What Do Geek Squad Technicians Actually Do?

Zenitram asks: "I am a lead technician at a company that repairs computers for various vendors. Many of our systems are from Best Buy's Geek Squad. Based on the systems Geek Squad sends us, it makes me wonder what, if anything, do they actually do? We get systems that have issues that we simply shouldn't have to work on, like: installing device drivers, OS reloads, and reseting CRUs (Customer Removable Units). Additionally, we get systems that are misdiagnosed such as: bad hard drive when a system has faulty RAM; no POST when it simply won't boot into Windows; or no boot when it won't power on at all. So, what is the scope of technical repair that Geek Squad techs do?"

Hand holding.

[QuantumG]

Some people need that kind of support.

Re:Hand holding.

[ericdano]

Plus they have those really neato cars. I see them on the freeway sometimes.

I think Apple should buy them, and then when they make a call, they replace the PC with a Mac. Simple, and then there would be no return call.

Re:Hand holding.

[DarthMAD]

I agree- when was the last time a door-stop or paperweight needed repair?

Re:Hand holding.

[tgd]

*glances at dead ibook holding door open*

*sigh*

Thats not funny.

Excuse me?

[Jesus_666]

Doorstop? Paperweight?

The MacBook is clearly a space heater.

Re:Excuse me?

[elrous0]

It gives me a special warm feeling in me private area.

-Eric

Re:Hand holding.

[Mayhem178]

They don't do a damn thing. I had a friend ask me to diagnose his laptop one time. Symptoms included spontaneous powerdowns (mostly during gaming), inordinate amounts of heat, and occasional buzzing noises. Anyone with a little computer expertise would recognize this as a faulty fan and/or heatsink. I told him as such. I was wary of opening the laptop myself, as it was brand new. So he took it back to Best Buy to let their Geek Squad deal with it. When he submitted it for repair, he told them about the symptoms. When he got it back a couple of weeks later, it appeared that they hadn't even bothered to check that their "repairs" had worked. They replaced the damn battery. Of all the stupid things I've ever seen, it took them two weeks to replace a battery that didn't need to be replaced in the first place.

At that point I convinced my friend never to purchase from Best Buy again, at least, nothing that will require tech support. When I finally opened the laptop myself, the processor's heatsink was being held on by 1 screw, and even it was loose.

My diagnosis: the Geek Squad does nothing. It was a publicity stunt to make consumers think that Best Buy employees knowledgable technicians, when in reality these so-called "experts" probably spend all day sitting around thinking they're "1337 h@x0rs" because they downloaded TweakXP.

On another occasion I heard a Geek Squad guy tell an elderly couple that hyperthreading was "like having 2 processors in 1." I nearly flipped my lid, but that's a different story for a different day.

Re:Hand holding.

[Incongruity]

My diagnosis: the Geek Squad does nothing. It was a publicity stunt to make consumers think that Best Buy employees knowledgable technicians, when in reality these so-called "experts" probably spend all day sitting around thinking they're "1337 h@x0rs" because they downloaded TweakXP.

It's such a shame too -- the geek squad started as an independent computer tech service in Minneapolis long before Best Buy bought them... and they had a reputation for being really sharp and being good problem solvers. Now look at 'em. What a shame.

Re:Hand holding.

[TasteeWheat]

On another occasion I heard a Geek Squad guy tell an elderly couple that hyperthreading was "like having 2 processors in 1." I nearly flipped my lid, but that's a different story for a different day.

Have YOU ever tried explaining something remotely technical to an elderly couple? I don't blame that guy for giving a half-assed answer. It would be easier than spending an hour explaining a concept that the old geezers would still not understand or even remember the next day. Besides, as far as Windows is concerned, hyperthreading IS like having 2 processors in 1 (even though I'm sure everyone here understands the real way in which it works).

Re:Hand holding.

[Dr Caleb]

"Have YOU ever tried explaining something remotely technical to an elderly couple?"

Yes, yes I have. And people don't give the "Old Geezers" much credit. After all, they are the generation that built society and technology to the level where we got it. How did the 'Old Geezers' do that? Dumb Luck?

Sheesh. If there is anything wrong with society today, it's assuming someone with 5X the life experience you have is irrelevant because of a few wrinkles.

Re:This is stupid... 20 year olds don't know UNIX

[Vorondil28]

Well, I'm indeed 20 years old and I use UNIX at work every day, and 50/50 with Windows at home. I can't say I'm a guru or anything, but I know enough to get by without starting X, let alone a desktop environment.

Given, I'm just one guy, But I do see your point.

Culturally, computers have turned into something to be feared. All you have to do is switch up one little thing in someone's routine and they're likely to flip out. ("Oh God, where's the Start button?!") That's probably because when most people learn to use a computer, they learn by wrote. Users end up memorizing where to go Windows to do something, and never touch the theory behind what they're trying to accomplish. (e.g. - Internet Explorer is a web browser not "The Internet," etc') Just because a person can play the right notes, in the right order, in the right rhythm doesn't mean they're a musician. And, to continue the analogy, you have to be at least a decent "musician" to move between operating systems, applications, and so forth comfortably (like said sister).

Eh, just this 20-year-old's $0.02.
=D

Re:Hand holding.

[gardyloo]

Have YOU ever tried explaining something remotely technical to an elderly couple? I don't blame that guy for giving a half-assed answer.

        I feel sorry for the old folks. If he had just hyperthreaded the explanation, they'd have got a full-assed answer.

Re:Hand holding.

[blueturffan]

On another occasion I heard a Geek Squad guy tell an elderly couple that hyperthreading was "like having 2 processors in 1." I nearly flipped my lid, but that's a different story for a different day.

Considering a) the audience and b) the fact that HT "allows a Hyper-Threading equipped processor to pretend to be two "logical" processors to the host operating system" (per Wikipedia), I fail to see why this oversimplificaton was egregious to the point of lid-flipping.

In my opinion, this sounds like nothing more malicious than adapting the message to the audience.

On the other hand, replacing a new battery to stop a buzzing heatsink does show inexperience, ineptitude, and incompetence.

Re:Hand holding.

[HumanisticJones]

I worked in Circuit City's IQ Crew (their answer to Geek Squad) for a while. On our crew, I was the only one there with a tech-support background, having supported machines for the local university for a few years. The others I worked with were the most "tech savy" in the store, i.e. the members of the floor sales staff that could toss the most jargon and confound the customers with the biggest words. My coworkers had all worked selling DVD players and Car stereos and had little to know knowledge of the inner workings of a computer. What's worse is that my supervisor sounded like his only link to information technology was having read PC Installation for Dummies.

Right across the street, and I am quite literal about that, was a Best Buy. Despite the rivalry between the stores, some of my friends worked at the Best Buy so we'd often chat about the day's goings on and swap moronic customer stories. I also got to hear about their Geek Squad. Turns out it was no different there. As we were talking one day, my friend informed me he'd been offered to move up to the Geek Squad from his current job as product specialist in the DVD department. That's right, work there long enough, and they might promote you from floor sales to computer expert!

My advice, never trust either of these places, it drains a mans soul to have to charge $60 to say what's wrong with your computer $10 per gig if you want anything backed up, and then $15-$45 per thing that needs fixing. Working in these teams, promotion has nothing to do with knowledgability and customer satisfaction, it has to do with how much money you can charge a single person to do 20 minutes of work.

I still feel the hole in my essence left from my time there.

Re:Hand holding.

[Mayhem178]

Which reminds me of a more recent story. A different friend of mine, who like me only builds his own computers, was going to purchase a stick of RAM from Best Buy because it was on sale at half price (marked down from $80 to $40). When he tried to purchase the RAM, however, he was informed that the discount is only valid if he let the Geek Squad install the RAM for him. The cost of such a procedure was, as you stated above, around $50, which essentially means that the discount would have ended up costing him more money than paying full price and installing it himself.

Needless to say, he raised some serious hell about it. In the end the store manager let him have the discount without any interaction with the Geek Squad.

Re:Hand holding.

[itchy92]

That doesn't sound like a Windows problem, that sounds like an Adobe problem, or possibly a driver problem... Or possibly a Windows problem, but that wouldn't be my first assumption.

Blame where blame's due; Windows has its flaws, Office has its flaws, Microsoft has its flaws. But when comments like this are made, I envision one of two things:

• A script kiddie who thinks he's super 1337 and tinkers with stuff about which he knows nothing, then gets frustrated and blames it on Windows being broken.
• The quintessential rapid fanboy [penny-arcade.com], who cares so much about loyalty to some pseudo-indie megacorp or some vague idealistic movement that anything beyond those boundaries defaults to evil/substandard.

