https://www.404media.co/mass-layoffs-at-best-buy-geek-squad-former-employees-post-going-sleeper/
Laid-off employees say they weren't given notice, and were instead given notice via email about a "work from home" event.
Heads up, the headline is kind of misleading. “Going sleeper” is just their internal slang for getting laid off. It doesn’t mean some kind of protest or activism.
The headline is stupid ... It basically says Geek Squad is laid off after getting laid off
Journalism is basically beyond saving at this point...
Journalism is basically beyond saving at this point...
I mean, it's basically a no name website. It's not like this is a NYTimes, AP, or The Atlantic headline.
Edit: I guess what I'm really asking is, it's a bad headline from a small publisher (it's surely happened many many times for decades), can't we leave it at that without the dramatization?
Overreacting and dramatization is what social media trained us to do, so I’ll go ahead and answer that question with… no, probably not. Or as social media taught me; I SLAM your comment DOWN!
If I'm not mistaken 404media is where a lot of the VICE crew ended up, so I am a bit underwhelmed/disappointed by the headline
I guess what I'm really asking is, it's a bad headline from a small publisher (it's surely happened many many times for decades), can't we leave it at that without the dramatization?
If this were an isolated example, sure.... But go to all those sources you mentioned and tell me how many times some "slammed" someone else...
But go to all those sources you mentioned and tell me how many times some “slammed” someone else
Okay ... Let's google it ... I'm open to be being bias checked; The Atlantic and NY Times.
Some "The Atlantic" examples:
Some "NYTimes" examples:
What's your point exactly? These aren't (IMO) atrocious headlines; I suppose a few could be more informative for sure but also these are like ~1 per year.
Nice malicious compliance bud...
You don't have to agree with me but #1 pretending my entire point was based on this one bad headline was miscengenous at best... #2 again taking the comment literally simply to discard it = miscengenous
Not really into trying to debate a bad faith partner here
Exactly. They wanted to highlight the dumb “sleeper” line for some reason, even though it’s probably the least newsworthy part of the message. “Geek Squad faces huge layoffs, members call it ‘going sleeper’” is much clearer but still a waste of time and space.
It says that in the article
Edit: not really sure why I got downvoted. The whole article is like 20 sentences. This isn't some kind of high brow journalism. The whole thing takes less than a minute to read.
I used to go to Best Buy weekly to look for new movies and games, but since they eliminated movies and scaled back games, I've been doing all that shopping on Amazon instead... I guess it shows who wants my money and who doesn't.
Best Buy is going to end up being just another "Hey, remember Fry's? Circuit City? CompUSA? Good Guys? Tower? Computer City?"
Jesus Christ, content warning for that body count you crossed off at the end there.
Fuck. I miss all those shops. Can I get a R.I.P. for Babbages, Game Crazy (pre-hollywood buyout) and Software Etc... while we're at it?
No sense in not going totally dark here. Haha
Babbages, Software Etc., EB Games, and Funcoland all got absorbed into what is now Gamestop, but who knows how long they'll hold on.
Game releases this year have been super light, unless there are some major announcements coming up, it's not looking great for them. :(
Oh yeah man, GameStop was at the forefront of what the industry as a whole is doing now. Acquiring, consuming, shitting out a husk.
I'm of 2 minds with GameStop nowadays. On one hand, it's somewhat nice to still have a physical game store. On the other, it's fucking GameStop and all the baggage that comes with that.
I don't see much of a future for physical shops at this point. Especially with Best Buy, Walmart and Kroger phasing out retail space.
Soon we'll have nothing but digital and subscription and I guess we'll like it? I'll hold on to my dragons hoard of physical games as long as I can (thanks Game Crazy for employing new throughout high school) but it'll be painful the day I realize I'm no longer adding new stuff to it.
You can still get Bawls if you travel to the US! In certain states. If the state has a Microcenter.
Aww man, good to know! I wish we had a microcenter nearby. Closest one is at least a state away.
Maybe they'll ship it. Haha
I remember software etc. They had a big event for the dreamcast being released. 9/9/99. I wore that free shirt with the date that I got there from playing sonic adventure for like 15 years
We had a pretty big event at Game Crazy. I think those shirts finally got retired after my kid grew out of them quite a few years ago.
