Apple - A place I'd never want to work (shhhhh!)

Reading this article about life as an employee at Apple sure doesn't make it sound like a very fun place to work.  I understand the competitive advantage that secrecy can have in new product launches, but it blows my mind that employees put up with the secrecy at all costs with Apple.  It just sounds stressful, counter-productive, and anti-collaborative.  I would imagine the water coolers are quite the sad and lonely place, huh?

Best Buy going bankrupt? - Part 2

If you read my original post on Best Buy (here) you might be interested to know that the Forbes article I had linked to exploded in popularity shortly afterwards.  I think it got over 2 million views, interestingly enough that's more than the number of Best Buy shoppers in any given week. After the spike in popularity, the CEO of Best Buy wrote his own blog post and then the original writer from Forbes (Larry Downes) wrote another reply.  You can check both out here.

Saying Goodbye to a Job

Earlier this month was my last day at a job I've been in for almost 5 years. I started in the role only 1.5 years out of college with practically zero experience and leave my team (after some luck and lots of hard work) as a Senior Manager who was in many ways responsible for the day to day responsibilities of 10-15 people on any given day. That is "not your typical" jump in a large and conservative company and it has been a great ride to say the least. Saying goodbye to a job I'm leaving voluntarily is really hard and awkward. My day-to-day routine and the people I see and talk to more often than any friends or family (weird and depressing thought, huh?) are suddenly not going to be part of my day-to-day life. I will really miss most of my team members both in the US and India, everyone has been incredibly supportive, helpful, and hard working. It's especially awkward to be leaving people behind with the general understanding that I'm leaving to pursue newer and more exciting opportunities and yet they will be left behind with the same old challenges. Everyone has their own unique situation, but in some cases, many of the reasons that I'm moving for also apply to my team members, but I can't just outright say that.

Here are some other random observations:

• Saying goodbye to team members you've worked with for 5+ years over the phone and/or video conferencing because they are thousands of miles away in India really sucks. Super impersonal and cold
• One takes for granted what they know until you start to do knowledge transfer and you realize what others may not know. Ouch
• Being a "lame duck" manager isn't so much fun as suddenly you can't make the decisions that you are used to making on a day-to-day basis
• Over the past five years I've probably spent about $5+ million of my firm's money in the large projects I've delivered
• Transitioning away from being a Subject Matter Expert and a "go to" guy for answers to being the new guy that knows nothing will be a really humbling experience that I've already started to mentally prepare for
• My new job will be the first job I've ever started where I go into the job having a key set of competencies/skills that I will be expected to know from Day 1 and not just learn on the job.  Let's hope my assessment of these skills matches the expectations of my new employer

Best Buy - for how much longer?

I'm curious how much longer I will be able to go check out and play with a new piece of electronics at Best Buy before going home and buying it online.  Best Buy is on its way out and the only thing that saddens me is that there will not be really any stores left selling electronics in a retail store. This is something I actually know a lot about as I worked at Sears selling computers and electronics for several years.  If you bought something from me back in those days, you likely paid more than at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Amazon, but you also got someone that was friendly and knowledgeable about the products you were buying.  I knew that the cheap Vtech cordless phones got returned 5x more than the more expensive Panasonic ones and would tell you so.  I knew not because of what I had heard or read, but because I had physically returned the phones myself.  You can't find that kind of knowledge in many places any more in this industry.  The majority of the people working in Best Buy today know absolutely nothing about the products they sell.  The last few times I tried asking questions I was shocked at the answers they gave me.  Not only were they not helpful and showing a complete lack of knowledge, but they were actually WRONG.

In my opinion, the only chance Best Buy has is if they focus on providing a reason to pay more to buy in a store.  That's why I buy my running shoes at a local running store (South Boston Running Emporium) and not Amazon and why I enjoy going to Microcenter in Cambridge.  REI also does an awesome job of this, every employee I've ever talked to there is passionate about the outdoors, friendly and helpful, and incredibly knowledgeable about what they are selling.  Having someone to speak with that knows what they are talking about is worth paying for and it helps my local community.  Best Buy doesn't know the products they are selling or really do much for my community, and unless that changes me and millions of other people will continue shopping there but buying elsewhere.

Read the great Larry Downes article in Forbes that inspired this post here.