If we use anecdotes as a metric to guage product quality, Windows is the most amazing OS ever. My seven machines at home that I use for audio/video/image editing, 3D modeling, gaming, development, and lab machines never crash... ever. My 1000+ user environments that I architect using Microsoft solutions almost never have an issue, and even less rarely an issue that is caused directly by an MS product. OTOH, my Linux box has never had all its hardware working concurrently, it crapped out when I tried to recompile my kernel, and I can't configure it the way I want. Clearly this means Linux is the paperweight, and Windows is, like, deus ex machina, right? No; it simply means that Windows is the right platform for my needs, and I know enough about it to make it work for me. And that I'm a clueless Linux n00b.

Re:Hand holding.

[BiAthlon]

Can we ban the use of Architect as a verb in IT? Those people have worked very hard and get paid very little in comparison to us. The least we can do is not steal their title and use it as a verb. Along those same lines, Architect and Engineer are registered and licensed professions. Let's not steal their titles unless you think you want to be licensed and have to work years as an intern before you even get to take the test.

You don't ever Chef something, you'd cook it. The same with an Architect, you would design something.

Re:Hand holding.

[Orange Crush]

I agree. My mom's a domestic engineer. If you call her a house wife, she'll engineer you right across the face. =D

Re:Hand holding.

[hb253]

In my previous life, I was a Mechanical Engineer for 12 years. I designed fire protection systems, steam systems, chiller systems, HVAC systems etc. For the last 9 years, I've been working in IT (administratiom not programming). It still riles me up when I see someone in IT with a title of Engineer. Unless you're designing CPU's, motherboards, or other electronic parts using knowledge gained as part of your Electrical Engineering degree, you are NOT and Engineer.

Re:Hand holding.

[nelsonal]

The key factor that most of the PE's are arguing about is that once granted the designation, Professional Engineer, they bear the sole responsibility for the accuracy and correctness of the decisions behind everything they sign off on designing or approving. Meaning that if it breaks and kills some one after completion, they are responsible. When software designers are signed up for that, then they can call themselves engineers.

Re:Hand holding.

[admdrew]

I don't know what kind of weird hardware you have hooked, up, but My linux box supports all the hardware I throw at it.

I've yet to see either my windows machine or my linux box handle devices thrown at it. If they're small, like a pen or a cat, the item will bounce off the side and chances are the machine simply won't do anything at all. If they're largish, like a motherboard or possibly an xbox, the computer falls over and I immediately get a BSOD on the windows machine or a kernel panic on the linux box.

My friend claims his mac can handle anything thrown at it, but I think he's only saying that because he doesn't actually own a mac, and therefore would be unable to actually hit it with any object.

Re:Hand holding.

[tcphll]

Wow, does nobody understand his point? He's not a windows fanboy, he openly admits he doesn't know Linux well enough to use it properly. His point is, for those who either won't read the whole post or simply cannot comprehend, that it is just as wrong for him to BLAME Linux for his lack of knowledge as it is for some that BLAME Windows for their lack of knowledge. He's not REALLY saying Windows is better than Linux (nor is he saying Linux is better than Windows). He was just making a (valid) point.

Re:Hand holding.

[Tweekster]

And they dress like mormons

Re:Hand holding.

[uvajed_ekil]

Some people need that kind of support.

You hit the nail on the head. That's exactly the point of Geek Squad and similar repair/upgrade services. It's all too easy for slashdotters to pile on Geek Squad, since they don't do much that's very difficult (and I doubt they pay enough to to attract top-notch techs anyway, so they have to send things out a lot, duh). But the typical home or business computer user is NOT a geek.

Yes, there are lots of geeks of varying degrees, but not everyone wants to know how to par tition a hard drive, install device drivers or diagnose problems that turn out to be merely software related. My mom wants Word and Photoshop to work, and that's it. She doesn't care about overclocking for 7% better performance in a game, maximizing her server's reliability or learning Linux inside and out. She still INSISTS of using Netscape, for Pete's sake. Looke at how many people who can afford broadband still use dialup. People like them are plenty willing to pay for someone else to worry about their problems, or else wait patiently for me to have a chance to check it out. Or they buy Macs.

I'm not sure why so many tech-savy folks can't understand that they are special (although they often like to point out that they are), or that not everyone wants to be a computer expert. I like driving my neat little car around town, but I'll be damned if I'm going to freeze my butt off if it needs brakes in the winter. Bodywork? Hah! Simple and labor-intensive, but not thanks. I'm not mechanically inept, but I have a job and like to have dirty work done for me sometimes. And how is this news or "stuff that matters?"

Re:Hand holding.

[Golias]

I don't know much about cars, but when I take mine in for service, I'd like the person who works on it to be an expert mechanic.

Likewise, if a relative of mine takes their PC to Geek Squad, it would be nice if the guy who looks at it knows how to diagnose simple driver problems or hardware failures.

That's one thing I like about the so-called "genius bars" in the Apple retail stores. They are not perfect and have a lot of the same problems as any other support center, (and their wait times are sometimes maddening), but since that particular support center is owned by the vendor, and the presige of the entire fucking company is on the line every time they help somebody, there's tremendous corporate pressure for those people to know what the hell they are doing and to act like professionals.

I know several people who now refuse to buy any computer other than Macs, not because they like the OS so much or because they think the hardware is anything special, but simply because they know that if there's a problem, they can get help which is actually, you know, helpful. For a non-techie, this is far beyond worth the mark-up on Apple's computers.

Swerving back on to the topic at hand, The Geek Squad is really not much worse than a lot of other tier-1 PC support centers out there. They just happen to be the most visible. The support industry is rife with people who don't even know what defrag does, let alone when it would be useful to use it.

Re:Hand holding.

[QuantumG]

You (or more typically, your elderly parents) ring up and say "my mouse won't work", someone comes around to your house and plugs it in / cleans the mouse ball / upsells you an optical mouse.

Re:Hand holding.

[walt-sjc]

It's interesting.. I was on a business trip and realized I needed a simple USB cable. Best Buy was right by the hotel, so against my better judgement I went in. The ONLY USB cables they had were of the "monster" style with massive braided sheilds, etc. and the LEAST expensive cable was $39 for a standard 6' cable!!! WTF? The 12 year old sales boy (he looked 12 anyway) claimed that that was all they carried. I made a comment that only an idiot would pay that much for a simple USB cable and walked out.

Lucky for me, there was a Walmart (which I also detest) next to the BB which had an APC brand cable for $7.

Frankly, there is no reason to ever patronize Best(Bad)Buy. Ever.

WorstBuy

[Kadin2048]

Yup.

I think they do that because it's their way of screwing people who buy cheap USB peripherals. Example: those $30 printers they sell in some cases don't come with cables. Oh, it'll come with an AC adapter, but not a USB (or at least the salesperson will insist that it doesn't). Then they hand you the $30 "MonsterCable" USB cable, in the hopes of recouping their profit margin that they didn't get on the printer. I've seen them do this to people over and over, and it's just painful to watch.

The only reason I go into BestBuy is when there's something free, or at a ridiculously low price (their 'loss leaders'). And then I go into the store, get the one item, and leave.

I can go on PriceWatch and get 6' USB cables for around $1-3 a piece, with shipping, from a no-name Mom-n-Pop. I've yet to have one of them fail, but even if they're not the same quality as Monster's, I feel quite comfortable getting one and having nine backups on hand, for the same price.

Re:WorstBuy - Sales Method

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for Best Buy years ago for about 2 months. The truth.

1.) BestBuy does not care about the main system sales. Printers, Computers, etc don't make Best Buy big profits. The numbers they cared about and crammed down the sales people's throats was add-ons. The printers don't come with printer cables. So ofcourse it's our job to sell them the biggest baddest usb cable possible. While your add it, remember the ink cartridge doesn't come 100% full when you buy a printer, they come 50 - 75% full. Paper, remember to take home a box of printer paper. Don't forget about the extended warrenty. I was filling in for a sales guy (i was not typically sales) in the computer section and got chewed out for not selling them an upgrade in RAM, the computer was a top of the line box there already maxed out by the motherboard specs that I looked up before making any suggestions. They wouldn't listen, all they know is they are to sell upgrades, even if it technically isn't possible.

2.) Sales people at Best Buy know 0% about what they are talking about, they recieve no training. It's just a matter of what they put down on their resume. If computers is mentioned they sell computer, if listening to music is a hobby, their in the media section. Watch TV, well you know where they go.

