Have you ever seen those XtraNormal videos on YouTube? The videos that put two 3D animated characters in a dialog, to a script that you write yourself, with computer generated voices. Well, as the picture that you see indicates, one of these videos got BestBuy Employee, 25 year old, Brian Maupin fired. The video displays a character who REALLY wants an iPhone 4, and is obviously an iPhone fangirl. She is talking to the store clerk about it who lets her know that they are all out, but it seems that this girl just won’t have it. You’ll have to watch the video:
The iPhone 4 vs. HTC Evo debate could go on for months, but this guy’s employment at BestBuy certainly won’t. Apparently, corporate was up in arms over this video, and decided that it was in the companies best interest if they let him go. Just like a corporation to only look out for themselves, and not the people who actually matter. Upon all of that, this is total bull shit. The video did not mention BestBuy at all, but instead used a fictional store. There was nothing at all linking this to BestBuy, so the only way to actually know if this happened at the store with him and a customer, and not a friend of his would be to of actually witnessed the transaction.
But hey, BestBuy is a large corporation with a lot of people that need to be pleased. So just in-case one of their customers, or shareholders saw this, it would really offend them, so they took the extreme route, and fired the guys ass. Here’s how this whole ordeal gets stupid:
- There was originally no linking to BestBuy when this video went viral.
- The creator of the video is asked to resign, refuses, and gets suspended.
- Word gets out that the creator could lose his job.
- Tech blogs get wind of this, reporting what has happened.
- The video is now linked to BestBuy.
- ???
- No profit for BestBuy.
BestBuy, do you see how badly you just pwned yourself? Epic fail on your part. The only thing you gained was bad PR, and you’ve lost what was probably a valuable employee.
Thankfully, not all is lost because Brian is getting away from a job in retail. I worked at a Kmart for a few years, and it definitely wasn’t the best experience of my life. From my experiences, I’d guess that the conversation being held in the above video was pretty close to what actually happened. As a friend of mine once said:
“A human being’s IQ will drop 50 points when they assume the role of a customer.”
The above quote sums retail up pretty well.
Brian said that he would like to pursue a new career in graphic design, so this was actually a blessing. I wish him luck in his future endeavors.
Oh, and there’s another video made by him, so if you are an Apple fanboy/girl, and you were offended then this should even the playing field.
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