Have you ever noticed that no matter which Best Buy you go into, you end up seeing the same people working there? That’s because there are seven types of people that work at every single Best Buy, with no exceptions.

A little known fact about me is that I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years in high school before getting fired for badly, badly abusing the employee discount system. But while there I learned a lot about the types of people that work in such an establishment, and I’ve noticed the same people in other Best Buys that I’ve been to since. So here are my list of the seven types of people you’ll find there, from a former employee’s perspective.

Next time you go to Best Buy, be on the lookout. I promise you’ll see at least a couple of these characters.

Illustrations by the illustrious Dan Meth, the artist behind such gems as the Pop Culture Charts and the animated Phone Sex Fetishes.

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Car Audio Thug
You’ll find this guy in the car audio department. He’s got a big plug earring in each ear, some form of facial hair out of a late-90’s R&B video and tattoos on his forearms. He tears into the parking lot every day, tires squealing, bass blasting, in a late-model Civic that he’s dumped thousands of dollars into. You suspect that if he didn’t have a job selling car stereos, he’d be stealing them.

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Marginally Cute Customer Service Girl
This girl works at the customer service desk or as a cashier. She’s maybe 17 years old and is kind of cute, but only when compared to the chubby piles of sadness she’s surrounded with. Because of this, she’s constantly hit on/sexually harassed by the guys who stock CDs and DVDs. She manages to take this in stride somehow and is almost infuriatingly perky and chipper. The chances of her having hooked up with the car audio thug are very high.

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Grizzled Old Home Theater/Computer Sales Lifer
This guy has seen some shit. He’s a refugee from Lechmere or Tweeter or some other now-defunct retail outlet. He knows the most about the products he sells, which is why all the part-time high school employees send customers with actual questions his way. He’s got an air of resigned acceptance about his life, and while he’s all-business with customers, he’s got no filter with fellow employees. He tells inappropriate jokes and talks vulgarly about the managers behind their back. He has a strictly regimented cigarette break every 2.5 hours that he never, ever misses.

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Pervy Geek Squad Guy
This guy searches every computer that’s in for service for porn, collecting everything he finds on an external HDD that he keeps in the back. He talks in graphic terms about what he’d do to women who he sees enter the store, but when he talks to them he’s totally professional. You suspect that he pleasures himself behind the plastic curtains, but you don’t want to confirm this. He’s got a level 80 World of Warcraft character. Somehow, he and the grizzled old sales guy are buddies and eat lunch together.

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Sad Department Manager
This guy went to college then, after graduation, moved back home with his parents to save money. He ended up getting a job at Best Buy while he ‘figured stuff out.’ It’s 10 years later and he still lives in the town he went to high school in, is balding, gained 15 pounds and is the manager of the digital cameras department. He’s perfectly adequate at his job, but talking to him for more than 5 minutes just makes you so damned sad.

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Slick Careerist Manager
This guy wants to go right to the top. He runs team meetings, irons his blue polos, and gets a hard-on when talking about accessory sales and service-plan attach rates. He’s climbing the ladder with everything he’s got, and he spews corporate nonsense with the passion of a true believer. You’ve never seen him have an actual human interaction with someone, and you wonder if he even has any furniture in his apartment. He may be a robot.

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Terrifying Loss-Prevention Guy
This guy is either an ex-con, an ex-cop or a vet. He is jacked yet forced to wear a yellow polo shirt, which creates a false sense of levity when dealing with him. He may seem friendly on the outside, but if you cross him he will snap your neck. He legitimately thinks that it’s unfair that Best Buy security guys aren’t allowed to carry sidearms. He has so much rage bottled up inside him that you know to just say hello and smile and otherwise steer clear.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Analysts are sometimes way off the mark with predictions, but that doesn’t mean that can’t invent ideas we’d actually really like to see implemented—in this case, Gene Munster’s speculation about an app store for the Apple TV.

We need to specify one thing before we start: This is not a rumor. There is absolutely no information to back up this idea, there have been no leaks on the subject, and there’s no reason to believe Apple is working on anything of the sort. It’s an idea based purely on speculation. That being said, we think it’s a smart idea, totally within the realm of possibility, and something we’d really like to see.

Given Apple’s massive success with the iPhone and iPod touch App Store, it makes sense that maybe Apple would try to implement something similar for the underdog in their lineup, the Apple TV. While Windows Media Center has developed quickly into one of the best pieces of software Microsoft’s ever created, and Boxee and XBMC have pushed the limits of user-created media centers, the Apple TV has languished with behind-the-times software and features, seemingly ignored by Apple themselves. With Boxee, it’s a great device, but how many people really know Boxee exists, let alone how to install it? The Apple TV has a ton of mainstream potential, and an app store might be just the way to achieve it.

An app store could deliver loads of new features to the Apple TV, from games to news to other digital video services (like Hulu), and could really exploit the under-used combination of Apple TV and iPhone. It’d be the best of both worlds, with the flexibility of Boxee and the security of the iPhone. Think about it: You could use the acceleromter in the iPhone to control a racing game displayed on your TV through the Apple TV, stream media across the world, or even just use your home theater system for truly epic fart apps.

And this could make media streamers (or home theater PCs, whatever) the mainstream devices they really should be: Despite Windows Media Center’s slick interface and ease of use, mainstream users barely even know it exists. XBMC, with its Linux base, requires users to hunt for apps, just like cell phones pre-App Store. Apple could really capitalize on the possibilities and relative lack of use of HTPCs and media streamers, and they’d barely have to do anything themselves!

Especially given Microsoft’s big push toward what they call the ‘three screen’ strategy (computer, mobile device, television) with the Zune HD and new Xbox 360 features, it really seems like the time for Apple to jump into the ring too.

Remember, there’s no reason to think an Apple TV app store is in the works. But on the other hand, we really hope it is. [via All Things D]

(Via Gizmodo.)

CEO of Sandisk, Eli Harari, has finally thrown in the towel (so to speak) by admitting that Apple has dominated the portable media player (PMP) market in the US in a way that anything else released would automatically be relegated to niche status. For this statement to come from the world’s number two PMP manufacturer goes a long way in cementing Apple’s sheer dominance. Do you think this trend will continue for years to come, or will Apple suffer the fate of American automobile manufacturers who once thought they had cornered the market only to be met by Japanese (and now Korean) makers that leapfrogged them to the top of the pile? If so, which is the best company to usurp Apple?

(Via Ubergizmo.)