Radio Shack E-Fires 400 Workers

KingSkippus writes "You've got mail! ...and no job! The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that RadioShack has notified 400 workers by e-mail that they are being laid off. The e-mails state, 'The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.' Nothing says thank you for your years of service to our company quite like an e-boot out the door."

Comments

Sign of the future

[virtuald]

Wow... that would really suck. I mean, I guess for the company, it makes life easier, because you don't have to deal with confrontation -- but it certainly doesn't motivate me to go and try and get a job from them. What if someone didn't check their email? That would be really awkward..

Reminds me of "Office Space".

Re:Sign of the future

[stinerman]

My boss is from South Korea, and he had an interesting story to tell about a job he worked.

Apparently at this company, whenever a decision was made to fire an employee, they would send someone out to remove your desk from the premises ... but only if you weren't there. When you got back, you'd wonder where your desk was and be greeted by someone to help you leave the building. This caught on very quickly with the employees, so if they thought they were getting the axe, they'd simply never leave their desk. They would forgo breaks, get there earliest, and leave the latest.

How the #%$K is this news?

[sporkme]

Radio Shack has been in real trouble for years, since shortly before I left. The article mentions RSH stock price closing just over $18, down from around $80 before this all began. I can't say that I am surprised that they chose email as the way to go on the firings.

Make sure you don't have any beverage in your mouth when you read this: All members of Radio Shack management and all of their top sales people from the entire company, plus most of the corporate staff (thousands of people) just returned home from an all-expenses paid 3 to 6 day drip to Las Vegas, NV for a "Peak of Performance" rally. More like a valley of performance, but to hell with it.

I'd still show up.

[Rob T Firefly]

Nothing says "e-mail what now? Must have gotten caught in my spam filter, heh..." like going into work anyway, and forcing the boss to say it to your damned face.

HP fired me by email on Monday.

[Anonymous Coward]

I came in late and everybody was standing around excited for me to check my mail.

Do you have a meeting? Do you have a meeting?

Um, yeah, in 30 minutes.

Oh man, that sucks. Only a few of us got it, and none of the boss' friends got the meeting invite. You're gone.

They were right.

Re:Have you

[lord_mike]

Yeah, when I worked there when I was in college, they were thrilled to have me since I at least had a rudimentary understanding of electronics. Every time some nerdy looking guy came into the store, they'd always send him to me. If somebody was hanging out in the back by the small electronic parts, they'd send me back there. I was no engineer, but I at least knew what a resistor was, and could point them to the transistors and diodes. The customers were as shoked as the rest of the employees. I even read their "Getting Started in Electronics" book and helped one customer build his own car alarm dummy box. I was one of the 15%. Certainly, I was the ONLY salesman in the store that knew anything aobut the parts in the back.

The company has a hate/hate relationship with electronic parts. Radio Shack soooo desperately wants to be Best Buy or Circuit City, but with their lousy prices on high-end stuff, they just can't pull it off. The electronic parts section that the company despises is the only thing that keeps them afloat. If they could find a way to BE circuit city, the parts section in the back of the store would be eliminated overnight. I'm sure that the future of selling electronic parts keeps the Tandy executives from sleeping soundly at night, but with a 300% gross profit on that stuff, they just can't let go of their only really profitable business.

Thanks,

Mike

I could be worse

[dbIII]

When my co-workers were sacked by email I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't get one. The next morning my swipe key wouldn't get me in the door. The guy I asked to reactivate my swipe key at lunch time was the one that let me know that I had lost my job.

Re:Wow...

[sumdumass]

I've never seen a company fire someone who didn't have a security guard escort them to the desk for thier belongings and then to the the door. In a mass layoff, the company would contact a few employees who weren't getting laid off and ask them to com in early, then meet everyone else at the door and take them in a few at a time. Usualy this is preceeding a form letter issued the previous payday.

I do know of a guy who was fired at some company (not nameing names) and was left to finish his shift. He wasn't escorted out or monitored and decided to place clear scotch tape over a few dozen opticle sensors on the production line after his shift. This was on friday and it took three weeks to get the production line going again. Every section was registering an obstruction when there wasn't, the computer was replaced two times and you couldn't see the tape on the sensor heads. Eventualy someoen decided to replace everthing on the control and safety circuits and found the causes later. I don't know how much it ended up costing them.

The next spam

[cheros]

Well, if that is now really legally acceptable I know what's going to happen next, expect a new type of spam, the 'sack' spam. That also has the effect ot training your spam filter so you'll never receive the real one. As a matter of fact, it probably pretty much nukes this for the next time it's attempted.

Not surprised

[JewGold]

As a former long-time employee at RS, let me just say this news comes as absolutely no surprise.

Their entire management structure is irrepairably flawed. Most of their top guys were promoted from store-level positions with absolutely no formal training on how to run a fortune 500 corporation. These 'executives' know only how to lead through threats, intimidation, and constant turnover.

In the 1980s and early 90s, they went from being one of the largest and most respected computer manufacturers (Tandy) to almost zero computer sales. In 1990, there was a RadioShack store in every neighborhood, yet they completely missed the boat on the Internet boom. In about 2000 they happened to be in the right place at the right time and lucked into the cell phone boom, hence their good stock performance during this time. They soon (within months) screwed that up and their stock fell to a third of its former value almost overnight.