I unfortunately... put them in the dryer to much throughout the years and they seem to have shrank. Yeah, that's what happened.
We had one in Minneapolis at the Mall of America when it opened. It had a great selection but I was still partial to Cheapo, Northern Lights, and Positively 4th St. Cheapo is still around and I stop in there a few times a year. The other 2 closed down a long time ago -- possibly before MOA opened in the early 90's I think,
Went to the one in LA on a trip recently. Was awesome to see that much great music on one spot again.
It's wild that we probably won't see a return to those types of stores ever again. COVID really put the final nail in the coffin.
I only ever remember RadioShack selling prepaid phones, RC cars, and other consumer electronics, but apparently at one point in time they sold small-scale electronic components for hobbyists.
lol yeah, in the 90s you could go in there and buy a couple resistors, a couple capacitors, and a couple (expensive, crappy) LEDs
I can see how that didn’t work out for them though
They did indeed, and the Radio Shack in my town was one the last ones I ever saw to still sell individual components although the selection did shrink rapidly in the final years. The other locations around and about seemingly all turned into basically exclusively cell phone stores, right around the time the cell phone boom was happening. The problem with that: So was every other retailer on Earth, but most of those other retailers also had other product lines to fall back on. The inevitable tanking happened shortly thereafter.
There are somehow apparently still around 500 Radio Shack stores still operating, I believe all of which are privately owned. I have seen a couple in my travels, all of them located far out into the sticks in Appalachia and the Midwest, presumably all locations that are not served well by larger competitors or the internet.
I've been in one of the ones in the sticks in the Midwest that, at least five years ago, was still there and still sold some hobbyist electronics kits. I should have bought a couple, I need the soldering practice.
at one point in time they sold small-scale electronic components for hobbyists.
As well as the tools to go with them.
And almost every product or device you bought there had a schematic of the internal circuits printed in the manual that came in the box.
At one point it was a mecca for electronics tinkerers and hobbyists.
I still have a soldering iron and a couple spools on solder that I bought there way back in history.
Wonder if microcenter sells movies and tv shows. I don't buy stuff on Amazon anymore and try to buy stuff on ebay or local stores
Can't think where I've seen any there, some software but not even really games since those have largely gone for distribution via Steam or similar.
The two I know of (Marietta, Madison Heights) never really did and I've been going there since the 90s.
Website only shows 9 games in stock at the Madison Heights store, lol.
And the infuriating thing is you get to cross of CompUSA twice from your list, because after they tanked the first time they got bought by TigerDirect, the brand was resurrected, and then they tanked again.
At least we still have MicroCenter. For now.
I miss full-power circuit city, when it was dying a slow death it was kinda hard to watch.
That said, nothing I miss more than radioshack.
BestBuy has always sucked, and the only reason I'd ever go there is if I'm really hard up for something and I'm willing to get fleeced for the convenience. That's it. They have:
But it's the only tech store in my area, aside from whatever Target or Walmart happens to have, so if I really need a SATA to USB cable or something, it's my only option for same day stuff.
So I'd be a little sad about them going out of business, but not overly so because they completely suck. I can count the things I've bought there on one hand, because the shopping experience is awful imo. I purchased tons of things at Fry's in the 2-ish years I lived near one and had money to spend. I prefer to buy at a brick and mortar (I spend a ton at Target), but BestBuy ain't it. If a Microcenter opened up near me, I'd do all my tech shopping there, but I refuse to shop at BestBuy.
The only time that I ended up going into Best Buy over just ordering something off of Amazon was when I found that they would price match an online Amazon retailer and was capable of buying something at nearly 65 to 70% off. But I was capable of having it directly delivered to a store where I didn't have to worry about some porch pirate taking off with something that had a general MSRP of like 1,500 bucks and was capable of walking in looking at an inspecting it and deciding whether or not I was actually going to take delivery of it cuz if it was damaged for the Box had been dropped or anything like that I was going to refuse it on the spot and tell them to get me another one which isn't something you can do when you order off of Amazon.
