Working At Best Buy

I was an employee about six years ago and Geek Squad was still pretty young. I worked in the digital imaging dept which at the time was integrated with mobile. You really do an honest job of showing the ins and the outs of the store. Most people get this image that the workers are trying to "screw" you over as hard as possible when this isn't the case at all. The company is trying to screw the customer over, though this seems to have lightened up a bit in the last few years. If someone asked me for help or how to get something I would do my honest job to try as much as I could to make it happen. Usually we would get these soccer mom's who want absolutely ridiculous things done such as wanting a product that doesn't even exist. I have worked past closing hours quite a few times just to make sure a person is getting the sale they want. On occasion I would get people try to bargain with me as a sales person. I would continuously remind them that I was not on commission and really didn't have much control on the costs. Some of the more higher ranking employees could pull a few strings to lower costs, but this was a crap-shoot and it also depended on if the person they were working with was not an ***. My mom worked in appliances and could sometimes have the managers pull something like 10% if she was feeling willing. I had some really old guy walk out on me as a threat because I couldn't cut the price on something. I said I didn't care and went on with my shift. Store managers can adjust prices but they only do it once in a great while and usually on 2k+ sales. The biggest thing which you really get is the inside business practices and how poorly they treat their workers. Use of fear and punishment were very common for poor sale numbers. I used to get lectures all the time about getting Geek Squad service for a stupid Kodak camera. It drove me crazy. People always ask if the insurance is worth it or not on a product. My advice I always gave is this: The more you are spending the more you should seriously consider it. A lot of products that get regular use will break after two or three years. It is the manufacture's fault mostly. So if you are buying an Xbox, *** yes you buy the PSP/PRP and you laugh all the way home with a brand new one when the old one red rings. Anyways not a ton of this was really directed to you in particular but I just wanted to piggy back on if you don't mind, good AMA!