Subject: My story, ignore the spelling
From: "Robert D. Cotey II" <rcotey@tampabay.rr.com>
To: CyberPagan@OutoftheDark.com
Cc: Jason <dragonlord@inmydreams.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 21:15:15 -0400

I have a sad story for you. I was once a employee of compusa's in house
computer repair department. There were 5 of us. We all had proper
education, certifications, training, you get the picture. 3 of us were
new. They paid us 8.00 an hour. The other two I am not sure of because
it's rude to ask.

I guess I will go over a few things that i noticed first. WE (the 5
techs) knew what to do to fix the machines. We know the proper way to do
things. Unfortunatly the company, expecially with TAP (warenty) never
would let us do it. Say your floopy drive went out on your desktop.
Theres one on the shelf 5 feet away for 14 bucks. I could grab it,
install it, and be done with it in under 30 mins. But no. If you had TAP
then we are required to order from another vendor. Before we can order
from another vendor we have to get permission to do so. That usally
takes atleast 2 days. If you moved, or your phone number changed, or you
died you hair a diffrent color (that last one might be a bit of an
exasuration) then we techs whould have to fill out and fax a TAP update
form. This process takes place after the first 2 days have gone by, and
can take upto 4 days depending on the problem, but rarely does it take
less then 1. We our now at 3 days. And you haven't seen your computer.
We then order the part from a vendor (instead of getting one off the
shelf) which takes atleast another 3 days to get in. That is of course
unless theres a holiday or what you need is out of stock. If it is outa
stock you better just go grab another computer off the shelf cause it
could takes months to get you floppy dirve.  Ok we are assuming
everything went as planned and it's only been 6 days. Your part comes
in  and I am so kind as to install it right away. Guess what the part we
got you from the vendor is bad. Back to the getting permission part and
then waiting and then ordering then waiting, in fairness the getting
permission a second time can be cut out most times. and another 4 days
has gone by. If my math is correct your up to 10 days. We get that part
and install it, it workes we call you, but because parts come in around
3-4pm and theirs usally a bunch of them it's late enough now that you
have to wait till tomarrow to pick it up. Woo 11 days. And thats just
the basics. If you want something added on our free instals cost 20
bucks (lol you herd me right). To make matters worse we are required to
call you every 2 days to tell you nothing has changed. 

Now from the employees side. They kept teaseing me with a raise and
"spiffs". They used stuff on the sales people and front end to the
effect of, "We are going to pay you less but you can make more." Even
tried it to us, the techs. LOL. Some of the nicers things are, as long
as you are an employee anyway, you get cheaper prices on things. Can get
cheaper else where but instead of marking stuff up 200% they give it to
you at avrage cost, which mean basicly the avrage of what they pay and
what the customer pays. So 100% markup. And to be fair I have to say the
managers and other employees were pretty friendly. Most of them most of
the time. I still hang out with wuite a few of them.

Now the last note. It appers that out tech department was doing to well.
They let go of a manager that was bringing in 100k a month profit (one
month almost 200k) and replaced him with a secetary of the regions head
tech guy (sorry can't remember the accualy name but the person that
manages the managers in a regon). Thats right Secetary. He is good at
orgonizing stuff. First thing he did when he got there was stick hot
pink and neon yellow signs on EVERYTHING, labeling it. I sware to you I
expected to walk in one day and see a hot pink sign on the trash can
that reads "Trash Can".  Then he continued to Orgonize the shop by
throwing away all of our testing equipment, extra ram and floppies and
hard drives etc. He then procceded to eliviate us from non-standard
keyboards and mice. So if you for some reason don't have a ps2 keyboard
and mosue, we couldn't help you (we worked on older machines and macs, a
few mac keyboards were left alone so we did have usb a keyboard and one
1 button usb mouse.)  One of the hardest hit was our printer guy. He had
collected over the years various parts and cartridges for several
printers we fixed often. They were all thrown out making it extreamly
hard for him to do his job. Also I guess that we still managed to be to
seccussful, because he managed to rid the department of 3 out of 5 tech.
Didn't fire us mind you. Me he moved out to basicaly the front end. I
was worried for a while that my skills as a computer tech were lacking,
but now that i own my very own secussful bussniess I know that that
can't be true. I quit the day he did that and spent the remander of my
time there (a little over a week, notice and all) watching tv. A friend
of mine was given the same treatment and sent to the "front end" at such
time that he quit and is now running his own bussniess. And lastly the
toughest skined one of us all I guees pre-empted his butt rapeing and
just quit when a friend told him about a job oppening somewhere else. A
forth tech, also a friend is also trying to quit, and has set himself up
to do contract work for a local company. The 5th is also looking but I
don't think he will go anywhere. So you ask who did they hire to replace
us. If I understand this right the hired 2 people and an extra part time
person. None of them have the right schooling (I might be wrong). The
one who seems to do better with computers is of course stuck on the
front end, while the clueless one gets to work on you machine. The
company treets the job like McDonalds. And thats the type of people they
have working there. (Mostly) The cheat the sales ppl, the tech, and the
customers. All infavor of makeing $0.34 more per sale.

Long story short don't work there. Don't shop there. If you do bring
some lube, you'll need it. I apologize for my spelling. But I relly suck
at spelling.