I also used them to price match a TV that was on Amazon that they still had sitting on the shop floor got it Hefty $50 off on that one but it wasn't anywhere near what I got off for the new amp/source that I ended up buying.
Layoffs are always, always, always a sign of an unhealthy company, regardless of how Wall Steet reacts.
An exec being able to do that without being questioned is not healthy. OP's point stands.
15 years with geek squad and you're not wrong, I got caught up in these layoffs and thought I'm stressed the high hell, I'm not surprised. There wasn't work to do, I was struggling to barely get 30 hours.
They recently changed there subscription modle and people stopped scheduling on site jobs.
Without having looked at any of the subscription changes, my guess is they increased subscription costs with minimal if any increases in offered services. Is that correct?
Nope, actually lowered the price of the subscription, lowered the discount on the services the sub was for, and raised the prices of the services.
FBI offered to Geek Squad a bounty on incriminating evidence found on long-term storage of computers they serviced and a lot of GS techs made those reports.
That is to say GS had no concern for privacy or fourth amendment protections during the era of rising surveillance awareness.
So I don't care if they never wake up.
Yes, a handful of BestBuy employees accepted payments from the FBI to report on CP found on a customers device. So let's all feel good about underpaid workers losing their jobs in this economy.
It's up to you, but over here it looks like an abuse of power and a violation of trust. If they can't be trusted not to look at the data they're trying to restore (except directly in the service of restoring it) they they can't be trusted with a business PC containing accounting data or legal correspondence either.
And a violation of trust in the service of law enforcement is still a violation of trust in the public. Considering how this would poison the service for business clients, I am surprised it doesn't run contrary to Best Buy terms of employment (outside of mandated reporting, which is why mandated reporting laws exist for some cases).
On the other hand AT&T will gladly spooge your phone call records to the police if they ask for it. (No warrant necessary.) And Amazon's Ring doorbell videos are sold to law enforcement whenever they want it (without permission of the doorbell owners.) But that's finally resulted in trouble, and Amazon is rethinking this service.
It is interesting that in this economy which is intentionally managed to create a shortage of jobs and to lower wages, that employees are expected to betray the public trust and even engage in illegal activity at the behest of their employers just to stay employed, and that some of us might find this as an acceptable state of affairs. And yes, when business goes sour for the company, those employees will be discarded with no additional acknowledgment for their loyalty.
It's up to you, but over here it looks like an abuse of power and a violation of trust. If they can't be trusted not to look at the data they're trying to restore (except directly in the service of restoring it) they they can't be trusted with a business PC containing accounting data or legal correspondence either.
Have you ever done data recovery? Because I have, and part of recovery includes accessing random files to ensure they were restored/recovered correctly. I don't go digging for incriminating shit, but I do have to make sure the data is readable before I hand it over to the client.
And you can be goddamned sure that if I see CSAM on your machine I'm turning you over to the police and I'll gladly forego payment to see your ass in bracelets.i have professional ethics, but those don't include protection of child abusers.
If you're doing data recovery for a large enough tech firm (such as Best Buy's Geek Squad service, you may be a mandated reporter of CSAM that you come across, depending on your state and the policy of your company, but in that case the CSAM in question is probably pretty obvious, either labeled as such or the first directory you hopped into.
id est, not because you scanned the drive's unused blocks specifically looking for it.
Sometimes not seeing a few images is impossible if you want to be sure the restore or whatever actually worked.
I don't live there but doesn't the geek squad fix home PCs and such? Of course they shouldn't touch business PCs that is ITs job or maybe the MSPs, if your work doesn't have an IT department.
I don't leave porn or NSFW content in plain view on my PC, much less files that might be evidence for crime. I'd assume those who actually do have criminal evidence or CSAM on their PC might keep it tucked away where it's not obvious at the very least. On the other hand, I also know that Florida Man is active in all fifty states, and up to very dumb shit worthy of jail time. So they might not know better than to use CSAM as their desktop wallpaper.
I'd think finding CSAM by choosing a random media file and looking at it would be extremely rare, and if the tech restoring a drive of the worst offender would still find images more like bliss.jpg, maybe some images of last year's office Christmas party or the recent trip to Yosemite, rather than the accumulated CSAM section.