3.) GeekSquad, although is a new thing, is marketting, only marketting, nothing backing it up, other then the same A+ cert guy able to stick in a card in a motherboard and hope windows detects it. Remember Geek is Chic now, and BestBuy wants to look chic.

   

Re:WorstBuy

[AuMatar]

Having worked at HP- we *wanted* to ship with cables. We aren't allowed to- BB and the like threaten to refuse to stock us if we do, because they make such obscene profits on them. We're at the mercy of the stores there.

Re:WorstBuy

[AuMatar]

When they ganag up on us, sure. We needed to be on their shelves. If they decide to charge us more for shelf space (you do realize shelf space is bought, right?) or decide to give the space to Lexmark or Epson instead, it could cost us tens of millions. So when the channels say "no cable" we had to listen.

Re:OT but sorta related

[Afrosheen]

You're missing the point on the secret shoppers. The candy and receipt just proves they were there at that time so their employer has some idea that the data they collected is valid and dated correctly.

Re:Hand holding.

[kimvette]

Um, I don't normally hang out with young kids - when you get older, that kind of thing is considered "bizzare behavior."

That is so untrue! I mean, look at Michael Jackson. . . oh wait a second, I see what you mean! ;)

Re:Hand holding.

[TWX]

My brother worked at Best Buy for many, many years. The grandparent's post is mostly correct. He'd get peripherals for almost nothing, and even some large appliances like refridgerators that had a massive markup were discounted heavily when he bought them. Some things were weird as how the employee discount worked, like DVDs, CDs, and other stuff that had special conditions, but *most* computer parts and computers themselves fell into the nice discount category, as did televisions, VCRs, DVD players, Receivers, and the like. After awhile they started making employees pay with plastic to try to stop them from buying things on behalf of friends, but I'm sure that it didn't totally curtail that...

He saw the writing on the wall when Geek Squad was coming, and he got himself transferred out of computer service and into the warehouse, where he unloaded trucks and helped customers with bulky purchases. Best, they somehow didn't drop his pay when he transferred, they actually gave him a small raise. He did it while going through college.

Re:Hand holding.

[mattspammail]

There's another factor at play that goes beyond technical skills, knowledge, or even sales. That factor is time. All of the items listed would take time to do, and time costs money, unless you charge per hour. In that case, time earns money. They could simply pass the item to you with a simple diagnosis, charge for part replacement ($$$$). Or on the off chance that you do actually diagnose and resolve the real issue (which takes time), the customer is happier and willing to 1) pay for the 2 1/2 to 3 hours of service charges, and 2) going to be happy to bring their computer back to the highly competent Geek Squad. Meanwhile, Best Buy is charging over and above what the shop charges them, so the longer a diagnosis takes, the more money Best Buy brings in. Misdiagnosis either costs the customer in time ($$$) or parts ($$$). Why would they want super-geeks dispatched to every call? That's not wise. It's much smarter to hire low-paid pretty-boys for service (more like service) calls, and earn money through outsourcing the actual work.

Re:Hand holding.

[TCaptain]

I'll second that.

I've spoken to a few around here when purchasing some hardware at best buy and beyond the absolute minimum basics, they know nothing.

I'll give my respect to the ONE member I spoke to who admitted knowing nothing, but promised to do some research if I needed a service call (I didn't...I can do that on my own...I was just asking a question) but the rest, it was a amazing the bull they'd spew (one of them seemed quite fond of the BOFH, not realizing I knew about it).

The problems the OP describes with systems he received do not surprise me one bit. However, I don't think this kind of service is really marketted for businesses is it? I mean, I always thought it was geared towards the ULTRA newbie who would have problem plugging in a usb mouse and such. I mean my impression is that they are no better or worse than any large chain minimum wage tech support peons... rebranded with a "cool" new image and such.

Re:Hand holding.

[cluckshot]

I am pretty savy on computers and I had an event where my computer crashed due to the Antivirus guys at Symantic. Their software crashes your system and screws it up if you uninstall it without special tools. In any case I had a crash and needed my computer and my data saved and prompt recovery. My Microsoft OS was telling me I had to reinstall it and I would loose data. SO I WENT TO THE GEEK SQUAD local precinct as they call it. [HORRID MISTAKE!!!!]

The decided they had to rebuild the system. That in their mind ment F-disk and of course the loss of all data. Well I managed to threaten them into not doing F-Disk and did get them to save a backup of the drive. They wanted to wipe out logical partitions. They wanted to get rid of a linux partition. I had to fight them all the way. It took them 7 days to reload Windows 2000 pro with my disks. They lost my disks which were OEM disks. Then they found them after another trip back. It went on and on. The total cost of this expedition was nearly $400 for their little stupid operation. I could have bought a simple new machine cheaper. If this is the quality of Best Buy generally, I suggest they should go out of business! I will not even shop there anymore after this!

Re:Hand holding.

[CastrTroy]

I know a guy who got a job at Best Buy. They made sure he had his A+ certification. He studied from some videos and books he downloaded from the internet for a couple nights, and passed. I still wouldn't want him fixing my computer. They expect you to know a lot of useless stuff, like memorizing IRQs of COM ports, but don't expect you to know useful stuff, like how to go into the BIOS and disable quick POST so that it actually tests the memory. Or how to diagnose problems that actually occur in real life. This guy isn't dumb, and knows his way around a computer, but I still wouldn't trust him fixing my computer. Its a kin to getting the guy down the street to fix your car, because he spend a couple days memorizing facts about cars, without actually knowing how to diagnose or fix the problem.

Well...

[bcat24]

We know they use Winternals software [sysinternals.com]. :)

They job is to collect money from

[rolfwind]

people more clueless than themselves. Maybe they should go to Apple's Genius Bar to get actual help with their PC:)

Actually, I suspect, based on your summary, that they find it cheaper to contract out to you guys than having knowleable people on their staff. Best Buy just charges the customer anyway (a premium) so it's not like it's coming out of their pocket. If they knew what was wrong with it in the first place, like a faulty harddrive, wouldn't they just replace it themselves? It's not like they don't have the parts.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[snuf23]

One thing I always wondered about. Since Macs are so easy to use, why does it require a "genius" to fix one?
The problem with "the Geek Squad" and any other computer service (including CompUSA sales for example) is that the pay is so shitty that if an individual actually knows something about computers they won't be working there.
I remember one incident where a customer had brought a network card to the support desk at CompUSA and asked "Does this card support Linux?". The tech answered "Yes, it has Windows NT drivers. Windows NT is like Linux so it will work." The mindboggled stare of the obviously more savvy customer was priceless.
Geek Squad has a great model. People pay them to fix their computers, they break it worse and wipe out the data. Then the people don't have to blame themselves for the data loss, they can blame Geek Squad.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[bcat24]

One thing I always wondered about. Since Macs are so easy to use, why does it require a "genius" to fix one?

Well, my car is easy to use, but I wouldn't want to fix it myself. I'll leave car repair to the car geeks, and most people should leave computer repair to the computer geeks.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[tgd]

The two fields are not all that different. There are just as many people involved with auto repair who shouldn't be as there are "geeks" involved with computer repair who shouldn't be.

Case in point: my girlfriends father spent over $800 trying to fix a hesitation problem in their old car, before he gave it to my girlfriend. Coils replaced, wires, you name it, they did it. Three or four "techs" looked at it over the course of several months and never did solve it.

They dropped the car off at our house, I took it for a drive and saw the coolant needle drop like a brick as the car hesitated. Pulled over, had her hop in the drivers seat and tell me when it dropped again. Wiggled the wire going into the coolant sensor. *bam* dropped like a rock, and the engine hesitated.

Duh. Engines aren't that complicated these days. Anyone claiming to be an automotive technician should've known instantly what the problem was. $2 for a replacement connector, five minutes of soldering and heat shrinking and the car was fixed.

Cars are easy to use and easy to fix if you know a few basics. I don't trust the average dimwit in the "industry" to touch my cars and I don't trust them to touch my computers.

Both are good fields for everyone to know enough about to know when they're dealing with a moron, or worse are being lied to.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[technothrasher]

Hehe... 'car geek'... Call the next mechanic you see a car geek... I wonder how that'll go over...

Are you kidding? I call my mechanic a car geek all the time. There are 'muscle guy' mechanics and then there are definitely 'car geek' mechanics.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[stratjakt]

If the customer was so fucking savvy about linux, why is he wasting everybodys time in the store?

I'm getting a little bored of the "does it support linux" analogy to show how stupid somebody is. Everyone uses it, and it's dumb.

