My family and I were in Best Buy this weekend, purchasing a digital video camera. On our way out, I noticed a couple of young men wearing white shirts and black clip-on ties: kind of like the Blues Brothers only without the hats, rhythm or good grooming. It took me a second to realize that these guys were “members” of the Geek Squad, most likely returning to home base.
I was reminded of this when I came across Sean Alexander’s chilling Geek Squad Halloween Tale this morning. I had been aware of the somewhat negative opinion online geekitude (the O.G., yo) had of this organization, but I didn’t know things were quite this bad.
Now I realize that everybody has to start somewhere. Hell, I did tech support too once upon a time (though it was for the U.S. Department of Defense and I didn’t have to wear a tie). But I have to wonder: is a job where you’re providing technical support and you’re officially called a geek and you’ve got to adhere to a rejected corporate dress code from the 1950s and you may be required to drive a clearly-marked nerdy vehicle as part of your job quite possibly the lowest rung on the Information Technology career ladder?
If so, it may explain Sean’s story.
Other career fields have similar rungs; for example, in the Culinary world I imagine the equivalent is either being a pizza delivery boy or a McDonald’s employee. In Consulting, it’s the guy who runs the mailroom. In Sales, it’s the person who works in the shoe store. In Broadcasting, it’s the disk jockey. In I.T., I’m assuming it’s the Geek Squad guys and the tiny fellows who have to run Cat-5 cable through ventilation ducts in large buildings on weekends.
Am I wrong here? Does anybody have a good experience to report with Geek Squad, aside from Larry King and Vanilla Ice?