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Circuit City and the American Dream
An anonymous reader writes "Circuit City said yesterday that it had fired 3,400 of its highest-paid sales staff — 8% of its employees — and will replace them with lower-paid workers. Sign On San Diego called this 'a risky strategy to cut costs that goes beyond the layoffs, buyouts and hiring freezes commonly used by struggling companies.' The fired workers have a chance to apply for lower-paying positions after a 10-week wait, the company said. Quoting a Circuit City spokesman: 'This is no reflection on job performance... We deeply regret the negative impact. Retail is extremely competitive, and if we're going to thrive and operate a successful company... we just have to control costs.' So: work hard, become the best in your field, and get fired so they can offer you a new job 10 weeks later at a lower salary."
"Work hard, become the best in your field..."
Yeah, sorry -- the folks working at Circuit City don't generally really qualify as being the "best in their field", unless you're defining the "field" as "people who work at Circuit City". Besides, Circuit City's not on commission anymore so you can't even argue that these folks were necessarily their top performers.
But let's accept for a moment the premise of this article. If these folks really are such great salesmen, this is opportunity knockin' at their door -- they can get better jobs at higher-end stores, they can start their own higher-end stores, they can get into selling something that has worthwhile commissions involved with it like software or cars or whatever. I mean, let's face it: Being the best sales associate at Circuit City is along the same lines as being the best cook at McDonald's. If that's where your vision ends, that's almost certainly where you belong.
That aside, what offends me most is that this thread is this horrific notion that we've devolved to a point where the meaning of the term "American dream" has mutated from 'boundless opportunity in the marketplace and the ability to move out of the economic class you were born into' to 'lifetime employment at Circuit City'.
Speaking only for myself, if that really were the case then I'd want no part of it.
The American Dream as I understand it is that when you get laid off from a shitty dead-end job you can go out and find or create something better if you have the drive and/or ability for it. And hey, if your lack the skills or the ambition to go out and work to better your situation, you can always reapply -- I'm sure that red shirt will fit just as well in ten weeks as it does now.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Boycott Circuit City!
Best Slashdot Co
Wrong place to cry ... we all just got out sourced!
what they want or what they deserve? I know if I worked there, I would hope I could find a better job before they could fire me and would be praying that hundreds of other employees would be doing the same. The next time you visit Circuit City just remember how they value their employees. If they can't be bothered to spend the money on quality help what does that imply about their attitude towards their cutomers.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Terrible customer service. They don't honor their own coupons. They charge more in their store then they do on their website. Lay them all off and close the doors--I could care less. I won't shop there ever again.
There is a huge logical gap between "We're not getting rid of these people for performance reasons" and "These people are the best in their field". I don't think you can read any of this and come away even with the idea that these people were any better than the other, lower paid employees in their same stores. If they think they can employ the *exact same people* for less money in 10 weeks, then clearly these salespeople were paid beyond what the market can bear.
Why do we need to make up negative stuff about this when we could simply point to the fact that the salary savings look pathetic in comparison to what they continue to pay their executives?
Global Libertarianism will set you free. You have to be dynamic or die. You can't just pretend to suspend the rules of Darwinism. It doesn't work that way.
And, I just printed up my resume to apply for a job at The Source by Circuit City.
Either that or they need the stock boost that comes from indiscriminately firing workers - Wall Street loves that.
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
The truth of the matter is that a Circuit City salesman performs a service to the public which is about on par with picking strawberries or washing cars. People who pick strawberries and wash cars make the minimum wage. These types of jobs are not intended to be long careers, they are supposed to put kids and part-timers to work. The stark truth of economics is that if you want a higher wage you have to do something more valuable. Try machining or engine repair.
Circuit City and the American Dream
Business savvy decision allows new employees a chance at sales fame.
Top business analysts have determined that a growing number of people have become "too wealthy for their own good", according to one high-ranking Wall Street spokesperson. "It is in the interest of the common good that we allow other, less priveleged folks, to have the opportunity to buy their own food and afford both rent and car payments."
The dismissed workers, having reached their allowed quota of wealth, were given peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on their way out the door and told that they could reapply after their savings had been reduced to zero. While the average lifespan of a salesman's savings is about ten weeks, according to financial analysts, it was widely agreed that dismissed employees would not truly be eligible for reassignment until they had accumulated enough debt to prevent them from ever owning a house or car again.