Linux is a fringe operating system. I've used it for about 15 years, and I've come to realize that nobody in a big box store has been trained to support it, or knows if device X works with linux. This is because nobody comes in looking to spend money on linux hardware.

They really do

Re:They job is to collect money from

[Anonymous Coward]

If he had answered that he didn't know, then he would have been off the hook.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[rolfwind]

In fact, I bet I could pick some random card off the shelf, walk up to Linus Torvalds himself, and ask "does this work with linux?" and he wouldn't know, and would probably blow me off with the same sort of answer.

In fact, I bet I could pick some random card off the shelf, walk up to Linus Torvalds himself, and ask "does this work with Windows?" and he wouldn't know, and would probably blow me off with the same sort of answer.

And either way, that comparison would be a complete non-sequitor, as Linus doesn't purport to sell hardware. There was a time when minimal knowledge of the product you were selling was a good thing.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[devnull17]

Somehow, I think Linus Torvalds knows that Windows NT drivers are not compatible with Linux.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[Amouth]

a friedn of my dads took their laptop to best buy.. they told her she needed a new hard drive and mainboard and that they could do it for 1100$.. (the laptop new was 800$) so she gave it to my dad because he had one like it and figured he could use the battery and power adapter..

anyways.. to make a short story short.. he had me look at it..

all it needed was fixmbr under recovery console.. i so badly wanted to go teach them a lesson (as she had already bought a new laptop from them) but i found it not worth my time to go there.. we gave the working laptop back to her and told her never to go to best buy
   

Re:They job is to collect money from

[Firehed]

And me being a geeky youngun', I actually applied to work for them. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I need the money. When they never so much as contacted me in any way, I came to the conclusion that I was vastly overqualified. Knowing someone who works in or around the Geek Squad, I've confirmed that - they need the color-coded connectors as much as Joe Sixpack (you'd think that Tab A not fitting in Slot B would be enough, but no, they need go make Tab A green and Slot B blue).

The quizzical look I got back when I asked them for a copy of their price list (so I could then go cut their prices in half for my own repair services) was priceless. Apparently "comparison shopping" doesn't ring a bell with them, even with the Circuit City half a block down the street.

Re:They job is to collect money from

[eln]

You applied, never got any response, and you automatically assume it was because you're over qualified? Christ, man, it's a good thing they didn't call you in for an interview, because I don't think you could have fit your ego through the door.

Maybe it was because you were over qualified. Or, more likely, it was because they already had enough interviewable candidates lined up so they dropped your resume in the round file. Or they posted the job and then hired someone based on a current employee's recommendation. Or one of their employees knew you and mentioned that you smell bad, so they decided not to call you. Or the stack of resumes accidentally got destroyed in a freak blimp accident.

Saying a company never called you becase you were over qualified might make you feel better about yourself, but it's almost never the actual reason they never called you.

Their Clothing

[BobNET]

Haven't you seen their ads? They wear ties. You know, 'cause all geeks wear ties! (Just look in the mirror, fellow /. readers!) And if they wear ties they have to be computer experts!

Re:Their Clothing

[ivan256]

You know somebody isn't a repair tech if they're wearing a tie.

When I worked professionally as a repair tech, I wore a tie for exactly one day. They dangle, and get stuck to the pins on the back of a PCB like velcro. Work on one machine without being careful about your tie, and it's ruined with dozens of pulls. If you're lucky, you didn't ruin whatever it is you were working on.

Re:Their Clothing

[ilsa]

You know somebody isn't a repair tech if they're wearing a tie.

If memory serves, IBM field techs used to have a no-real-tie policy. They all wore clip-ons for safety reasons. If your tie gets caught in a printer, do you want to lose your tie or lose your neck?

Of course that was in the days where computer rooms had raised floors and separate air conditioning systems. Dinosaurs may also have been roaming the earth, but I was a child at the time.

Re:Their Clothing

[SlashChick]

"Of course that was in the days where computer rooms had raised floors and separate air conditioning systems."

They still have those. They're just called "datacenters" now. ;)

Re:Their Clothing

[jkwscurvy]

I used to work as a Geek Squad agent and dress code required it to be the company issue clip-on version.
Though, not to prevent one from being caught in a printer but to keep people from hanging themselves.

Real nerds wear ties

[totallygeek]

When I worked professionally as a repair tech, I wore a tie for exactly one day.

I agree with you completely. Although, I used to work for a company where a tie was mandatory. People would always buy me computer ties as gifts and I had about 100 of them. So, one day I am doing some service work at a company I had never visited when one of the owners strolled in. He gestured at me and I introduced myself. He then stated that he thought for the money paid he would have a more conservative, business-minded computer person building out his network and told me to never wear the tie I had on or even one like it in his building. So, I left. I told my boss about it and he told me I had to return and where a non-geeky computer tie (I think I had on a tie with a 3-D computer mouse). So, on the way over, I stopped at a thrift shop and bought a god-awful, really wide, nasty-colored tie. Needless to say, I always made sure I wore a crummy tie while at his office from then on out.

Re:Their Clothing

[QuantumG]

Hey! I wear a tie and frankly I find it offensive that... nah, I can't pull that off. :)

They work for Best Buy...

[Raistlin77]

'nuff said.

I just got a job there

[beyonddeath]

I havn't started training yet but from the managers explanation of the work, it seems pretty ridiculous. Ie: returned products must be tested, and when we say it simply wont boot up, it will get back we have to be more specific and say what wont boot up like windows or the hard drive. I guess it just goes to show you gotta do what you gotta do, at least when you have to pay rent.

Re:I just got a job there

[Rob_Warwick]

+1 Sympathy Karma

Have you ever looked at these guys?

[two_socks]

Honestly, I think they're a step up from "I roll my poo into balls".
God help you if they ever make you speak to one to explain what's wrong with something purchased there.

well...

[zxnos]

geek squad charges too much to do what any family nerd can do. install components / software and run malware/virus scans.

my question is what the 'repair' centers do. i had to send a laptop out to have the power jack replaced. laptop came back with scratches and superglue and a 'new DVD drive that didnt work and was covered in glue (my previous drive worked). i then sent it out to have a fan replaced. i used geek squad again because they said thye would replace the DVD with one that works and wasnt covered in glue. computer came back with new drive, scratches and note that says 'unit overheats and shuts down after two minutes. needs fan.' (that took 2 weeks) i sent it back out to have the fan replaced (again). laptop came back after another two weeks with more scratches and missing rubber feet. fan works.

during this time i wrote a few letters. it only took 2.5 months to get back my working, yet cosmetically damaged, laptop back. the only good thing is that all 'repairs' were free, a stack of DVD-R's and a 200$ refund on my only big purchase at best buy.

apparantly geek squad is building their own repair center.

lastly the guy there stated that when it comes to notebooks, geek squad is a glorified shipping center. they also just write down the symptoms that the customer tells them. so the customer could be wrong

Re:well...

[kinzillah]

Pack the sucker in foam, put it in a box and send it UPS insured for $1k or actual value, whichever is more. They'll handle it like a newborn kitten.

Re:well...

[quantaman]

Pack the sucker in foam, put it in a box and send it UPS insured for $1k or actual value, whichever is more. They'll handle it like a newborn kitten.

And that's supposed to be a good thing?!

I tried sending a newborn kitten just like that via UPS once, I don't think you'd want a laptop ending up like that kitten did!

Re:well...

[BobNET]

What is the actual value of the data on your harddrive?

Nothing, 'cause you keep backups.

They try to make us think Geeksquad is a good biz

[Facekhan]

I took this awful management class and they talked about Geek Squad like its some sort of Business miracle. We even had to watch a video where they talk about the company and its structure. Aside from their marketing they are really nothing special and time will tell on that as well. Geek Squad is just one of many essentially empty shell IT service organizations that charge a high rate to the end users who go to them because they have established a recognizable brand and then contract most if not all of the actual work out to others.

  If you want to see even more disturbing examples of this trend sign up as a provider at onforce.com where a so-called free market for IT services is little more than a way for these empty shell providers to route low paying service calls to "independent contractors" except that marketplace is deliberately skewed so that the providers don't get to enforce their own rates but rather find themselves racing to accept low paying work orders from companies that are nothing more than a catchy name and a 800 number. One of the lowest paying of these companies suspiciously operates out of the same building as Onforce.com (formerly ComputerRepair.com) while routinely violating even the weak rules Onforce setup to guard against abuses, such as requiring that clients pay contractors at least 1 hours time and paying a fee for customer no-shows.