So if multiple techs at a service are finding CSAM worthy of reporting to FBI, I'd assume they're checking out the porn stash on PCs, or seeing if there are cheesecake photos buried in the My Pictures subfolders. From what I expect of humans, they hide stuff that's super private. But it's also possible that way more people than I expect are really that stupid.
The fact that FBI had a bounty with Geek Squad indicates it happens enough that GS techs routinely browse the data they restore, whether or not it's company policy, and it shows a lack of discipline in the ranks. What's more worrisome is what happens to those who keep their interpersonal sexts and cheesecake, and how tempted GS techs are to share pics with each other (typical in the surveillance sector) and post them on 4Chan. We've already had incidents like the fappening.
Repeat occurrences indicates a lack of discipline regarding privacy among Geek Squad techs. Repeat leaks to FBI, and a bounty both imply GS techs habitually sift through other people's files for their own gratification. And that's messy.
It is interesting that in this economy which is intentionally managed to create a shortage of jobs and to lower wages, that employees are expected to betray the public trust and even engage in illegal activity at the behest of their employers just to stay employed, and that some of us might find this as an acceptable state of affairs. And yes, when business goes sour for the company, those employees will be discarded with no additional acknowledgment for their loyalty.
I fully agree with the point you are making here. It's a fucked up system with a whole mess of badly designed incentives that cause people to be shitty to each other.
My only disagreement is with your willingness to condemn innocent people who lost their jobs over the actions of a few. I worked for GeekSquad, data privacy violations were not only a fireable offense but also something those I worked with prided themselves on protecting. All of my coworkers were privacy advocates and enthusiasts who did not go digging through anyone's personal data. Rather, oftentimes they would try to help clients be more informed, even risking their own job stability when doing so lost sales.
There are good folks who didn't deserve to lose their jobs, were not guilty of the actions you are upset over, and don't deserve people callously implying they deserved it.
I worked for GeekSquad, data privacy violations were not only a fireable offense but also something those I worked with prided themselves on protecting.
This is news to me, and it's commendable regardless of whether it's standard policy for Geek Squad, or just specific to your Best Buy location. At any rate it's good to know the conversation was had within the office.
FBI has been pursuing its mission in bad faith for decades now. Longer than when James Comey was in office. In 2002 it changed from law enforcement to national security as much for the budget increase, and its methods, whether in curbing CSAM distribution or in pursuing Islamist terrorists, were less about making the nation safer for the public and more about fabricating credit for the agency. But then it was just as reprehensible in the J. Edgar Hoover years, and it's only because of serial killer fiction that I might have imagined better.
At least since the 1990s, law enforcement across the nation has lost its impartiality. I can't say they protected and served much in the 1980s or before, but they certainly have not since the aughts. Being involved with them, such as working as an informant, is just as problematic as being involved with the mob. Possibly more so in the 2020s.
I knew a guy who made one of those reports. It was CP.
You seem kind of upset about people being caught for this. Am I misreading you?
The problem isn't that the computers had CP, it's that the techs looked through the data.
Yes, if they happen to see CP while doing their normal work, they should report it. But their normal work shouldn't involve looking through pictures at all in the first place.
Are you thinking of this instance? It's an instance that could happen to any of us. The CSAM in question was found (and only found) in garbage data in unused storage. And it means our GS tech had actively scan (go out of his way), rather than just fix the machine.
It also means it's inconclusive, since that kind of stuff can end up in your webcache through malware vectored through advertising. CSAM is weaponized in malware. Heck, there are CSAM images in the Bitcoin blockchain file (or were, if they found a way to scour them). Not that innocent websurfers have not been falsely convicted due to invisible crap in their cleared webcache, but we should know better by now.
It does raise a question about what you believe regarding the limits of our civil rights. Do you believe evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement should be wholly admissible if the crime is heinous enough? SCOTUS does, and ruled that even drug possession discovered during an illegal search should be admissible. But that pretty much means you and I cannot rely on constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizure.
