Best Buy + Windows Guru = Apple Store Experience? 600
CWmike writes "As part of Windows Vista's $300 million marketing rehab, Microsoft will hire an initial wave of 155 'Windows Gurus' to walk around Best Buy and Circuit City stores to answer customer questions and defend Vista's reputation against skeptics, reports say. Gurus will earn $20 an hour or more, plus benefits. (Apply here.) One way Windows Gurus will differ from Apple Geniuses is that they are not intended to be sources of free technical support for existing Vista users. 'The Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs. It is not to be an alternative tech support channel for Microsoft as this has no financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction,' Baker said. One reason: Windows Gurus could end up 'lightning rods for customers' frustrations with Vista.'"
Re:Guru? Not really ... (Score:1, Informative)
Only people in marketing could come up with the term "guru" to mean "someone who can't help, and exists to market to you until you give in".
Actually, see definition 2b at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guru [merriam-webster.com]
"one who is an acknowledged leader or chief proponent"
These people are "chief proponents." This is actually using the word correctly.
Re:Um, Since When Did BB/CC sell non-windows? (Score:5, Informative)
Best Buy has sold Macs for quite some time. The new-ish BB store not far from me has a small but reasonably nice Apple section.
Re:Best Buy + Some Guy != Apple Store (Score:3, Informative)
Well, and Best Buy is well known for pushing hardware and peripherals over actual support...No matter what you ask them, you always need a new one.
I went in there once trying to get a "real" modem (not a winmodem) and I got told first, that there was no difference between a real modem and a winmodem (lie), and second, that I should just get a new computer because modems were old tech.
Never actually asked any meaningful questions, obviously, because a new computer wasn't going to get my fax server running any faster, but a new modem replace the dead one would have been peachy.
Ask for a KVM switch, they'll try and sell you a monitor, and never, ever, buy a usb cable from them.
Re:'lightning rods' for customer frustrations (Score:5, Informative)
Do people actually get out of bed for $20 an hour?
The median household income [wikipedia.org] per resident in the U.S. is $26,036, which works out about $12.50 per hour per person for a 40 hour week.
Re:Now we know who's been Bogarting the Sativa (Score:5, Informative)
ok, several things:
Re:Now we know who's been Bogarting the Sativa (Score:2, Informative)
Cannabis sativa is still your regular dope plant. regardless of what strain it is. The emphasis here is on the strain, biovar or subspecies, though many (perhaps most) biologists will argue that there is no such thing as the latter.
But as a former dope-head (I'm too old for it now, and I have to look after the neurons I have left), I will agree that I never gave it the appellation of "sativa" in conversation.
Re:Now we know who's been Bogarting the Sativa (Score:5, Informative)
I did computer security for a medical marijuana club in San Francisco, and learned quite a bit about cannabis while there. While I agree that real stoners don't call weed 'Sativa,' I disagree about the reasons.
First, Sativa does not have a low THC to CBD ratio. If anything, the reverse is true. Sativa gives an up, chatty, let's go out and do something kind of high. Indica has been bred for centuries to have a high CBD to THC ratio, for pain relief. It gives a sink you into the couch, stoned out of your gourd kind of high.
Indica and Sativa plants grow differently, sativa has a tall, rangy habit while indica grows a single, fat, 'donkey dick' bud. Under ideal conditions, both strains can produce the same amount per square foot of indoor hydroponic space. Sativa does tend to produce more outdoors on a per plant basis, however, as it can grow to enormous size.
Almost all modern pot is a hybrid between those two strains, as most recreational users tend to prefer the high from sativa, while indoor growers prefer the compact habit of indica. You can actually talk coherently on a sativa high, while medical users tend to prefer indica for its pain relief and appetite stimulating effects.
The strains bred for hemp production are generally sativa type, but these strains have very little THC at all. Modern high grade pure sativa strains generally top out around 20% THC, while indica strains can achieve 30%, and most crosses, when grown under perfect indoor hydroponic conditions, achieve 20-25%. By comparison, brick weed has about 2-5%.