Was inspirational, now a cautionary tale

[DreamingReal]

I took this awful management class and they talked about Geek Squad like its some sort of Business miracle. We even had to watch a video where they talk about the company and its structure. Aside from their marketing they are really nothing special and time will tell on that as well.

Actually, before Best Buy sunk its venomous teeth into it, Geek Squad really was. It was started in Minneapolis almost 15 years ago by a guy (Robert Stephens) on a bike. The cars, the image, the attitude of the company was all Robert's ideas. They were doing flat-rate pricing before practically everyone and they had Agents whose technical skills would eat the lunches of everyone on Slashdot. The main Minneapolis newspaper retired the "Best Computer Support" category from their annual "Best Of" issue because Geek Squad destroyed the competition every single year. They were supporting the Rolling Stones, Ice Cube, and scores of Hollywood stars because of the phenomenal service they provided and the general counter-cultural "cool" they oozed (this was before Geeks were vogue). They really were a fine lesson in branding and customer service back then.

I had the great fortune of being one of the first Agents hired after Best Buy purchased the company. My badge number gets awed looks from other Agents as the latest hires are in the 3600s and mine is in the mid 100s. We only had about 70 Agents nationwide at that point (Agent badge numbers are never reused) and the 800-number was still staffed by technically compentent people who actually knew computer repair. I had to go through a difficult technical interview and three personal interviews before I got the job. So did everyone else at that time. No one knew who we were and we had to work fucking hard to prove ourselves to the customers. I worked with brilliant and dedicated people and only answered to the higher-ups in Geek Squad.

Fast forward 4 years to the present. Best Buy had done what every soulless corporation does with a great idea. They commodomized the shit out of it, dilluted the quality with shoddy hiring practices, and drove away the best talent by only looking at the bottom line.

They gave all the jag-offs in the store the Geek Squad uniform and made the old Tech Benches into Geek Squad precincts, even though they were staffed with the same underpaid, uneducated, and lazy "techs" that gave Best Buy such a horrible reputation for computer repair. Us old-schoolers screamed bloody murder we they made this decision 2 years ago because we knew what would happen - our great reputation would be pulled into the mud by these knuckle-draggers. Guess what? IT WAS.

I can fix just about anything, set-up any consumer electronic device to work with any computer, and expertly train anyone on about two dozen diffent software titles. Instead of doing that, I spend most of my time fixing other Agent's fuck-ups and soothing angry customers for "Customer Loyalty". Why? Because I can fix shit properly and I'm good with people. Nowadays, Best Buy store managers hire the on-site Agents and generally look for people who will do their bidding, rather than those who know computers or have demonstrable customer service skills. Most of these new guys won't spend the time to improve their skills or learn new technologies. They either restore or have me do the "hard jobs". And God forbid they should download demo software to learn so they can provide trainings.

Best Buy management has had the worst affect on Agent morale and employee retention. They focus only on scorecards, holding Agents responsible for missed budgets even though the in-store sales team is expected to generate 70% of the revenue, rewarding Agents who unnecessarily rape their customers with preposterous upselling, and generally ignore technically skilled Agents or those who provide outstanding customer service. At the corporate level, overhiring has led to hour slashing that has wiped out my last three pay raises. I'

A classic mistake...

[cyranoVR]

They hired nerds, not geeks - stupid, stupid, stupid!

Re:Clasic anti Nerd Propiganda

[munpfazy]

Nonsense, I say. Worse still - blasphemy! To place the nerds above the geeks is an offense of the worst kind.

There *is* a clear distinction and a value hierarchy among geeks, nerds, and dweebs, but you've got it all wrong.

What follows, I claim, is the one true classification of geekdom. It has stood up to rigorous peer review (loud arguments amongst drunken physics students) for years, and I stand by it.

A dweeb is someone without social skills who either doesn't recognize or is unable to accept that they are unusual. They constantly *try* to fit in, with disastrous results, and dedicate a significant portion of their daily lives to obsessing over how to pass as normal.

A nerd is someone without social skills or popular interests who recognizes that he or she is unlike most people and feels no shame in it.

A geek is a nerd with technical skills and passionate interests; in particular one who has a myopic dedication to a particular specialty. (This is the subspecies *true geek,* distinct from but related to the *common geek,* or nerd who is generally technically savvy and useful to have around.)

To summarize, the dweeb is the guy wearing a slightly out of fashion hipster shirt who generally creates embarrassing silences at parties by saying awkward things about pop stars or sports teams.

The nerd is the guy who skips the party in order to achieve moderately high scores on a popular video game while eating unheated canned peas with a spoon and listening to recordings of experimental music.

The geek is the guy who skips the party in order to code a popular video game, figure out the angle of repose one might expect for a pile of canned peas, or compose and record some experimental music.

On the college campus, geeks make up virtually the entire population of physics and math majors (as well as a majority in classics, many of the less trendy engineering sub-disciplines, linguistics, physical anthropology, and some of the more obscure languages.)

The nerds are the guys who drop out of school after one semester but stay in a college town working in a bookstore, where they get great discounts on whatever genre books they happen to like and talk to their geek friends about writing their own books yet never seem to actually finish any of them.

The dweebs largely end up in engineering or the quantitative business disciplines, in the hopes that they can earn enough money to buy the respect of powerful and attractive people. Those in engineering have a tough time of it, as they are publicly ignored by the normals whom they so admire while simultaneously earning the scorn and contempt of the geeks in their departments. Those in business do rather well, since they have a good chance at fooling their colleagues into thinking that they are geeks. (Normals may not invite geeks to parties, but they do like to hire them.)

Nothing competitive

[TLouden]

They're kinda like buying milk for your restaurant from 7-11. You get no selection for an exceptionally high price. What the geeksquad does is advertise to the ignorant and rake in the unproductive profits. Note: I am a technical consultant who does everything geeksquad claims to do and much more for reasonable prices so this is just their competitions opinion. Seriously though, using them is like buying an iplod because you think it's the only portable media device in existance.

Depends on the area

[Enigm0r]

I really depends on the store and it's staff. There are some that are filled with very bright and knowledgable people. Then there are some filled with idiots. I think it depends a lot on the IT industry in your area. If your area has a booming IT trade there are less of the smart, just out of college, but smart people to work a low rung job like Geek Squad. However, if you work in an IT deadzone, what you will find a lot of times in those Geek Squads is very talented *geeks* who are working there as their first IT job because there aren't that many opportunites for IT in their area. Just my 2 cents --Former GeekSquad'er

We love the geek squad!

[v1]

Really, we do. They bring us soooo much business it's funny.

We have determined that the Geek Squad geeks are people hired off the street the day before, and are instructed to look at the computer, and recommend that they buy a new computer. (from Best Buy, of course!)

Every attempt that we are aware of that they have actually tried to fix something, we see it a week later to fix what was wrong, and to fix what the geek broke while trying to fix it.

Some of the latest episodes:

- geek browsed customer's computer to a nasty web site and got it infected with spyware and viruses (two weeks ago)
- geek took laptop apart and failed to reconnect cardbus slot connector (that one was today)
- geek told customer he needed a new computer when he needed a new power supply (this happens somewhat frequently)
- geek told customer he needed a new computer because this one is slow, was actually rampant with spyware and viruses (happens all the time)
- geek sold customer another copy of XP because this one was showing it was no longer registerd

The list just goes on and on... funny thing too, we are quite expensive for on-site service compared to others in our area, (we're expensive, but we're good) but the Geek Squad actually is more expensive than we are. I don't see how they get any business, they must have a killer marketing campaign.

Re:We love the geek squad!

[patio11]

geek browsed customer's computer to a nasty web site and got it infected with spyware and viruses (two weeks ago)

Yeah, suuuuuuure... "Oh, I have no idea how that porn site got into my history. I know I never visit porn sites, and my husband/son/dog are morally upstanding individuals... it must have been the Geek Squad!"

Re:We love the geek squad!

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for the Geek Squad for a year and a half, ending last summer before college, and I certainly have my 2 cents to put into this discussion...

    I joined, as was suggested by another user already, becuase I needed a steady first job and local IT positions were pretty much non-existant. I have been a computer "geek" since the first Pentium, and consider myself extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of PC systems. I was definitely overqualified for the job, even without my A+ rating (which I thought for sure they'd turn me down over...).

    I was probably the best (or close to the best) "agent" on the squad as soon as I learned their piece of shit software. The problem was, they were so concentrated on making revenue and churning out computers, it was difficult to spend enough time on a machine to do things 100% the best way without getting kicked in the ass to get it off the bench, although 90% of the computers that were checked in were so incredibly trashed with malware, spyware, (pr0n, etc..) that windows was too trashed to repair w/o a format. Many of those computers were so outdated and missing CD's that in some cases it wasn't possible to find all the drivers for thier generic devices, even in the depths of the internet.