Here in the States, preserving our protections and our privacy sometimes means defending the worst people. See, it's supposed to be a penalty against the state for poorly executing the law when someone can't be convicted due to inadmissible evidence. If a guilty citizen is improperly treated by law enforcement (according to the legal theory that supposed Blackstone's ratio) then they should be acquitted, and the public has only the incompetence of state actors to blame.
Law enforcement is supposed to respect your protections, and if we let them conduct illegal searches (such as buying data from brokers, or using IMSI spoofers without a warrant, or asking Google for everyone within a mile and an hour of a criminal incident) then they're going conduct those same illegal searches when you're working with your mutual aid organization or are protesting against injustice. If serial killers and child molesters aren't protected from overpolicing, then you aren't either, and if you happen to be nonwhite, LGBT+ or part of another marginalized group (Juggalos!) then you're in far more danger of illegal searches, false convictions and prison time, assuming you're just not the victim of an officer-involved homicide.
If you live in the US, it's very difficult not to commit crimes, particularly federal felonies. There but for your privacy (and / or the grace of prosecutorial discretion) goes your freedom and reputation.
That said, the FBI has been super sloppy in its pursuit to hunt down CSAM traders, even letting their high-end malware leak into the public to be dissected and used by black-hats, and interests of rival nations.
No, that's not the case I mean. I mean I personally worked at Best Buy and knew a person who worked GS who made a report to the FBI. I don't know the outcome of that report or even if it lead to any kind of prosecution.
It does raise a question about what you believe regarding the limits of our civil rights. Do you believe evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement should be wholly admissible if the crime is heinous enough?
Reporting a crime you observed first-hand is not an encroachment on anyone's civil rights. Is that what you meant to say here? If it is, I wholeheartedly disagree.
I remember recent discussions on Mastodon I was half following where admins of certain instances where posting directions on how to make FBI reports if/when they find users posting things like CP. Are those admins encroaching on their users 4th amendment rights by reporting a crime? I think not.
With that said, I think there is a line between reporting a crime you happen across and a systematized search of user's private files encouraged and paid for by government entities.
From your link,
Riddet says agents conducted two additional searches of the computer without obtaining necessary warrants, lied to trick a federal magistrate judge into authorizing a search warrant, then tried to cover up their misdeeds by initially hiding records.
For the record, THAT is a problem, in my eyes and not what my original comment was about.
Hey man, you're kinda narrowing down the entire problem of the right to privacy being consistently shat upon by your government into "well I knew one person where it was justified so this means those who argue against it fuck kids"
I understand what you mean and if you want to carve an exception into the law for CP I'd be all for it - maybe everyone is a mandated reporter of child porn, and all suspicions MUST be reported to the FBI and the evidence handed over. But I don't wanna get swatted just because my wife and I are into BDSM and we photographed a particularly rough session. Or because I took some pics of some clear plastic bags filled with flour that I put in my trunk to prank a friend. Or a million other things a geek squad guy might misinterpret and call the police for.
That would be inconvenient.
Would you make it to where computer techs wouldn’t be able to report suspected crimes?
That probably would be the opposite extreme, and I have a feeling entirely different situations will rise out of that.
Tbh idk what I'd do. It's good I'm not in a position to decide. I just think the federal government offering people incentives to bypass privacy is dangerous and wrong.
sacrificed a lot of personal time and experiences just to be let go
Corporations have one goal: making money.
Right behind that is self preservation, which is in full service of continuing to make money.
If corporations show that they care about you, it is in service of you making money for them. They do not care about you, they care about money. You have to make an effort to look out for yourself, and for your team mates that you care about. Make sure you and your close team mates are not being overworked, because the company will not do so unless they are forced to or unless they think that doing so will make them more money.
Corporations have one goal: making money.
Right behind that is self preservation, which is in full service of continuing to make money.
That secondary goal is falling far, far behind in importance.
These days most shareholders will insist on a higher payout this quarter, even if it directly threatens the long term viability of the enterprise.
The shareholders are not in it for the long haul, they only want to get in, make a quick buck, and get out as fast as possible before the whole thing collapses.
These geek squad folks go hard with the veiled lay-off references.
Await the signal, friends.