd already thought about on the way up. Finally I went in. The place has opened for the day and there are customers milling around inside already. Sometimes we have customers show up before the employees... I head to the computers department. I round the kiosk and there is Dave, the store human resources manager on the cellular phone. He's calling me, at home. He claps the phone shut, points right at me and says "You're not fired. Get on the timeclock."

.... Oh god.. WHEW!!! Relief poured over me. The whole story of it involves Steven telling the PC department manager Chris Palis, guy who is constantly reinforcing his salesmen with compliment and constructive critique. A great guy honestly. (Even more honestly- the first reason getting fired terrified me was because that would be the end of my avenue to Australia, the second reason is because it would mean I'd lose partnership with some of the greatest team members I've ever worked with.) Chris Palis had made a few phone calls. The word spread kinda quickly thoughout the entire department after I left shift the day before. There had been a flurry of support and demand for my stay! Nearly every guy in that PC department who carried any weight had voluntarily gone to management and personally vouched for me. It was amazing. Telling them "He's too valuable to lose, you have to keep him." I show up the next morning even when they said to stay away and sure enough there's only one other guy scheduled to run the department and he's about to get swept with customers. Dave instantly reinstates me I get back to work.

There will be reprocussions, and there will be consequenses. But I will not lose my job. The overall effect of this scenario might actually be advantageous... Following something like that, those in distant management positions, those who aren't familiar with particular members of each department (especially new guys like myself) are prone to turn a careful eye towards the singular newbie that a whole branch of staff stands up and supports even after doing something like I did. Curious... it was, and I got more attention, much more. I showed up in so much paperwork that day it was unreal. People floating in the far off deserts of conference and meetings and policy took notice because I was a bump in the system, and you watch things like that. You ask questions like- why are they all rallying behind him?

It was amazing. That day, the day that I was supposed to stay home and came anyway- I was allowed to be a part of something absolutely phenomenal. This woman came into the PC department looking perfectly flustered. I found her and we began to talk. It began to build so quickly I had to make a three page outline just to keep all the components straight. I moved from computer to computer, going through features, expandability, services, components and add ons, functionality and speed. I suggested, spoke and it all happened. It all HAPPENED - sofastitwascrazy. And I sold. I sold this woman nearly $5000 worth of stuff. Two PC's, two 19" monitors with speaker sets, graphics cards, floppy drives, lightscribe and extra DVD-ROM drives for each, four packs of lightscribe discs softwareSoftwareSOFTWARE There was more! So much MORE! Everything I could think of was being examined and explained. I don't know if I was just in a good mood because I hadn't lost my job or if God sent me grace but when we were done, oh when we were done I had this woman with over 20 hardware and software components, not counting the computers and monitors, accessories, not basic- but PREMIUM ADVANCED performance service plans on everything. And for the set up? TWELVE in-home services. From advanced security setups to hardware installs to data transfers to everything under the freaking sun above. (Which I haven't seen in a while... is it still yellow?) A twelve-in-one. I blew through a national record at a margin of plus three. And I did it on the one day that all eyes were on me.

Everything happened. The reciept was over four feet long. Chris Palis instantly ran the numbers, somewhere in the area of $1200 for in home services, not even counting service plans. The computer department has a daily target budget for in home sales. The total we're supposed to sell before the store closes. I sold the entire day's projected budget in one sale. I felt like God. Palis pulled me aside and gave me a talking to, running through the numbers with me, and told me, actually told me he wished he, the guy who had been there for 5 years and ran the entire department, he wished he could sell as well as I.

I figured I've been really lucky... and he knows that it takes more than a great salesman to make a great sale. The customer has to be willing and the money has to be there and a million things have to align... So I honestly think he was probably just being nice. (He's teased me about the Reward Zone thing at least three times a day since... He has every right of course... eh- anyway) One of the double agents (the GeekSquad guys who goes to do the in-homes) gave me a GeekSquad pin for having the huge sale. It was so... cool.

All in all, it was a good day. I got to keep my job, was given the chance to redeem myself, and was given the best possible opportunity to be noticed in one day, and on that day- I absolutely rocked. Someone up there is being friendly with me...

Some time after that sale I'm talking to some other people about a laptop and an old friend that I hadn't seen in quite some time walked in the door and purposefully browsed near the PC department... the mere sight of them almost gave me a heart attack- my automaton salesman speech skipped and faltered. What followed the rest of the day and night was crazy enough that I'm still rolling in the weirdness of it.

