Geek Squad layoffs (April, 2024)

[Metanis]

If you're in the USA do you consider this good news? Or bad news?

Best Buy Geek Squad Agents ‘Going Sleeper’ After Mass Layoffs

Laid-off employees say they weren't given notice, and were instead given notice via email about a "work from home" event.

www.404media.co

 

[Markverhyden]

History just repeating itself yet again. Before Worst Choice there was Circuit City (Firedog), Computer City, The Wiz as well as CompUSA for national chains that I remember. The pic below I took nearly 20 years ago at a local CC as they were rolling up the carpet on Firedog.

 

[frase]

They pay their staff peanuts anyway, if I were the staff I would just break out and do my own thing. Or go work for a better company with the experience they have picked up in regards to customer support.

 

[ThatPlace928]

If you're in the USA do you consider this good news? Or bad news?

Best Buy Geek Squad Agents ‘Going Sleeper’ After Mass Layoffs

Laid-off employees say they weren't given notice, and were instead given notice via email about a "work from home" event.

www.404media.co

More than likely, they will just come back as another company. I've seen a lot of companies reinvent themselves, after waiting a bit.

Geek Squad is expensive. I've only ever been there once when someone was actually helpful. One tech quoted me $1,500 to move data from a "crashed" hard drive. He walked away and another tech came up and told me I can do it myself by using an enclosure for $299. This was probably 17 years or so ago, long before I was repairing and recovering data myself. Back then, I was merely a consumer/end user.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

There's a Best Buy about 6 blocks down from our office....
One of the connector roads that goes through an industrial park area...there's a big box plaze there (BJ's, Lowes, Bobs, etc)....and a movie theater. Many day of the week when I drive to/from my office...I'll see one of the Geek squad guys parked in that theater lot...in the Geek Squad black/white/orange van. Just...sitting there burning the time clock....on his phone or something.

 

[phaZed]

Great news for 'us' - bad news for them. The place is a rip-off, IMO.. so it's good for the consumer as well. All they ever want to do is sell a new computer, not fix them as they advertise.

 

[Markverhyden]

One tech quoted me $1,500 to move data from a "crashed" hard drive. He walked away and another tech came up and told me I can do it myself by using an enclosure for $299. This was probably 17 years or so ago, long before I was repairing and recovering data myself. Back then, I was merely a consumer/end user.

Having been in that retail space for many years I can say there are some really good techs. But they are definitely the minority out of that labor pool. I know CompUSA had no problem spending money on training but the was 20+ years ago.

After I got a good grounding in Linux in the late '90's it became obvious how easy data recovery could be with a drive that did not have hardware/firmware problems. Linux didn't/doesn't give a rat's behind about Windows permissions. I remember one lady in particular, around '02 or so, who brought in a drive. Said she paid another tech $600, in 2002 mind you, for him to tell her there was nothing on the drive. Loaded Testdisk, it picked up right away on the backup partition table. Restored that, booted to whatever linux distro I was using, saw the whole file tree and was able to grab everything. I waited till the next day to call her just so it didn't look so stupidly simple. She complained about the other tech but she paid him with a check which he had already cashed. I guess that's why he only accepted cash or checks.

 

[frase]

The business take 70% of income of the jobs that they send out their slaves to do the work.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I can't imagine the burn out when dealing with the absolute bottom of the barrel clients who have more money than sense. The type of clients who can't remember their own passwords or install AVG on their iPhone to protect them from Russia, usually very ederly who have no business using anything more complicated than an iPad.

The burnout must be extreme.

 

[techiedavid]

I have mixed feelings here on this. On 1 hand I feel bad for them but on the other I despite geek squad business "tech' practices and company as a whole for that so I wouldn't mind seeing that company go under if they don't ever change those ways.

 

[sapphirescales]

Geek Squad isn't the same Geek Squad it used to be. In their greed they've tried to move everyone over to a yearly subscription. They won't even work on your computer unless you've subscribed for the $180/year, and they only give you 20% off of their already ridiculously overpriced repairs. I can't even imagine trying to force everyone who calls into my shop to pay a $180/year subscription for me to even look at their computer, and then touting 20% off repairs as a "benefit" of such a subscription. You'd have to spend $900/year in repairs to even break even.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The axiom goes, if I had a dime for every time... in this case clean up after Geek Squad, I'd be a wealthy man.

The reality is, I've received far more than the dime in question, and I'm still rather broke! Geek Squad, and Data Doctors both... terrible companies with incredibly poor practices. They're trying to get a market to spend money, when the fix for the vast majority of said market is to pay $400 for a new micro-craptop. I'm honestly shocked they exist, I cannot figure out who they're selling to. My clients were never that stupid, or that easy to convince to open their wallets!