My First Day

Started my job at Best Buy last night as a computer sales person. I have had a couple different styles of training for the handful of jobs I have held, and what I experienced with this job would be the loosest definition of training out there.

I arrive and am pointed to the back to "find someone working in the computer area", not a name, just any random person working back there. I am expecting them to know they have a trainee coming in, they had no clue. I am expecting to have some kind of binder to read through with training material, no binder. I am expecting to get a tour of the store, no tour. I am expecting at the very least a run down of the "extras" they try to sell (protection plans, etc), nothing. So basically I am shown how to clock in, which is important and then I am handed off to one of the sales people who shows me around my area (which I already basically knew from shopping in the store) and then we go to help a customer. I am standing there observing (assuming that is what I am supposed to be doing) , when another customer approaches me and I have no choice but to help them.

I am thrust into my first sale after watching my co-worker for maybe 10 minutes (this is about 30 minutes into my shift), so I sell a laptop and ALL the extras to my first customer and I had no clue what the hell I was doing, even got a pricey bag to go with it. So this sale apparently means I don't need further training (and might I remind you that I literally can't even use a register because I wasn't trained let alone given a login). I continue to sell about 7 or more computers with over half of them having the pricey protection plans and another 1 or 2 with all the extras. I would guess it was about as good as anyone could have done on their first day with no real training.

I just took what I know about computers (a fair amount) and spliced it with the kind of sales person I like to have when I purchase something and even some of that casino skill of reading people and boom! The easy part is that most people don't really understand computers and that is where having that knowledge and sounding like you know what you are talking about really comes in handy, assurance is really what these people are looking for.

Ungrateful

SEPTA (Philly's public transit company) saw its workers go on strike as of 3 AM this morning, meaning all buses, trains, etc will not be running until further notice. It is unbelievable that living right next to one of the states (NJ) with the worst unemployment rates in the country on top of horrible unemployment across the country, literally millions of people without jobs...

These guys have the balls to go on strike for reasons dealing with pension, work rule issues and as most strikes do more money. This is a great example of why unions don't work anymore, every single person on strike could be replaced with the amount of unemployed bodies in the area (with plenty left over), and its not like they are being taken advantage of (why unions were put in place originally). I just can't believe these people would be so ungrateful to have a damn job that they would go on strike for dumb ass reasons instead of putting up with it and working together with management.

So these people aren't just ungrateful they are selfish too...literally moving hundreds of thousands of people a day (if not millions) to get to their jobs/functions/whatever. These people that rely on the transit now can't get to their jobs in a timely manner maybe not at all, meaning they could lose their jobs. Unions are so out dated, no one is mistreated in this country the way they were back when unions were a good idea, there is no reason to have them they only reduce efficiency and make standard work place actions so much more complicated.

So SEPTA employees who are on strike get your heads out of your asses and be grateful you have an EFF'n job, and for every job someone else loses you should have to pay their salary for a year you selfish bastards.