    As far as sending computers out for repair by third party vendors like the writer - I HATED seeing computers get shipped out. sometimes, we just sent comptuers out becuase we were too backed up. Some were misdiagnosed on our end, and some, even properly diagnosed, came back unrepaired or worse. The worst part was that >yours truly had to deal with a screaming customer instead of the shitheads who messed it up on one end or the other. Of the 9 or 10 "agents" on our "squad", MAYBE 2 of them (besides myself) REALLY seemed to GENUINELY care about what the customer was going through on the other side of the desk, and consequently caused a lot of shit to happen - the main reason I won't go back...

  I will also say we definitly had a problem with techs who were hired either off the sales floor or off the street w/o proper evaluation : We actually had one tech who brought her own computer in for repair after she "coudln't figure it out for the life of (her)". 30 seconds later I had it fixed after I set the jumper on her CDROM correctly.

There is soooo much more I could say, but I'll stop and leave those on the consumer end with some tips dealing with computer repairs:

      DUH) GOOGLE your problems first...you save money, and you don't have to read any further

      1) Find someone local who works on their own or for a small firm. Your unit will likely get more personal attention and not just be sent through the repair process on a conveyor belt.

      2) If you have to go to the geek squad or other group of the like, don't go straight in with your computer. go in ahead of time, and talk to the guys at the bench, and find someone you can trust - leave knowing one of them enough that they know your name and your face.
Ask when their next work shift is and when there is the least amount of traffic, and bring your machine in durring that time.

      4) If the tech works often enough that it is reasonable for both of you that ONLY they work on your computer, ASK for such service. It may take longer, but its better to have someone you trust get it done the first time, then have 5 different techs skrew it up. Some "squads" are great at handing computers off - mine wasn't at all - you never know...Best case scenario, you have a guy you can trust to do a good job from now on. Worst case scenario - he can't blame his shit job on somebody else.

      5) BACK YOUR STUFF UP BEFORE YOU BRING IT IN, especially if you're having problems that may require restoring your system. It can save you a LOT of money, and a LOT of hastle. Even if the backup is as simple as using the customer's CDRW drive to do the backup, we still charged full price (i hated this with a passion...).

*Yes, we dress like in the ads.**
**Yes, the ties get in the way and we hate them**

Re:wtf?

[Danse]

I've seen many times where it wasn't worth the *time* required to repair a Windows installation but I've never seen a Windows box trashed badly enough that the drive *needed* a reformat.

Not really a lot of difference. I'm sure pretty much anything can be fixed without a reinstall if you put enough time into it, but since that's prohibitive, especially when you're doing it as a business, there's effectively no difference between "needing a reinstall" and "a reinstall is the most efficient way to fix the problem." Unless the customer is willing to pay for you to spend the hours necessary to find and repair all the problems, then you pretty much have to reinstall.

Re:We love the geek squad!

[v1]

We do see older machines. Our shop works on both macs and PCs, and I have to say the macs tend to hold their value and usefullness for a good 2x the time the PCs do. We still get people bringing in LCs and Mac Classics, with printer problems etc. Just TRY and find a replacement printer for an LC sometime... So we actually don't dispose of many of them since people just refuse to junk them and they refuse to break. They probably all wind up sitting in people's attics.

Most of the windows boxes that come in with less than windows 2000 we contsider prime candidates for replacement. Same issue, impossible to find drivers for a new printer if you are running 95. Usually in those cases, besides being infected, there are issues that can only be solved by a reformat. If they are very very lucky, a repair-install will work. We try to look at the machine and determine it's value "in working condition", and then compare that to the estimated cost of repair. If the repair cost hits about 80% of the "working condition" value, we consider it totalled and advise them to get a new system.

Most AV and spyware scanners have to be run individually on each account on the computer. I find it humorous that viruses have no problem infecting every account on the computer yet you have to remove them one at a time. When we get in a system with say... 7 user accounts (at least twice a month) it's often more cost-effective to just nuke it and start over, rather than paying the tech for 6 hrs of time spent scanning all those accounts. It's ridiculous but that's the reality we deal with all the time. I can't see someone considering the machine totalled, since you could always just nuke and reinstall, but if the customer has lost their restore disks (20% of them have) then tracking down drivers for all their proprietary (usually Dell) hardware is next to impossible and DOES effectively total the computer.

I hate to see perfectly viable and functional hardware rendered totalled like that, but it happens surprisingly often, and I can't help but believe that the manufacturers of the computers plan it that way. They pull neat tricks like using a cheap (underpowered) power supply, and then pull a stunt like swap the location of the power switch and power cord, so you cannot use a stock power supply that might cost $39. No problem, they'll sell you an identical crappy replacement... for $179. So to summarize, they use proprietary cheap components that are guaranteed to fail early, require replacements available only from the manufacturer, and cost 3-4x what they're worth. "planned obsolecense" We take a metal saw and cut the little bit of metal tab on the back of the case that blocks the power switch on the standard supply, and save the customer $100, and they come out with a much better PS that won't die a year from now.

As for the graveyard, we pile up the totalled machines in back and a guy comes by and picks up the lot about once a week. He doesn't get to cherry pick, he has to take it all or none of it. Saves us the trouble of hauling away that which no one wants. I'm not totally clear on what he does with them, but I believe he parts them out either for repair parts or to build new mid-end systems with. We don't throw any full systems in the dumpster, though it gets its fair share of busted components. (hard drives, optical drives, power supplies, etc)

Re:We love the geek squad!

[Tatarize]

Holy crap, I should totally get a job there. Seems like you could just embezzle a lan party in a few weeks.

What they repair

[tansey]

I think it's pretty obvious [geeksquad.com] they're here to repair our poor fashion sense! Remember, dressing like an extra from Revenge of the Nerds is the first step towards mastering your computer!

Obligatory Office Space Reference

[poobread]

Geek Squad: Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!! I have people skills!! I am good at dealing with people!!! Can't you understand that?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!

It's a risk management strategy

[miller60]

Skilled computer techs who will do residential site visits are hard to find, so instead people default to a choice that they believe will insulate them from the worst-case scenarios. Most non-geek users have trouble assessing whether or not a computer consultant is capable or will muck up their machine even worse. Rather than taking the risk that they'll hire some dimwit or crook, they go to Best Buy (or CompUSA) and pay extra for their service in the belief that this gives them options if the repair goes badly. The crooked consultant can disappear with their money before the "fixed" computer blows up. It's not that easy to move the Best Buy store, so the guy is likely to return and demand satisfaction.

I've worked the squad

[skam240]

I worked in the Geek Squad at Best Buy for a little while back when they first took up the name. A few fun things I noticed while working there.

-In changing over from being a computer sales person to a tech, absolutely no form of test was administered to assess my proficiency before putting me to work formatting people's computers (I could have literally not known how to do this before being assigned to this job.)
-The only training that was administered to me upon transfer to the department was an abysmal program that failed to teach me the ins and outs of the database I would be using (and there were gaps in my knowledge about computer tech work that needed addressing at the time).
-Almost without exception the only thing done by Geek Squad members to computers which were brought in was a reformat and reinstall of the OS. If that didn't work the computer was almost always sent out of the store for weeks on end for repair.
-My boss spent over half of his time at work in various hiding places yakking on his cell phone. He was never held accountable for this.

Eventually my complete disgust with our lack of service, outright hatred of all levels of management and just general dislike of being forced to con people into buying things they don't need drove me to leave. I now work quite happily (at a dollar less an hour) at a locally owned supermarket while I finish me degree. Of every part time job I've ever had (high school included) this was by far the worst.

I could go on about all kinds of other things about Best Buy outside of the context of the Geek Squad but I'll stay on topic. Also, it should be noted that these are only my own experiences working in one store.

The name "Geek Squad"

[anotherone]

Does the name "Geek Squad" kind of offend anyone besides me, even just a little bit?

Re:The name "Geek Squad"

[mr_zorg]

Does the name "Geek Squad" kind of offend anyone besides me, even just a little bit?

Yes, but probably not for the same reasons. I wear my geek badge with pride. It's my website and my license plates... What offends me is that these folks, from the sounds of it (I have no personal experience), haven't earned the badge. To me, it's a bit like someone calling themselves a doctor when they haven't been to medical school (or even have a Ph.D. of any sort).

