A massive and (hopefully) quick recap over the past week: (this will probably be a long post...) Ladies and Gentlemen- it all began on Monday:

First though- Reward Zone. Reward Zone is Best Buy's customer rewards program. You join it by getting one of the little cards peppered all over the store, buy something and have the cashier scan the card. You earn points on everything you buy and those points accumulate, eventually earning money back and you get it in the mail in a few weeks or so. Please note: Employees are not allowed to have Reward Zone membership.

A week or so before I was ever hired at Best Buy, I purchased a laptop. And a service plan. The laptop and service plan came together to price out at around $1100. I signed up for Reward Zone and supposedly was getting $35 in the mail... some day. A week later I am hired at Best Buy and begin work. YAY!

About a week ago- I recieve $35 worth of reward zone certificates in the mail. Oh... well there they are. These little guys are about worthless to me. Completely worthless. As an employee at Best Buy I am not allowed to spend them. So what am I to do? Might as well put them to good use. I sold them. I sold the lot of them for $16 to a customer with which I had a brief relationship. Cool...

Thinking about it later I... I don't know. That was free money I just gave a customer. Hm... That... I don't know. I became uneasy about it. So I asked some of the other employees about it. Wow. I was right. That was a bad idea. Steven (the department senior) rightfully took the issue to the store employee relations someone-or-other. Basically this woman named Debbie. A little while later I am asked to come back into a quiet room with the two of them. Debbie hands me a sheet of blank paper and tells me to write out a statement explaining anything I might have done today that involved Reward Zone. I figured she could just out with it and say it... but, I guess I can see where she would want to be cautious. She wanted these to be my words, and if she said anything specific, it might contradict either what Steven had told her, or what I had really done. And depending on the person you're working with, that kind of thing can be good for starting an argument, the very last thing she wanted. I understand that entirely.

I wrote out everything that happened. She talked to me about what happened. It was all very awkward and somber. So somber in fact that Steven didn't say a word for the entire time. I think he felt bad. He told me later he didn't know what it would amount to, but he knew that if he didn't tell his upper staff that HE would be in trouble. And I understand that as well. Steven is my buddy who helped me ring out that 9 in 1 a week before. It was very somber indeed. Debbie very calmly told me then that they would fax the statement to corporate to decide if I was to remain in employment at Best Buy and that I should not come in to work for the next week till I heard from them. I was scheduled to work the next two days and off two days following them. She told me to go ahead and finish the rest of my shift today, then to stay off the clock. I said okay, and then shakily stumbled back onto the sales floor with Steven in tow. He said he was sorry I told him no- I was sorry, that he did the right thing, I screwed up, just... wasn't thinking.

I worked the rest of that day, then went to work at Michael's and then I went to Hardees to use the wifi... and then I went home. Kinda went home anyway. The internet kinda cut off halfway through and I went zipping all over town trying to find a wifi connection that was working. I finally found it outside my own home, down the block from the my driveway. I sat there for a short while composing an email to my dearly beloved explaining what had happened. (It was the DNS and the ISP darn it) and somewhere near the end of that this light shines through the window onto my laptop from behind me. It's a flashlight.

Hello officer. Apparently it's four AM and someone noticed me just sitting outside the houses in my car and called the police on me on report of suspicious behavior. So he wants my license and wants to know what I'm doing and I tell him exactly what I'm doing, hand him my license and he goes back to the squad car which has snuck up right behind me. Clever him. If I was doing drugs or something illegal and was going to book it when he showed up, not using the lights definitely made him less noticeable till he was standing right beside my window. I continue to type, I figure I ought to probably wrap up the email and move along. The officer agrees and that's what happens.

The alarm sounds the next morning. Time to go to work... wait... wait no I don't have work. She said not to come in. I can't go in there. No wait... no- that would leave like... only one guy on the sales floor. No.. no that would be suicidal...

...

Dang it.

I roll out of bed and get ready for work, the shirt, the pants, the belt, the whole nine yards. I freshen up, snack on a little something and head out the door to save the world... What? Failures save the world all the time, didn't you ever see Spiderman? I continue to reassure myself that this is crazy and stupid and pointless and atop all of those things... on top of all of them I'm no stranger to any of those things and that I am doing the right thing... I hope.

I roll into the parking lot at work, moments before Best Buy opens. And I sat there in that parking lot for several minutes, just thinking several things that I'd already thought about on the way up. Finally I went in. The place has opened for the day and there are customers milling around inside already. Sometimes we have customers show up before the employees... I head to the computers department. I round the kiosk and there is Dave, the store human resources manager on the cellular phone. He's calling me, at home. He claps the phone shut, points right at me and says "You're not fired. Get on the timeclock."

