http://biz.yahoo.com/special/allbiz120606_article1.html
Best Buy has a terrible stigma in my mind. Mostly of jerk-off employees (floor sales, as well as geek squade) who know little to nothing about computers or electronics, but are completely willing to vomit this wealth of nothing into your lap as if they had just coughed up little nuggets of gold. Then they ask you to exchange this vomit for the heaping pile of shit in the corner that that matches their vomit and has nothing to do with what you asked for. (yeah, I got a chip on my shoulder about this one…but what good tech-nerd who fixes families and friends computers bought at best buy doesn’t)
Anyway, besides that, they are also known as being a crappy employer, especially in the retail stores. My brother was super happy when he quit from working there, where they had told him he wasn’t doing a good job despite having one of the highest, if not the highest, merchandise sales rates in the store. (this was because he wasn’t unnecessarily pushing the stupid ‘extended’ warranties or the MSN subscription they offered at the time.)
But apparently they are doing something to change their status as a bad employer (maily in the corporate office, but they are going to try it in stores soon) and it sounds interesting.
Oddly though, I don’t think an engineer can go completely paperless/wireless/clockless, like the article describes. It is hard to get my job done with collaborating with people for a lot of things. Also, I need access to materials to make prototypes and such. But if I had a long stretch of paperwork, or simple CAD design it would be nice to have a laptop connected to a VPN so I could work at home. Unfortunately, Veeco corporate locks down VPN access pretty tight to mostly just really important people.