What Geek Squad does

[Megane]

They get to drive around in this way-cool VW Beetle with the words "Geek Squad" on the side. That's soooo l33t.

Quality cost money...

[RexRhino]

There is nothing with Geek Squad, in the same way there is nothing wrong with Taco Bell. Both provide a low quality product for a low cost. If you want excellent service, you have to pay a premium... just like if you want excellent food, you have to pay a premium (or learn how to cook). For many cheap computer systems, paying a premium for a highly skilled technician just doesn't make a lot of sense... especially when, in many cases, the problem can be solved by any marginally computer literate person.

Now, there are some people who might say that Geek Squad is overpriced. I don't know what the going rate for tech support is, but it seems to me that Geek Squad is far from a monopoly on tech support, and that people are either happy with the service, or prefer the one-stop Best Buy concept than to open a phone book and look for a place themselves.

A real answer

[ktwombley]

I worked as a Geek Squad Agent a while ago. Seeing no real, honest replies, I figure I'll actually answer the question.

First, I agree that many Geek Squad Agents aren't too bright. However, many are. Where do you think some of the future whatever-you-are's work in high school and college? Yeah, these types of jobs.

I'm lucky that I can say at my store I was surrounded by several other smart guys, and some not so smart guys. Now, occasionally a dumb guy would try to fix something, call it fixed, and mess things up. However, that was an exception rather than the norm. Often the dumb guys would leave stuff in the back with notes on them to have someone smarter look at it :)

You have to really understand the situation these guys are in. On the one hand they've got a stream of customers who (rightly) want their computers fixed. On the other hand they've got managers who don't know anything about fixing computers, and would rather have the Geek Squad guys sell more add-on products than fix things. The managers only care about the bottom line. And only in the short-term.

So often they either have to hurry though something because they're not being "productive" (e.g. not selling enough Norton to people), or don't have the tools / replacement parts to fix things that are broken.

The way replacing parts works is this: If the best buy store sells a comparable part, and the repair is covered under warranty or service plan, then the Geek Squad Agent can pull the part off the shelf, install it, and send the customer home. This only works in a very few cases, unfortunately. Anything else has to go to a vendor for repair. The Agent just diagnoses which part is bad, boxes it up, and sends it out. Again, this isn't because the Agent is incompetant, it's because he's not allowed to fix it.

Now, all software-related problems (drivers, spyware, etc.) are done in-store. They don't ship that stuff out to vendors.

Oh, a note about fixing stuff. It's a common joke to say all that they do is just reinstall windows. In my experience, that's just not the case. However, if you really think about it, often it really is the fastest way to do something. If you're on a tight budget for time, would you rather spend a few hours or days carefully researching and repairing some asinine spyware infestation that's so embedded that no spyware cleaners will remove it, or just spend a couple hours backing up, installing windows, and restoring personal data? It just makes good sense in some cases.

In summary: Geek Squad agents, the smart ones, at least, realize the situation they're in, and try to do the best job they can despite the obstacles thrown in their way by Best Buy and their managers. Before I'm flamed by some Geek Squad employees: I admit that my info is a bit dated. I'm sure some things are done differently now. This is my own experience.

Before I'm flamed by some Best Buy haters: I'm not saying Geek Squad is great, or it's the right thing for everybody. In fact, if you're reading /. and actually reading the comments, then Geek Squad is not a product aimed at you. Bitching about Geek Squad (and services like it) on Slashdot is like a Formula 1 pit crew lead telling an 85 year old lady to change her own oil because Jiffy Lube is a rip off. You entirely miss the point.

response from a geeksquad employee

[cliffhanger407]

i know i'll probably get flamed for this, but w/e.
i am a member of the geeksquad; I've worked there for a little less than a year, and from my experience, here's what we do.
Essentially, the in-store people do low level work. I'm constantly bored because I'm doing virus removal after virus removal from people who have messed up their computers and no longer know how to get on the internet. The job is redundant and menial and it gets old pretty quickly.
We actually do have a data backup that we try to convince people to do, but generally speaking, they opt out because, yes, our prices are too high. If i could change them, i would, so don't bitch at me.
The main brunt of work that we do though is basic setup (i.e. av install and antispyware install). it's menial dull and boring, and more than half of my time during the day is spent sitting watching little trackbars scrolling across a screen despite the fact that i have an 8 port KVM running full of machines.
From my experience, there are two types of "agents" who work in store as we're forced by SOP to call each other. there are the fairly smart ones, who know what's going on for the most part and can figure out just about anything wrong with a system. then there are the ones who are good with customers. they know nothing about computers, but often they think that they can fix problems. i don't trust them. most of the good agents that i work with also don't trust them, and as such they don't work on computers very often. in the stores which are understaffed, however, there is not this luxury. This is why the geeksquad has such a bad reputation among the ivory tower of computer intellectuals.
In-home and in-office technicians are a bit of a different case; they're at least required to have A+ cert for in-home working, and i'm fairly certain (but don't quote me on this) that the in-office are required to be MCSE. It may not be the same as having a masters or just being an all around badass, but they're at least generally qualified. Some people slide through the cracks in the system, though, and still give the organization a bad name.
I wish the geek squad would have more openings for people like me, though. I'm not certified, but i definately know my way around a system better than anyone I work with. I'm also the youngest at my store by far; I'm just now going to college next year. Basically the deal is that the people I work with are older and don't care as much about making an impression, which I believe is a fatal flaw. They don't want to ensure that management likes them as much because they have become disillusioned with the way the world works.
That's my 2 cents, sorry for the long comment.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

[kd5ujz]

As stated here. geek squad job advertisment [careerbuilder.com]

Do you have the skills?

DOS, Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP or Apple MacOS

Troubleshooting of Operating Systems and Internet connection issues

Knowledge of computer hardware diagnostic and troubleshooting

Software installations and upgrading

Can install / troubleshoot all computer-related devices (video, sound, modem, printer, scanner, camera, etcetera.)

Have the ability to research online and work through problems

Explain computer-related sales and service options to people shopping Best Buy and over the phone


Geek Squad Agents will work in a fast paced retail environment performing computer-related installations and technical support. Although sales will not be your primary function, let's just face it, when our customers spot a sharp technical mind dressed like an Agent, they can't help but ask a few technology questions. Geek Squad Agents should have the ability to interact with customers while showing respect, courtesy and professionalism. A+ Certification is a plus.

Agent opportunities: Agent must develop customers as they perform on-site repairs, setups and networking, both in homes and businesses, and will assist customers in Best Buy when not on-site. This very responsible person is provided a "Geekmobile" and a parts inventory. Excellent driving record required.

The pre-requisites aren't enough...

[Codename46]

Many companies that hire computer technicians merely require an A+ Certification [comptia.org] in order for an applicant to be considered competent and eligible for the job. The problems with that is A+ Certification by itself isn't enough because

1) It doesn't take much to pass. The A+ test consists of two sections (Core hardware and OS technologies), and you really only need a score of 500 to pass for each section to become A+ Certified (which really amounts to getting roughly 50-60 percent of the whole exam correct, a pitiful score). Whether or not you score the bare minimum or got above an 800 on each section, companies only see your certificate, so really you don't know whether the A+ monkey you've hired actually knows much. Hell, I even got A+ certified when I was 15 (I'm 17 now) and managed to get a job as a salesman at Micro Center [microcenter.com], and I didn't even get any hands-on practice (bought a 60-dollar Sybex book and crammed). The concepts are way too basic, and the objectives are messed up. A+ requires you to have knowledge of rarely-implemented concepts such as old motherbboard sockets and the features of really old CPU's (I'm talking 386 here). What the test should concentrate more on is detail on newer material instead of trying to create a catch-all for everything that has happened in IT in the past 20 years.

2) The test is only updated about every 3 years. Since newer computer hardware comes out about every 2 months, people usually have to resort to extra homework-research in order to catch up. Stores like Frys and Best Buy don't really give much training to new material. Only this year did COMPTIA update [comptia.org] the certification objectives to cover new topics such as dual-core processors, which were released 2 years ago.

3) The test has no hands-on material whatsoever. I didn't even know how to use brass standoffs in order to mount a motherboard into a case when I passed this test. When I really got into computers and started doing hands-on stuff by myself (i.e repairing PC's for friends and building PC's), I realized how much I missed out even with the certification. Many certifications today (especially the ones by COMPTIA such as Network+, Linux+, and Security+) don't have much, if any, hands-on objectives during testing. I don't care if you have memorized how many transistors each processor that has been developed in the past two decades have, but if you don't know how to correctly mount a motherboard/ground yourself/RAID multiple hard drives by hand, then you don't know jack shit.

