My firedog Adventure…Ended Today
Posted in Konnichiwa on February 28th, 2009 by Chan
My job as a cashier at Tokyo Teriyaki was not working out as I had hoped, so I applied at the local Circuit City. After a few school days, I got an interview with the store director. The interview was the longest interview I ever had. The old guy had asked me about my experiences at my past jobs, my time in Portland, and how I feel about selling items without making commission. Then he brought up the topic of computers, my attention perked since I knew a decent amount in this area. This would be the opportunity to sell my computer knowledge and hopefully impress the guy. Until I realized that this old dude might not know a whole lot about computers when he started using the term “monitor card”.
Very puzzled, I asked him what a “monitor card” was. He gave me this weird look as he glanced back at my resume, “says here you know computers”. I was in shock. I was questioning myself and wondered if I even know anything about computer hardware. Then it clicked, I’ve caught on to what he meant, a Video card. When I tried to explain that “monitor cards” are called video cards (now days), I only got interrupted. Anyway, lets just say that our short discussion about Nvidia “monitor cards” got me hired as a gaming associate. -_-
One month later, new people got hired and I got was drafted into their tech department. This was before the ‘Firedog’ brand name was promoted. I was known as an ‘Installer’. One of the reasons why I was put in there was because they were desperate and because their current techs were being dismissed by the director of the store. Of course I didn’t know what I was getting into and I wasn’t really given a choice either. Nor was I prepared for all the anxious customer’s waiting for their computers to get repaired.
The technicians before me had definitely screwed me over. They left me a whole bunch of things that they were suppose to dealt with a millennium ago. Some of these things were computers that were there for over a month. Other issues were stolen tools. I had a lot of irate customers calling me. It made sense why management wanted them out. Also, no training was implemented as the whole Firedog thing was not rolled out to the store yet.
As months passed by I managed to get everything settled down. The reason why I didn’t saw ‘we’ was because there wasn’t really one. The guy that I was partnered up with was as smart as a bag of potato chips (this is actually an actually a compliment) and he smelt really bad. Of course being a polite person, I tried ignore all of these things and to concentrate on the heavy work load. My job was fun because I didn’t have to be out on the floor.
***
There are a lot of things that I’ve learned while working at my local Circuit City. My friends that I made at CC, and mentors contributed to the knowledge I have now. I guess I have developed my primary people skills at this job. The Firedog philosophy was also something that I believed in. I guess this made it easier to do my job. However it wasn’t followed by a few of my co-workers. =(
I know that people have had really bad experiences with Firedog, but that was because they never came to my store and dealt with me. If you didn’t know where a product was, I would walk with you till we found it instead of pointing where it is. If you looked confused at how the rebates worked, I would fill it out and stick it in an envelope for you. If you had a technical problem, I’d help find a solution for you. I was not a person who made budget or even worried about it. My supervisor would always drill me about making budget for the day. Selling services was always put behind me. I offer services that work for the customer, not to sell unnecessary things that the customer does not need.
tl;dr
Its game over now at Circuit City. I believe that the last day is March 7th for the Visalia Store. Since I found a new job, the most appropriate thing to do was to resign. A lot of my co-workers that have not found a job needs the hours more than I do.
Oh well.
