Hello all,

While I can't suggest that I'm my story is intriuging as Skybirds, I too am moving to a new job. For those of you who have read my "help wanted" threads or my occasional replies to your inquires, you knew me as the Custom Installation Manager for Magnolia Audio Video in Northern California. Now I've been offered - and I've accepted - a new position with our parent company (Best Buy). I'll now be (I think this is correct) a Technical Training Manager (and Subject Matter Expert) responsible for training our new Magnolia Home Theater installers. This will require me to move from paradise (San Francisco Bay Area) to Minneapolis. I'm leaving this weekend - driving across the country in my little SUV, pulling a trailer and trying to keep my two cats from killing me - and will start my new job in a week or so.

So, why should you care? Well, I know from many, many past threads that the group concensus on "big box retail" installation work is that it is not exemplary. In many cases you have been correct. I plan on changing that, one installer at a time. I believe that everyone will benefit from raising the bar for install, whether that is done in a "mom and pop" or a 600+ store chain. I'm sure a few of you will disagree.

On the plus side, the fact that I will no longer have any employee's (just co-workers) means that I won't be clogging up this forum with more pleas for people to come on board. On the other hand, we will be needing an insane number of new installers all over the country as we open new locations, so if anyone is interested...

I'll continue to contribute here when I can and hopefully my new relationships with vendors (I'll also be responsible for training sales people in the are of selling installed and multi-room systems) will allow me to get some answers that no one else has had any luck with. I'll also follow my core mantra of quality in my work and do my best to instill that in our new installers. I'd really like to know if I'm successful. With that in mind, I'd really appreciate it if you all would let me know when you run into any horror stories concerning our installers. I'm not looking for 2nd and 3rd hand examples ("my friends sisters cousin had an install done...) but stuff you are factually aware of.

If anyone wishes to contact me about this (or any other matter I post here) you can reach me at my personal email address: [email protected]
I don't know what my BBY email will be at this point, but I'll update my bio here when I have that info.

Thanks for listening,

Jeff Wagner