Well played, vetbridge. Well played.
Relax. The employees themselves do this already. Have you not seen the Umpty Eleven pit threads about BB service and such?
The lousy 45 minutes of fun they had made all our collective BB ‘bad moments’ worthwhile.
So Best Buy defines perfectly normal clothing as a ‘uniform’ and people just happen to show up wearing perfectly normal clothing that happens to look the same. The ‘disruption’ happens when management gets all bent out of shape over the situation, as happened with No Pants 2k6 and the cop who stopped the train.
I think it’s funny. Too bad there are people around with no sense of humour.
(The one I enjoyed most, I think, is the Suicide Jumper.)
Is it legal in NYC to record people without their consent and then post it to a website? I seem to remember a big brouhaha a few years back over “up the skirt”-type recording and how the laws hadn’t kept up with the technology, and that a lot of jurisdictions were updating their laws to criminalize it. I’ve tried a number of Google searches but I can’t seem to find the actual criminal statutes for New York state or City online.
After all, MAKING MONEY is our sole purpose in life, especially when we’re MAKING MONEY for millionaires. We should forgo all wages to allow millionaires to MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY.
As for fun, well, there needs to be a law against that.
The whole thing seems stupid to me. But if that’s how people want to spend their time (and if it isn’t illegal etc) ah well.
Not at all. The disruption is the persons in the store using property not their own for purposes inconsistent with the real owners’ wishes. The disruption is the appropriation of the assets of others to their own use without permission of the owners. The disruption is inappropriate interference with lawful commerce.
I was out with a bunch of friends and we went to one of those restaurants where they ask for your name and then call it out when your food is ready. (Zesto’s fish and chips, for any Seattleites around.) There were about 8 of us. In a flash of inspiration, I decided that we must all be called Don.
For the first few of us, it was okay. “Um, can I call you ‘Don 2’, 'cause, like, the last guy was named Don, too.” By the end, they knew we had to be messing with them. They asked for ID. Guess which one of us they asked.
Not bad, but the folks who pulled the Best Buy job are brilliant.
Heh. On a much smaller scale, my husband’s company recently changed their work uniforms from pale blue oxfords to royal blue polos, which much more closely matches the colour in the company logo than the old oxfords did. They’ve got the company name, logo and employee’s name on a patch on the front left-hand side of the shirt. They also must wear black shoes, and a belt. Always have. The change came only a few weeks ago.
My husband got off of work a little early one day last week, and since we needed to do some shopping, just tapped the horn when he got home and I came out and off we drove. To Best Buy. It hadn’t even crossed our minds that he would look exactly like an employee there, until customers began walking up to him and asking him about products. My husband would just tap his patch, with his company logo and name, and the customers would apologise and walk away. He felt bad, and I felt awkward. I was walking around with my husband’s arm around me… heh. Premium service. A couple more people requested his help, and he again would apologise, show his patch, and redirect them. We were looking for something specific, so we asked a worker where to find something, and he verrrrrry slowly looked it up on the computer for us, looking my husband up and down a few times. One worker asked him why he was wearing that outfit. Again and again, my husband showed his little patch. When we checked out, the cashier smiled and said, “Hey, nice outfit!”
As we got into the car with our purchases, my husband grumbled, “Remind me in the future to come inside and* change * first.”
It probably would have sucked to be dressed like that and then have 80 other people dressed the same way wander in on that day… :smack:
Well, it’s pretty hard to explain a joke, but what exactly is funny about this?
Clearly I’m one who doesn’t find it funny, so I’ll explain my view.
I don’t see this as poking fun at Best Buy as an evil money-grubbing corporation. I just empathize with the average working slobs (the store manager and the security guards) who were the victims of this ‘joke’. (The clerks on the floor, with no responsibility to control things were free to laugh along with the joke.) At the time they had no idea what was going on and what the intent was of the 80 or so people who just ambushed their store dressed as employees. Do you think the security guard was laughing at that point or freaking out?
I don’t think it’s being alarmist to assume some kind of mass looting or harassment of customers was about to go down. That didn’t happen, but the store manager and security didn’t know that at the time. And note I said manager, not management. We are talking about people here, just trying to do their damn job, not a faceless company of millionaires.
[Newer Seattleite Who Still Feels Like a Tourist After Two and a Half Years]Woohoo, Zesto’s! Just a few blocks from here. [/NSWSFLTAT1/2Y]
Good lord, I thought flash mobbing was dead. This made me giggle like a giggly-thing. Made my day!
This sounds like a big practical joke. I don’t like practical jokes. They harm people and are certainly not funny.
What harm? It’s a goofy prank for God’s sake, and a good portion of the poor, meek, helpless victims thought it was funny, too. Jesus.
I just found it all rather yawn-ish and the folks involved a little too self-proud.
Your shoe is untied.
Wha. . .? No it’s . .owww! hehehe. 
Good lord, what would you consider alarmist?!
When I see a large group of people doing something strange, my first thought is “Fraternity” or “Some one lost a bet.” or something like that. Mass looting? I think you’ve crossed the line from ‘cynical’ to ‘paranoid’.
As far as i could tell, every single member of that group left the store as soon as he or she was asked to do so. If they haven’t been refused entry, haven’t been asked to leave, and are just walking around the store the way that normal customers do, i really can’t see how this interferes with lawful commerce. And your “appropriation of assets” argument is laughable.
On plenty of occasions, i’ve been into Best Buy and other electronic shops with no real intention of buying, just curious to see if there’s anything interesting there. Are these purposes “inconsistent with the real owners’ wishes”? Maybe stores like this should start instituting a restaurant-like minimum purchase per head. You can’t come in unless you at least buy one blank CD, or something like that. You know why they don’t do this? Because allowing people to walk around is conducive to business, and if they start cracking down on those who don’t come in specifically to buy something, pretty soon they’ll lose all their customers.
As others have said, the main disruption to the store’s business was actually caused by the management’s response, not by the actions of the people dressed in perfectly normal (if rather dull) clothing.
I’m often asked if I work places, I never lie but am usually able to help them. I also find myself dressed similar to a retail establishment’s dress code. Unless it’s a police uniform or the like, or somehow copyrighted or something, it’s not illegal.