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http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/lo...on-youtube
A Best Buy employee has been suspended and may be fired after he created a satirical video and posted it on YouTube .
Brian Maupin of Kansas City, Missouri, created the cartoon video about the iPhone 4 versus the HTC EVO phone.
The video portrays an electronics store employee trying to convince a customer wanting an iPhone 4 to purchase an HTC EVO 4G phone instead.
The video became so popular, more than 1. 3 million views on YouTube as of Thursday, that someone at Best Buy saw it. While most people find the video funny, Best Buy corporate did not.
When they realized the creator worked for them, they asked him to take the video down.
When Maupin refused to take the video down because it didn't mention Best Buy, he was suspended...
The video is embedded at the end of the story.
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Corporate can't allow the clones to have an opinion.
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I saw an article yesterday that was much more thorough than this one. He wasn't fired, and a Best Buy official said they hoped to see him at work on Monday. The guy who made the videos (there were two) said he didn't think he was interested in going back to work there. After reading the following statement, I think Best Buy would be better off without him.
"I can understand them wanting to, not wanting people to get the impression that Best Buy is like this and this is how it is when you come to our store but you also kind of have to have that, you have to be able to laugh at yourself and say I realize this is an extreme exaggeration."
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The information needed to judge would be whether and how the employee identified his relationship with Best Buy.
If he did clearly identify himself as an employee, he doesn't have much of a footing.
Not sure why you find him so hard to sympathise with, Alphadog.
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AlphaDog wrote: After reading the following statement, I think Best Buy would be better off without him.
"I can understand them wanting to, not wanting people to get the impression that Best Buy is like this and this is how it is when you come to our store but you also kind of have to have that, you have to be able to laugh at yourself and say I realize this is an extreme exaggeration."
Here's the problem from a customer's point of view:
This guy is smart, funny and he obviously knows the products intimately. There is nobody like that at my local BB. "Smart" is not a word that I would use to describe any of them. Not even the "greeter" so much as smiles. Nobody there knows anything about the products they sell, nor can any of them tell a customer whether something is in stock or where it is in the store even if the blue-shirt you're talking to has personally stacked the shelves.
BB needs guys like him. They should give him a bonus and make him a manager.
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Black wrote:
Not sure why you find him so hard to sympathise with, Alphadog.
I'm a member of the Secret Society of Grammar Police. 
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I'm a member of the Secret Society of Grammar Police.
LOL! I don't know anything about the guy, but if he's young, maybe incoherence is a just a phase. If that was a quote of spoken word rather than his written words, maybe a little slack is in order.
Maybe.
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Corporate can't allow the clones to have an opinion.
Oh, please.
Corporate can't allow employees to jeopardize a business relationship. At least any more than a typical BB employee already does (for the reasons Doc mentioned).
The "cartoon" isn't particularly funny. Some of the "features" at the end of the list were amusing. But the thing turns into a foul-mouthed diatribe portraying potential i4 customers as simple clones. and the store employee as being smarter than they are. (Ok, that was a little amusing.)
The information needed to judge would be whether and how the employee identified his relationship with Best Buy.
I disagree. The fact that it's becoming/become widespread knowledge that a BB employee created this could and perhaps should be enough to suspend or fire him. If Stevie in a fit of pique, cancels or does not renew Apple's contract with BB (remember ATi?), then I can easily find it impossible to sympathize with the kid. Especially since the kid thinks it's the duty of general population to "realize this is an extreme exaggeration." People, even here, jump to such conclusions based one one data point.
BB's relationship with Apple has been an On Again/Off Again affair, and it's rare that I found somebody there who knew the products at all let alone fairly well. I will say that on one occasion I found two employees who really, really knew Apple products, but they were users off the clock. On several occasions, employees wanted to steer me to PC products instead.
That may have been for profit reasons, or maybe because they knew those products, or at least knew them better than Apple kit.
I don't think Apple will take any action, or any that we'll here about. save for maybe a phone call.
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Black wrote:
The information needed to judge would be whether and how the employee identified his relationship with Best Buy.
man, I agree. I just assumed that it was a video with a guy in a best buy uniform (or whatever they have).
I think it's obscene to suspend the kid based on that hilarious little animation.
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RAMd®d wrote:
I'm a member of the Secret Society of Grammar Police.
LOL! I don't know anything about the guy, but if he's young, maybe incoherence is a just a phase. If that was a quote of spoken word rather than his written words, maybe a little slack is in order.
Maybe.
Very little. Teeny.
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