I am pretty much with dillrye on this one. We have talked amongst each other about our experiences working retail, him at best buy, and me and Staples. The fact is, as an employer it is hard to find people who are well versed in such a broad range of electronics. In my job, I have to know printers/scanners/cameras/pda's/computers/phones/networking/misc. and not just in general about them, we carry many products and I need to know all of them by name, what’s good about them and what’s bad. I need to be able to tell the customer the pros and cons’s on each and weigh their needs to decide which is best for them. This is something I am good at, because I am interested in it. Now try and pick 20 other people like that, from a pool of 300 who can't.
And people get upset when they get misinformation from an employee. You know what happens when I don't have the answer to a question for a customer? They tell me to go ask somebody else, but if I don't know, then nobody will. So the customer gets pissed off and thinks that I and all my co-workers are just dumbasses. So what I do is I take my best guess. You might say to yourself, you would rather I just say "I don't know" but not every customer is as passive as you. Most people just get pissed.
I beg of you all, go work as a sales person somewhere. Doesn't even have to be in electronics, it’s all the same. You will be given a new respect for what sales people do and what they put up with everyday. You will also think twice before you set a product you have picked up back down in the wrong spot!
With all of that said, I like my job, I like working retail because I like working with people. It has its bad points, but there are allot of cool customers, and I do help allot of people, and they are very thankful. I find it to be very rewarding. A new Best Buy is being built by my house, I was cautious about applying there because I had heard they screw over customers and the like. But the more I learned the more I found that they carried the same policies as Staples. It is your job to make the customer happy, and they stress it. So maybe your best buy has some bad employee's, but don’t fault the company, because I am going to work at best buy, and I will be a very good employee. So obviously it can happen.