"These people were beginning to factor into systems that have long been the exclusive playgrounds of the rich and powerful. We simply could not allow them to tip the scales and upset the balance," said Circuit City spokesman Bill Cimino.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Circuit City is on it's last legs.
The CC stores I've been in have lots of empty shelves, especially in the home audio area. The center area is mostly CDs and DVDs. They had a decent selection of TVs, which, supposedly, are low margin items, so they're not going to be much help in keeping CC profitable.
I wonder if NOT charging $300 for a 50 foot HDMI cable would help them be competitive enough that they could have avoided a morale-crushing layoff?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
This sort of nonsense will continue in retail jobs (and everywhere else) until workers UNITE. There is no sense in taking this sort of abuse. Circuit City employees: your company does not care about you, if you want to receive something like fair compensation for your labor then you have to unite with your fellow employees.
Poor employee morale and low pay create the a social petri dish for employee malaise and discontent. Customer service suffers. People stop shopping there. The company continues to lower prices and pay. A vicious cycle ensues. Soon they declare bankruptcy and blame on it everything except poor management decisions driven by short term bottom line numbers.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
I avoid Circuit City like the plague and always have. To me, an establishment like that shouldn't have commission based sales staff. Every time I went in to their store I always felt as if the staff was attempting to bamboozle me. On top of that, they never have the best price!
It would be ridiculous if other enterprises started considering a strategy like this... what incentive would there be to excel and command a higher salary if you're going to be booted on a whim if the company has some financial trouble?
The point used to be to become valuable to a company so you would STAY ON when layoffs had to happen. Now how would one go about being valuable to Circuit City, for instance?
Granted it IS Circuit City, which isn't exactly some important IT firm and more like something for college students to work at so they can pay for tuition, but even so this is business strategy that really confuses me.
I like basketball!!1!
to just put them on straight commission-only? Then everyone wins. If they're not performing (and thus not generating any revenue for the company), the company doesn't have to pay them. If they're selling a lot, they get a piece of it and are thus motivated to continue to sell well and often.
It's like any other type of sales, the product is irrelevant. Just follow the money!
What other large electronics chains are left that I can buy at? I don't want to support businesses who either cheat their customers (Best Buy) or who mistreat their employees (Wal-Mart, Circuit City.) I'm going to be running out of vendors, soon.
Anyway, this reminds me of a friend of mine. He graduated from college with a degree in History. Yes, a rather un-saleable degree. So he lived on my couch for a few months after he graduated while he tried to find a job. The only job he could find was telephone credit card sales. Yes, he was *THAT* guy. Every day, he came home from his job, the first words out of his mouth were "I hate my job." What made it even worse is that he was *GOOD* at it. His second month there, he set a sales record. His third month, he broke that record. Then he got fired. Because he wasn't following the script to the letter.
Now, if someone comes in, and, by *NOT* following the script to the letter (he did say all the parts that the law requires creditors to say,) sets sales records two months in a row (he got a plastic slinky with the company name on it in thanks,) shouldn't you have the OTHER people follow his lead, rather than fire him?
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I think The ONN (Onion News Network) summs up the sad situation in our country quite nicely with this little "expose": CEO fired, replaced by illegal immigrant
I know CC salespeople were higher paid, not too long ago they were on comission. I know the idea was to have better trained employees to help you make selections, etc.
But you have two factors:
1) Doubling someons hourly rate doesn't make them smart. CC employees are the same as Best Buy, trying to sell me monster power cables and extended warrantees, and unable to answer any of my tech questions.
2) The public is more and more aware of electronics, and has less and less need for someone to talk them through buying a DVD player.
Sucks to be those guys, and it's a shit way to treat employees, but seriously, if that was your career, get used to failure in life.
Paying them more simply wasn't producing a better service, at least not in Annapolis, MD.
Nearly everything is cheaper at BB too, so that can't help.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"They took my jaorb!!!"
last couple of times I was in CC (one to buy a sirius radio, the other car GPS), I knew exactly what I watned, and was more concerned whether they carried it or had it in stock. I did the research on my own, got all the advice I sought, and needed the sales staff to ring it up. how much do they need to nkow to do that?