.... Oh god.. WHEW!!! Relief poured over me. The whole story of it involves Steven telling the PC department manager Chris Palis, guy who is constantly reinforcing his salesmen with compliment and constructive critique. A great guy honestly. (Even more honestly- the first reason getting fired terrified me was because that would be the end of my avenue to Australia, the second reason is because it would mean I'd lose partnership with some of the greatest team members I've ever worked with.) Chris Palis had made a few phone calls. The word spread kinda quickly thoughout the entire department after I left shift the day before. There had been a flurry of support and demand for my stay! Nearly every guy in that PC department who carried any weight had voluntarily gone to management and personally vouched for me. It was amazing. Telling them "He's too valuable to lose, you have to keep him." I show up the next morning even when they said to stay away and sure enough there's only one other guy scheduled to run the department and he's about to get swept with customers. Dave instantly reinstates me I get back to work.

There will be reprocussions, and there will be consequenses. But I will not lose my job. The overall effect of this scenario might actually be advantageous... Following something like that, those in distant management positions, those who aren't familiar with particular members of each department (especially new guys like myself) are prone to turn a careful eye towards the singular newbie that a whole branch of staff stands up and supports even after doing something like I did. Curious... it was, and I got more attention, much more. I showed up in so much paperwork that day it was unreal. People floating in the far off deserts of conference and meetings and policy took notice because I was a bump in the system, and you watch things like that. You ask questions like- why are they all rallying behind him?

It was amazing. That day, the day that I was supposed to stay home and came anyway- I was allowed to be a part of something absolutely phenomenal. This woman came into the PC department looking perfectly flustered. I found her and we began to talk. It began to build so quickly I had to make a three page outline just to keep all the components straight. I moved from computer to computer, going through features, expandability, services, components and add ons, functionality and speed. I suggested, spoke and it all happened. It all HAPPENED - sofastitwascrazy. And I sold. I sold this woman nearly $5000 worth of stuff. Two PC's, two 19" monitors with speaker sets, graphics cards, floppy drives, lightscribe and extra DVD-ROM drives for each, four packs of lightscribe discs softwareSoftwareSOFTWARE There was more! So much MORE! Everything I could think of was being examined and explained. I don't know if I was just in a good mood because I hadn't lost my job or if God sent me grace but when we were done, oh when we were done I had this woman with over 20 hardware and software components, not counting the computers and monitors, accessories, not basic- but PREMIUM ADVANCED performance service plans on everything. And for the set up? TWELVE in-home services. From advanced security setups to hardware installs to data transfers to everything under the freaking sun above. (Which I haven't seen in a while... is it still yellow?) A twelve-in-one. I blew through a national record at a margin of plus three. And I did it on the one day that all eyes were on me.

Everything happened. The reciept was over four feet long. Chris Palis instantly ran the numbers, somewhere in the area of $1200 for in home services, not even counting service plans. The computer department has a daily target budget for in home sales. The total we're supposed to sell before the store closes. I sold the entire day's projected budget in one sale. I felt like God. Palis pulled me aside and gave me a talking to, running through the numbers with me, and told me, actually told me he wished he, the guy who had been there for 5 years and ran the entire department, he wished he could sell as well as I.

I figured I've been really lucky... and he knows that it takes more than a great salesman to make a great sale. The customer has to be willing and the money has to be there and a million things have to align... So I honestly think he was probably just being nice. (He's teased me about the Reward Zone thing at least three times a day since... He has every right of course... eh- anyway) One of the double agents (the GeekSquad guys who goes to do the in-homes) gave me a GeekSquad pin for having the huge sale. It was so... cool.

All in all, it was a good day. I got to keep my job, was given the chance to redeem myself, and was given the best possible opportunity to be noticed in one day, and on that day- I absolutely rocked. Someone up there is being friendly with me...

Some time after that sale I'm talking to some other people about a laptop and an old friend that I hadn't seen in quite some time walked in the door and purposefully browsed near the PC department... the mere sight of them almost gave me a heart attack- my automaton salesman speech skipped and faltered. What followed the rest of the day and night was crazy enough that I'm still rolling in the weirdness of it.

But, I am afraid that is another story for another time, suffice it to say I ended up outside the state by the end of the night and we'll launch from there at the next post. This one is getting far too long as it is, it is late, and I am to meet Arby to look at apartments early in the morning.

Cheers* Monsterbox

P.S. I got a mobile phone! 1 (417) 622-1096. POH are you thrilled? (Openly laughs at POH)