Now they've been doing nothing new, with the exception of several scandals involving their former CEO, Dave Edmonson. I'd imaging their long term strategory at this point is simply circling the drain long enough for some conglomerate to buy their name at a firesale price for use in some branding strategy

Re: RadioShack e-fires workers

[aebrain]

it happens only in America

Nope.

One time, I was 1 week into a 3-month posting in Europe, and I got an e-mail from Australia telling me my 3-month notice period started immediately. I had to work through it of course. I was paid out the 4 weeks of vacation I'd accumulated, but lost the hundreds of hours of time-off-in-lieu. I'd been with the firm 8 years.

Trying to find a new job when you're 10,000 miles away from home isn't easy. And of course the customer, who had paid $$$ for my services, was not pleased, they wanted me to stay longer and work on other stuff.

Yes, I should have taken the time off in lieu, but that would have been cheating the customer. There's such a thing as professional ethics.

I took the firm to industrial arbitration, won, but the legal fees ate up nearly all of the 3 months pay I got.

something in contrary

[mapkinase]

I have read all the 5-rated comments and seems to me that the consensus is American job culture sucks, Radio Shack sucks.

Due to my trollish habits, I am always inclined to say something in contrary.

At the last company I worked for, there were 3 waves of firing people. In all of them a top level manager talked to them, thanked them and explained to them why they are fired. That it has nothing to do with them, that it is related to the products performance which is very little to do with them. Of course, people were not happy anyway, and they rightfully should not be: well, they were fired, but there was an effort from the company to alleviate the pain.

The company I am talking about is not the best, and it has a bad reputation in the IT industry for their cold and mindless approach to people, so I assume the situation with graceful firing is better in other IT companies.

I have to admit though that people who were fired were seasoned professional programmers, many with PhD in physical, chemical and biological sciences.

Another important comment is that the waves were about 50-100 people. When the amount of people to be laid off is larger it becomes a logistic problem to fire them at once, in one take to minimize the effect on job. It might explain the "e-mail" twist of it, but in no way it explains the "no-thanks" angle. So yes, Radio Shack sucks.

Oh the humiliation

[popsicle67]

I once worked for a company that was as chickenshit as this. One of the partners was diagnosed with cancer so he sold his holdings and went to Ireland to live whatever he had left. An ex-wife of his son had a job in the company and they wanted to get rid of her quietly so they sent a process server to the bungelow she was staying in on Maui with her final check and severance. She hired a lawyer in hawaii and filed suit there after renting a house that her lawyer found her for residency reasons. She sought 3 million in damages and the company had to deal with the whole thing,including depositions by all of the parties involved in the buyout, in hawaii which damn near broke the bastards. She never figured to win, she just wanted to see them jump through hoops. They eventually settled out of court with the usual NDA but I know it had to be a good chunk because she sent all the people she knew in the company a 250 dollar gift certificate for Walmart that christmas saying she knew the company wouldn't be able to afford the usual christmas turkeys that year.

Re:yep

[cayenne8]

"...but still, its demeaning to have a souless company further prove that point by issuing a sterile, cold email letting you know that your life has just been flushed down the toilet."

I'd made a post earlier that I really didn't see the big deal of being let go by email. I actually thought it would be a bit easier in that you didn't have to sit there and feel uncomfortable in front of a person having to tell you in person. I just didn't get it, but, then I read your post and maybe I do. The part where you liken losing your job of 8 years to having your life 'flushed down the toilet'. Wow...I've just guessed I never associated my work/job with my life or self worth before as it seems you may do. I guess there are a good many of people out there that associate their job with their self worth or image. That's just foreign to me.

Don't get me wrong, I like my job...I'm often passionate about my interest in what I do, that happens to also earn me a living...a good one. But, it is just a job. Where I do it, and who for really isn't the biggest deal in my life. The second I leave work...I completely leave it (unless on call or something). I don't really think about it till I walk back in the door the next day. I don't have any loyalty really towards any company, because I feel in this age, they have none towards me. But, I've felt that for a long time. Currently, I'm in a semi-contract mode...W2 hourly employee for a contract company. Work is good, pay is good, benefits are good. I'm friends with the owner of the company and often have drinks with him. I'm a good employee and contribute to the company. But, if I got the ax tomorrow...and it could happen as that the area I'm in is New Orleans...well, I'd take a little hit on my pride, but, mostly just worry about getting the next gig.

But, losing my job, doesn't really mean I lost something that defines me. I work ONLY to make money...to enable me to buy and do things that make me happy. If I won the lottery tomorrow, trust me..I'd never work again, I'd do nothing but stuff that was fun.

I guess that explains a lot of the posts I read here...I was actually shocked that so many people described the firing process so emotionally...and took it so personally. I didn't realize that the job people hold defines them so much. And I think that is sad.

A job should be nothing more than a means to supporting your lifestyle. Sure...hopefully you can enjoy your work, but, really...does it matter who you do it for? Your job should not be YOU.