I feel for the guys that are getting laid-off, but the truth is if it added $$$ to the price, I'd have bought it elsewhere. the real question is do they really help CC sell more? I wonder.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
When clueless sales floor personnel cannot expect to work years for one company and retire with a pension.
Better service from actual people, which is why I expect to pay more in an actual store. If Circuit City is firing all of their best people, why am I going to pay more there than from, say, newegg?
Answer: I'm not.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Circuit has been terrible for a number of years for a number of reasons. This is no surprise.
OK, so you're a struggling business and you're trying to control costs, so you... fire the people who bring in revenue? Circuit City, say goodbye to your institutional memory, loyalty, and say hello to higher turnover; your "savings" are going to be eaten by increased hiring costs and less competent sales staff.
If you got fired, consider yourself lucky and get yourself a decent sales job.
You DO NOT want to be wearing the red shirt. Especially if you are on the away team.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
So I've been done with Best Buy for a while. Now there is no way I'm going to Circuit City. Hmmm, who's left? Online shops, I guess.
It's interesting that the workers were not offered to simply have a salary cut but were instead fired and then forced to reapply for lower paying jobs. This is obviously an attempt to eliminate any benefits the employees may have had from being long-time employees.
What did you expect from the company that foisted DIVX upon us?
-R
that it's a proven fact that wearing a red shirt is detrimental to your livelihood ...
I mean come on, even a fresh-out-of-Starfleet ensign knows that wearing a red shirt is a mark of doom. It was inevitable, they should just be happy their sacrifices were for the greater good, and not just an arbitrary display of power by some alie^B^B^B^B contractor.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Is it even legal to fire someone without reason? Wouldn't this open them up to a massive class-action wrongful termination lawsuit? These aren't layoffs (since the positions are being immediately refilled with lower-paid personnel) and they aren't being terminated for performance-related reasons. I can't imagine this is legal but I don't know the US labour laws...
thats my view.
Got an item I want, I'll go to Best Buy or even Wal-Mart first now.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This happens everyday, just not all at once. I will never take a job based upon the company having retirement benefits after 20 years of performance. In the defense industry, for example, it's common practice for an entire department to get laid off just to be rehired to perform the same job for the same company. Why? They didn't want to have to pay out retirement. This is the same shady practice, yet on at a larger scale (which means it gets more publicity).
The sad state of affairs is that companies have to please stock holders and, to please stock holders profits have to go up. Even if your company is making money hand over fist, it gets to a point where you have to find a way to cut margins to please stock holders. It's unfortuante that so many companies take the easy way out instead of finding ways to inovate and manage budgets....
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
words fail to describe how mental this stragegy sounds, and the fact they're letting people apply for their job back at a lower rate of pay, if thats not a slap in the face for working for these guys i dont know what is. im all for 'you work for the company, the company doesnt work for you', but shit like this just annoys me. im sure someone on their board will make a good bonus this year, maybe someone will figure they dont need them anymore...
:/
god help anyone aiming to make a good wage at cc
jaymz
because all of their nervous US potential customers are now going to shun circus city in droves. I have bought a good amount of stuff at CC, but never again.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Bah! I defy anyone at Circuit City to show me source code that is better than mine!
Only the mentally stunted or tech un-savvy amongst them would go back to work for the company that fired them only to hire them back at a lower rate. Anyone with more than just a little brains is going to be offended.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
No more Circuit City for me.
...just how motivated would YOU be if you got fired one day and - in lack of alternatives - apply for the same job again, but for a lower salary. this just must result in an extensive drop of service quality.
err, wait.. Circuit City? Never mind.
"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy."
--David Korten
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's not so unusual for companies to lay off at the top and hire at the bottom. It IS unusual for them to do it all at once and to come right out and say that's what they're doing. I'm not sure if their honesty is a good thing or a bad thing.
It seems that Circuit City has decided that a more experienced and thus higher-paid salesperson doesn't sell much (if anything) more than a high-school dropout hired right off the street. If that's the case, raises and higher pay simply don't make sense and a switch to a model where they hire people who can't get anything better, never give raises, and accept the resulting high turnover makes business sense. Even if it is pretty much evil.
