Work Part-Time at Best Buy

[BStecke]

I worked at Best Buy for three years, my fiance still works there. Neither of us would recommend it. As is typical with any corporation, there's a ton of red tape bullshit that gets in the way of doing anything that really makes any sense. No matter how passionate you are about HDTV, Blu-ray, HD DVD, etc., Best Buy has no interest in that and will never put you in a position to make your knowledge work the best it could. They have their agenda and, while they will pretend to advocate employee input in order to promote change, it's a lie. They pay jack shit, yet expect you to know the ins and outs of their corporate business strategy like you're the CEO, and there is absolutely no incentive to do your job any better than the minimum it takes not to get fired.

Don't worry about having to know much to get into a certain department. It's not based on your knowledge, it's based on where they have an opening. Which is abundantly clear when you talk to most Best Buy sales people.

From mine and a lot of people's experience, it's actually kind of hard to get into Best Buy (I think their employee satisfaction overall has steadily decreased, therefore increasing turnover as of late, though). The discount is good on some stuff, not so good on others. It's a straight 5% above cost. Good for TV's, appliances, and especially cables and accessories; not so good for movies, CD's and games. Most of the time, the new release price is lower than employee price. No discount on game consoles at all.

So . . . I wouldn't recommend it, unless it's a situation where you have the freedom of just saying the inevitable "fu*k it" and walking out, or you have the freedom to ignore their bullshit and just enjoy the high points. Honestly I'd try to stay out of retail if I could . . . it'll ruin your faith in mankind, and spoil most of the excitement that typically comes with the holidays, ESPECIALLY at Best Buy. During the holidays it basically turns into a slave camp.