Eh, I understand that working at a place such as Best Buy you and other employees may or may not reap such benefits like this. That doesn't make it right or fair to the consumer; especially when you say your store is getting 3 phones in stock but 2 of them are already spoken for by employees that work there. It certainly doesn't help for you to come in here and brag about it. I'm unaware of Best Buy's policy on this subject but I can't see how you would be priority over the consumer. You say, " Employees are people/customers too"......explain how again when you are first in line to get a product that you will be short of stock on vs. the average joe that is hoping and praying he will be able to get one on launch day.
If stock is short or is not enough to cover the preorders, the employees will have to wait, no matter the department. It's typically under the Mobile Managers approval is one is still able to be held for an employee.
I am an employee getting a Droid X on launch day. I knew I had an upgrade, and even though I really dislike Mail in rebates, I put my name in at the local verizon store to get it.
To me, sure, I could of preordered one, since I knew about it before the public, and maybe they would of let me get it. But that's not fair, and if I was on the other side of it (like, if a verizon employee was holding one for himself and it prevented me from getting one), I would not think favorably of the store.
We do everything we can to make our customers happy, this is not something that would fall into that category. If stock is low, the mobile manager has discretion to give those phones to customers over employees, whether you preordered or not. At our store we have employees who preordered iPhone 4s, who have yet to get their phone. They aren't completely happy, but they understand we really have been strained with supply.
"Or both. The mobile team received no information restricting pre-orders for the Droid X to employees; so they allowed them."
This isn't completely true, the second wave of preorders was not availiable to employees. And even if you did preorder, the customers can still have priority over you if supply is short.
I know employees are people/customers too, but we have to think of our customers first. If we lose a customer(s) because employees made the product unavailable, we all lose, not just Mobile.
Just be prepared if you have to wait for your phone.