As for the on-topic part of your post, I completely agree. :)
Re:The Application Form is a CIA intelligence jog (Score:4, Informative)
It has nothing to do with software. It is, however, a pretty standard requirement for application to most jobs these days.
The last two jobs I have accepted a position with (both with large corporations) required this kind of testing.
Re:Sales Experience (Score:4, Informative)
No. I tried to sell him the warranty on the NEW printer that he was buying.
My mistake in the telling of the story.
Re:Expensive sales people... (Score:4, Informative)
Best Buy has never paid on commission. Circuit City used to, but doesn't now.
I do something similar every year with HP (Score:4, Informative)
Each year, during the holidays, I work for a subcontractor of HP in a Best Buy, Circuit City, whatever, to be a rep for HP products. For $20 an hour, ten hours a week I fix displays, keep track of inventory, help people with buying decisions, etc.
At no point was I told to exert undue pressure on someone to buy. Or to misrepresent the product. Or talk down competitors. I am there to demo products, and give my honest opinion.
This just isnt as ominous as people make it out to be. Standard practice, from any other company.
Re:Making Lemonade (Score:3, Informative)
You do know that an Apple Genius doesn't sell stuff, right? If you have a problem with your Apple product (that you OWN) you can go see a genius and they'll fix it for you. Live, in-person tech support. From my experience they're not the equivalent of the telephone front line script-reading monkey either, but rather closer to the guy who actually looks at your hardware after the script monkey gives up and tells you to ship it in.
The Windows Gurus... your point applies 100%.
Re:Now we know who's been Bogarting the Sativa (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I could be wrong about the percentages, and maximum THC percentage certainly depends on the growing method as well. This was in 2000-2002, and I'm not in that business anymore. I think the 30% was quoted for some of the new Dutch strains.
I wasn't aware of a pocket in the trichome, but I do know that various strains produce different size and densities of trichomes. The better strains are nearly covered in trichomes, all of them huge fat globs on the ends of the hairs.
I know that the trichomes themselves contain much higher than 30% THC. Water hash, which is mostly compressed trichomes, has higher than 30% THC content, so the trichomes themselves must have more than that. I always thought the percentage figures included leaf matter and stems, so not only growing methods, but trimming methods can make a difference.
THC production also depends on timing. Make sure to harvest just after the trichomes turn amber. Past that point, the THC starts to break down into other compounds. Before that point, production hasn't peaked.
Re:Don't bother trying to solve problems... (Score:1, Informative)
exactly. but note that this is a quote of a gartner analyst, not someone at MS.
Re:Now we know who's been Bogarting the Sativa (Score:3, Informative)
15-20% seems right for the whole plant, but well manicured buds should have a higher trichome to regular plant matter ratio. Perhaps the figures I was quoting were for perfectly manicured buds, and the lower figures are for the entire plant?
I remember being told that 15-20% was the most that one could usually hope for, and the higher figures were for the best strains grown, cured, and trimmed perfectly. But you know how stoners are, those numbers could all have been completely made up :).
Re:Guru is another word for Shill (Score:2, Informative)
Apple Geniuses and Vista Gurus are both forms of a shill. Apple Geniuses shill for Apple, and Vista Gurus shill for Microsoft. They are paid money to actually promote that company's products and nothing else. So they will automatically downplay Linux, AROS, ReactOS, and other alternatives to the products they are shilling for.
I disagree entirely.
I can't speak for anyone else but having only recently switched to Apple products (6 months ago) after several ongoing years of 'Apple-hating' the several repeated occasions I've asked an in-store Apple 'Genius' for an unbiased opinion on one or more of Apple's hardware, or be it software products I've often been directed not to purchase from Apple, memory is a one example that immediately springs to mind.
Although most of these occasions have centred around hardware, I'm confident I'd receive the same unbiased, honest recommendation if Apple actually released software that wasn't, in my personal opinion since switching, superior to available rival alternatives.
My development environment, organisation and overall life, has (however cheesy it sounds) improved dramatically in recent months thanks to the quality and all round customer care I've received from Apple since migrating.