Maybe Circuit City could cut costs by firing all the employees that stand around and do nothing. The past 4 times I've been there I've seen multiple employees standing in a circle talking or playing catch with a promotional stress ball. It took 3 employees to replace the ink in a printer. So part of me agrees that laying off their high paid employees is fine, why pay employees a good amount if they are going to do nothing. If you need people to baby sit your store higher lower wage workers. If you want good employees higher good employees and pay them well. In 4 trips to CC I bought nothing because I felt I was being charged so they could have employees do nothing; fire a few and lower your prices. Then higher back the good ones.Don't fire good or deserving employees just to save money have a good reason. Fire employees who are a waste for you and the customers then re-evaluate.
Yet another corporate management that views the bottom-end labor as a pure commodity. Can they get more warm bodies in to replace those displaced? You sure bet. Can the displaced find sales work elsewhere? Most likely so as well. Apparently, someone missed the day in class when they discussed intrinsic value. If you have someone that's experienced and good at what they do, they are very likely worth more because they know how to be more productive at what they do. They likely know how to sell and market a product, in addition to helping customers find the product that best suits their needs and desires.
Having a knowledgeable and competent sales staff is usually considered a cornerstone of having a good store. Get rid of that, and you're probably competing strictly on price and not on value. Hey, if that's their new business model, then they probably made a good move towards achieving that model. But generally, taking the service out of a service industry usually is a risky plan.
If I were Circuit City's direct competition, I'd seriously consider finding a way to talk to these displaced salepeople. It could be a windfall of people that I wouldn't have to spend too much effort in training myself, and still have an opportunity to weed out any undesirables.
So Circuit City is some kind of keep-kids-from-selling-crack public-assistance program?
I had no idea. It all makes sense now.
Of course, if they were unionized there is no way this could happen, and CC would have a fraction of a less percent profit to give to execs in 8 or 9 figure bonuses and the workers would be feeding their kids instead of looking for work...
Also, of course, I will be attacked for being anti-free-market, lazy, mobbed-up, or whatever other thought-preventing cliche can be churned up.
Made $8.52M in fiscal 2006.
Maybe it's time to find a cheaper replacement.
-----
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Slash costs by firing the highest-paid (and generally best) people. Rehire low-paid scrubs to do the same job. Then be shocked - shocked! - when morale goes down, department performance goes down, and you can't hit your uptime/sales/response time/no screw-up quotas for the month.
Here's a newsflash, people: saving money by firing the expensive people is a prime example of penny-wise, pound-foolish. Most departments are too dysfunctional to allow them to just pluck someone off the street and plug them into the system - they need the old hands because they make things go.
This seems to be a disease most common among MBAs who have seen a lot of theory and not much practice, or who have never seen the inside of the department they are supposed to administrate.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
First off, what Circuit City is doing is stupid. Firing someone just because they do too well in a system you set up is wrong.
But, when you think about it, CC is just responding to customers. In a lot of places, Best Buy has taken out a lot of smaller electronics retailers. It's not because they necessarily have the best selection or good help, but they offer cheap middle-of-the-road electronics for the masses. If you're technically savvy, you do all your research online before you go into a store and buy something. I don't think I've ever interacted with a salesperson beyond, "I want that. Is it available?"
People have to understand the fact that customer service is dead. Nobody under the age of 50 cares about it anymore; they just want the lowest price. As the population that did care about customer service dies, there will be even less need for service-oriented salespeople. Think about it, when was the last time you paid more for a good or service just because people were nicer to you?
Of course the CEO of Circuit City won't suffer. He's getting seven-figure compensation for driving the company into the ground. So this is really a plan in keeping with overall company strategy, which is to reward the failures.
we will end no whine before its time
So - maybe hospitals should adopt this strategy to keep medical costs down? Dentists? Car mechanics? This kind of behavior should be rallied against in a strong way. If the consumer continues to shop at Circuit City - and accept that a newbie who doesn't really know what he is talking about is selling you your new HDTV, then Circuit City management made a correct gamble. (And - knowing how much we Americans don't get involved in politics, I would assume that this is the way it's going to end up for Circuit City - I would bet most people just don't care - or would even know that the information they are getting is accurate or relevant to what they are asking for or needing.) If however, the retailer saw a drop in sales because their McDonald's worker turned HDTV specialist wasn't able to get people to part with a few thousand for a TV that fit their needs, then Circuit City looses. I would argue here that Circuit City gets it - they get the American public very very well. They know that in the end after a while when this story is long forgotten (what - a week maybe?) that people will go in with their wallets - buy stuff - think they got the right piece of electronics - and nobody is hurt. This is how in the end crap like this will continue to happen more and more - and joking aside - my statement about hospitals doing this might very well become a reality.
