Pros
-Employee Discount (not on absoluteltely everything) -Opportunity to gain experience with and knowledge of electronics - basically like working in a candy store if you're into that sort of stuff. -Non-commission based sales position means a less hostile co-worker environment -Time generally goes by quickly on the floor -Pay is slightly above average -Vendor accomodations sales programs -Generally fair treatment by management and diverse workforce and fair hiring policy -Other people generally seem to think it's pretty cool that you work at best buy. (?)
Cons
-Extremely poor infrastructure - store computers are extremely old, sluggish, and systems necessary for us to do our job are extremely unreliable and constantly crash. This prolongs customer wait time, decreases customer satisfaction, increases the chance of a customer walk-out or return, and decreases productivity all-around. -Poor training: you're thrown out on the floor without any product, services, or systems training; it's sink or swim. It's very difficult if you don't at least have some prior product knowledge. "E-Learning" training courses are boring, unhelpful, and for the most part useless. If you are ever shopping at a Best Buy and an associate appears very well versed in how a product functions, they should be commended because it's almost 100% guaranteed that they picked up that knowledge on their own. -Poor Management-Employee communication: Meaningless department goals change day to day and are enforced like a holy mantra. You spend more time trying to learn empty sales numbers, goals, and acronyms than you do learning about new products. Packages, sales, and promotions can change from one day to the next (irregular in respect to the weekly sale) and you are never informed, making you appear foolish and uninformed in front of customers. You can try to keep track of every yellow-tag package or promotion in your dept. but it becomes very difficult to maintain. -Inconsistent Quality of Managment: The quality of your department and store directly correlates to the competence of your department supervisor/manager and general manager. They can make or break your experience at Best Buy, and their ability to resolve and handle customer issues, inquiries, and complaints will partly determine your store's success at meeting goals. Generally they treat you with respect, but this is obviously dependent upon the individual manager. Some inexperienced managers seem unable to handle the inherent pressure and stress of having higher-ups breathing down their necks to the point where they comically shout a combo of a million tasks at you within the span of ten minutes. Favoritism is a problem but it's not major and is sort of to be expected. -Customers: Not job-specific technically, but the lack of reading comprehension amongst some people is shocking. People who treat you like you're an idiot. Computer or A/V nerds who come in an try to waste your time and make you look stupid (these people are the worst) when you actually know what you're talking about. People trying to haggle on everything like they're at an outdoor market. -Hours and opportunities: hours vary depending on department and even then can vary from week to week if you are not full-time. An inconsistent job if you are planning on depending on it for living or if you don't have a supplementary source of income. Little opportunity to move up within store, however a lot of people there are not looking to move up and are just looking for a paycheck (like me) until something better comes along or they complete school.