But, I am afraid that is another story for another time, suffice it to say I ended up outside the state by the end of the night and we'll launch from there at the next post. This one is getting far too long as it is, it is late, and I am to meet Arby to look at apartments early in the morning.

Cheers* Monsterbox

P.S. I got a mobile phone! 1 (417) 622-1096. POH are you thrilled? (Openly laughs at POH)

For some reason, I was up early in the morning, rolling through the morning prep routine, getting ready for work... and in the most amazing mood ever... I didn't have any idea why. I was aware I was going to work. I knew that it would consume the rest of the day for me, that I was working morning and afternoon at Best Buy, and then all evening at Michaels... that I probably would not eat. Or sleep much that night. I was tired like every morning though I knew I'd get over that soon enough, like every morning.

I found out when I got to work. This was to be an unusual day. I actually arrived early. This guy named Brandon Cline was waiting for me. Brandon is one of the double agents in Geek Squad (AKA, one of the people who go out and do the in-homes we sell.) Today I was apparently scheduled to go with him and observe one of the in home setups to get a better feel for the value in an in home setup.

Translation: Free Day!

Brandon was late when I arrived, he was supposed to be at the guy's house six minutes ago. The reason he was late even with me coming in early is because the Best Buy network was down that morning (which happens sometimes when you wire 750 stores (several thousand computer terminals) together for extended periods of time with frequent use.) We were now waiting for the guy to call and complain so we could tell him what had happened, that we couldn't get into our system to find out where he was, and that now that he was there he could resupply the information.

He never called. A short while after I arrived, the server came back online and its OFF WE GO! We rode in the little car! The Geek Squad uses this signature Volkswagen Bug car to travel to the in homes. Looks a little something like this:

That's right folks. I rode around in THIS thing! HA! We talked on the way, the car got a lot of looks because it's infamous. It's on so many freaking commercials. Anyone on the road who saw us honked or waved or something. Trying to get a piece of the drama. Felt like being scored by paparazzi. It was hilarious. When we got to the guy's house and he opened the door, I do a double take. Sure enough it's that guy I sold the nine in one to! Whoa! He's like- hey I know you! And I'm like- Yeah! I know you too!

The in home begins nearly immediately. Oh I could write scores of things about what Brandon did to this thing. It was INSANE. Believe it or not folks, a setup isn't just where we pull everything out of the box and plug it in. It is just not that simple. The in home took five and a half hours. It was massive. We had so many programs uninstalled, so many installed, wired to everything running the wireless network, installing a new power supply, a wireless card, a graphics card, a sound card, and then finding that there was something not wuite right with that configuration- redoing it, testing, finding the problem, getting the software drivers installed and downloaded and registered and making them all run seamlessly together. Then downloading all the updates, getting the two computers and the printer on the wireless network, doing things to the machines that I didn't even know COULD be done to a computer. It really was phenomenal what this kid did. It was crazy.

Five and a half hours later, we finally finish (I helped!) and wow... I thought I knew about computers before. Now I'm convinced I don't know nearly anything! This kid Brandon Cline is a technical monolith, and knows more about the internal schematics of these machines than I ever will. I think... Which is really ironic because when we're walking out of the house to go back to the store and we get in the car it won't start and when I pop open the hood Brandon steps back with his eyes wide and says "Whoa, okay no... No I don't even know the first thing about these things."

:P Got to have a range of talents and skills right? So I screw around with it. Turns out he just left the lights on and we needed a jump. For anyone who has tried to jump a volkswagen bug, the battery is not the most accessible component under that hood. But I got to it alright, the guy we had just set up was kind enough to provide us with some juice and we were on our way. While traveling, Brandon groans. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Lets get some food." And he pulls into the Burger King.

The guy bought lunch for us both. I turned him down and he still bought. We're in the drive through and it hits me that I'm still on the clock. I turn to Brandon and ask him "Is this what you guys do every day?"

"Yeah, pretty much." I turned to face ahead again almost laughing. I was sitting in this awesome cool car getting looks like I was John Wayne, eating Burger King food, and being paid by the hour to do it. That was when I realized: I have the coolest job in the world... ^_^

-Cheers mates.