Even with other certifications that broaden their knowledge like Network+ and maybe CCNA, the most important thing is hands-on experience, something that takes a lot more background than cramming a couple of books.

Re:Who cares!

[no reason to be here]

Who cares? I, as a consumer, care. If I take my computer to Geek Squad (I wouldn't, but speaking hypothetically) I don't want to be paying $150 just so they can take it to someone else whom they pay $75 to fix the problem. I'd rather take my computer straight to the guy who only charges $75.

Moreover, if I were the guy who submitted the ask /., I'd care because I could, theoretically, market directly to Geek Squad's customers and raise my prices, but only to a level where my company would be undercutting Geek Squad.

That's just the first two reasons I can think of. I'm sure I could think of more.

Re:Who cares!

[Tatarize]

The sad thing is, after two repairs, you've lost the entire cost of the system.

You can get a brand new computer for cheaper than it costs to repair the broken one. At a certain point it's so cheap to buy a new one that they should just switch the harddrive over and upgrade them. I mean, if they misconfigured windows, so it stopped booting then they need a new harddrive with a new install.

I think it would be easier to just sell a service where they take the contents of your old harddrive and pour it into a directory on a brand new system they sell you for 400 bucks.

Hardware it too cheap to pay to repair it.

Re:Who cares!

[Don'tTreadOnMe]

The sad thing is, after two repairs, you've lost the entire cost of the system.

Yeah, I go back and forth on this.

Sure, a computer only costs XX monetary units, but: my computer is set up the way I like it. It pisses me off every time I have to change the folder views, add software, update software, update windows, restore my files, forget one, restore the ones I forgot, and so on.

I keep that in mind whenever I'm cleaning spyware off a personal client's PC, or when at a corporate client, remember that if I can get their computer back up and running in an hour or two of non-business time, then that means the employee can be back at work again at 9 AM, without having to go through all of that pain.

It pays the bills, I suppose.

But I hear you: I couldn't bring myself to pay someone that much.

that's what most successful business modes do

[carpeweb]

Sure, it would be nice if Geek Squad would just say, "hey, we can't fix this ourselves, but you can take it directly to our upstream supplier for half the cost of what we would charge you, and we won't make any money on the transaction".

But there aren't many industries that are completely disintermediated, with absolutely no middlemen between the ultimate producer and the ultimate consumer. True, when too many layers exist, or when a particular layer takes too much of the value chain, opportunities arise for newer, more efficient business models (disintermediation or other forms of reorganization).

Yes, theoretically, you could market directly to Geek Squad's customers. Got ad budget? There's a big value in successful brand strategy, and Geek Squad's got it right now in this niche. For every genius who knows the guy who only charges $75, there are a dozen "idiots" who know guys who charge $300 for the same "service" and don't know any better. It's not a commodity business, by any means, so it's not surprising that prices (and quality) vary more for this than for 5-pound bags of refined sugar.

Whether or not it's good or bad at repair, Geek Squad is successful because it

1. lowers consumer search costs
2. provides a (perceived) uniformity of quality, much like McDonald's
3. at (perceived) reasonable/low prices

Almost nobody thinks McDonald's burgers are the best in the world, or anything close. Likewise, most of us know a "better" place even for cheap, fast food. But most of us eat at McDonald's at least on occasion for one of the above reasons.

You want a two-year warranty or fries with that new hard drive?

Re:Who cares!

[eclectro]

I care, because they might give geeks a bad name.

Not just Geek Squad

[SIGBUS]

I remember a now-defunct white box computer shop some years back (think K6 era), where I overheard a tech talk about "warezing" (he pronounced it like the English rendition of "Juarez") software.

Meanwhile I was thinking, "why go to Mexico for software :) when there's Linux?"

Hire good techs and reward them

[Crudely_Indecent]

I've been in many support organizations, and you'd be amazed at the level of incompetence that FLOWS into the call center, and the repair team. Some who can spell "PC" are given the job. As head of a support group that billed $120/hr I can say that there are a fair number of very talented and capable technicians. The problem is that the organizations don't value the knowledge of those employees and they're often frustrated to the point of quitting to find employment that appreciates their talent. I'm speaking for myself and several talented programmers/technicians that I know. You won't find good techs working at Best Buy, or Frys, or CompUSA......

I know a few who will gladly bill $120 - $175 / hour to fix your systems. How much is your data worth? It's certainly not worth $12.50/hr to me or anyone I know.

You'd be surprised where else

[Moraelin]

You won't find good techs working at Best Buy, or Frys, or CompUSA......

You'd be surprised where else you won't find good techs.

E.g., for the last 4 years I've been sorta a permanent consultant/contractor at a big corporation. You'd think that they could afford competent people, right? I mean, when you have tens of thousands of PCs (quite literally), it pays to have them well set up at least, right?

Well, wrong. PCs always routinely came with some stupidly wrong image installed.

E.g., the batch mine was in came with the wrong IDE drivers. Thank goodness Windows didn't use those, but performance was _abysmal_. You wouldn't believe how slow a fairly modern HDD is with NT 4.0's default drivers in PIO mode. Even stuff like switching between applications took seconds. (I assume that NT swapped some of the old app out, or something.)

E.g., they came with Matrox drivers installed... even though they had Nvidia cards.

Now being crazy enough to do the non-standard thing, I did download the right drivers off the internet and got our boss to give us the admin password to install them. But, you know, (A) I shouldn't have to. Wtf is the IT department for, if I have to do that. And (B) I wonder how many peons in other departments just gnash their teeth and put up with a system that performs like a lobotomized 486.

But let's delve a bit further into this madness...

So at some point it was decided to finally upgrade our RAM. So they send two IT drones to open the PCs and replace the RAM sticks. Easy job, right? I mean, right? Well, you wouldn't believe the uphill struggle that it was on every single PC. The problem? The RAM timings on the new sticks were different. So on every single PC, out of a batch of identical PCs, it was starting again from scratch digging into the BIOS and randomly changing stuff until it worked. You'd think they'd at least be able to remember what they did to the first half a dozen PCs by the time they get to the next one.

One coleague was left with a PC which was proclaimed to work after passing POST. Except it froze when trying to load Windows.

It gets better. They couldn't make one PC work at all, so they took it with them. It came back without the extra RAM, but freshly formatted and reinstalled. They fucking deleted that guy's 2 years worth of work instead of installing the RAM, and didn't even do a backup first. (Well, at least the sources were in CVS, but everything else, e.g., emails, documents he's downloaded, etc, wasn't.) How _does_ one end up formatting the hard drive instead of replacing the RAM? I mean, seriously, at which point are they similar or related enough to accidentally do one instead of the other?

And if you thought that the PC drones are the only ones without half a brain, let's just say that we actually have the whole flying circus. We have DBAs who don't know how to admin a database, and have to be told exactly what commands to run on it. (And occasionally do stupid stuff on their own, like disabling XA transactions on a productive Oracle database, because they thought it just takes up memory and doesn't do anything.) We have Unix admins who don't actually know jack about Unix. And I don't mean as in "not experts." I mean they probably haven't even _seen_ a Unix prompt before, and aren't going to start learning now. Etc.

*sigh* Methinks cost cutting is good and fine, but sometimes people should know when to stop. At the point where such clueless monkeys are hired just because they're very cheap... maybe it's already too much.

Re:What does PCMCIA stand for?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Easy: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.

2 words: bull+shit

[rbochan]

Modded informative? pfffffffft.
I guess it's time for me to pull out my "Certs don't mean jack" story here once again.

Since my sister lives several hundred miles away, I'm saved from most "family tech support issues". Her Win98 computer wasn't running so fast a few years back, so she decided to add more ram to it to speed things up. Her husband took it to his "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" to get the job done.
"MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" proceeded to drop a screwdriver onto the mobo when it was powered up, toasting it, of course. He had the nerve to charge them for a new motherboard, but at least the ram got installed.
I was visiting a couple of months later when my sister mentioned that she couldn't get any sound when she tried to play a CD. As I was already almost seething when she'd told me about the motherboard, I figured I knew exactly what the deal was. I peered in through the back to, sure enough, see that "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" hadn't reconnected the CD audio cable and it was just dangling there. I then grabbed a screwdriver to open the case to connect the cable.
Seems "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" lost the case screws, so "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" POP-RIVETED THE GOD DAMN CASE SHUT.
Another half hour, a drill, and migraine later, she once again had CD audio working.

So, yes... certs might look good on paper, but they don't mean jack when it comes to knowledge.