It sucks, and I feel bad for these people, however, this is the consequences of a free market society. It's not all milk and honey, but frankly if not for this system, white collar nerds who can program computers like most of us wouldn't get the opportunity to make 6 figures.
Lesson #1: Stay in school, kids.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
CC used to be the place I went if I needed advice when shopping for something new, BB lackies never could answer a technical question. But now, the retail service industry seems homogenized to the point where the staff is just glorified stock boys and cash register operators, what a shame. Radio shack is the same too, you used to able to find someone there with RADIO experience or component knowledge, but no more. I wish them luck in their new endevours.
places like circuit city are based on competition amongst the workers -
and the american scum who go to work there care only about their paycheck
they are too short sighted to realize they are all there for the same purpose ($, survival)
if the workers were organized, this wouldn't have happened!
WIll they pay their entire management structure "market wages" and fire managers making more than the manager of McDonald's???
dave
Ah yes, the American Dream: to languish in pitiable work conditions hoping some rare enlightened higher-up will have mercy on you and, if not actually pay you more, at least fail to sack you.
Wait. That's not the American Dream I know about. Oh yeah -- it's more about self-determination and a drive to succeed by the power of one's own capabilities. But hey, I can see how a person could get the two ideas confused...
Circuit City: You make too much money. You're fired.
Dumbass Employee: What? Noooooooo! My PS3 comes in next week and I need the employee discount! I'll work for less!
CC: Not good enough. First you must go without a paycheck for 10 weeks to prove you are worthy.
DE: Aaaggghhhh! Okay, then what? I'll do anything.
CC: Then you must crawl back here, and I do mean crawl, and beg for your job back at half your previous salary!
DE: *sobbing* I'll do it!
CC: Oh, and bring me a shrubbery.
Life needs more saving throws.
A union just gives us the ability to say "if you fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us". Do you have a problem with workers doing that?
I do when you don't have a choice about joining the union or not, which is generally what happens with unions - and they turn that same attitude back on fellow workers they do not like.
A workers union is a slippery slope to a whole other parallel layer of management above you, and that honestly does not do the company or you any good in the long run.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Not that crappy old Circuit City..."
This is just another chapter in an old story. The top management of Circuit City doesn't know what they are doing, so the company has trouble making money, but it is only the employees who suffer.
--
Is U.S. government violence a good in the world, or does violence just cause more violence?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Will the CEO, President, and the other executive officers take a pay cut, in order to help out the company?
Generally, one wants to fire the BOTTOM 8%, not the top performers! I would lay off the bottom 8% and not hire anyone. If you've ever been to circuit city, there's at least 8% of the workforce there that could really just stay home, and it would honestly make shopping there easier (re: family guy parody episode).
stuff |
to go start there own electronic store....
With blackjack, and hookers..ahhh forget the electronic store.
with repects to Bender.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well not in that company but in another one thou got one beter right after that. Anyway in here that would be higly illegal. We have actually laws that makes peoples lives much easier and protected. Unlike in US where they can do almost anything to you if they want.
. . . it had fired 3,400 of its highest-paid sales staff [CC] [MD] [GC] -- 8% of its employees -- and will replace them with lower-paid workers.
It's a good thing that higher pay doesn't correlate to higher age. Otherwise, some one might file a class action lawsuit for age discrimination.
So you tell me that your last good dollar is gone
and you say that your pockets are bare.
And you tell me that your clothes are tattered and torn
and nobody seems to care.
Now don't tell me your troubles,
no I don't have the time to spare.
But if you want to get together and fight
good buddy that's what I want to hear.
And you tell me that your job was taken away
by a big ol' greasy machine.
And you tell me that you don't collect no more pay
and your belly is growing lean.
Now if I had the jobs to give
you know I'd give them all away.
But don't waste your breath calling out my name
if you don't have nothing to say.
And you tell me that you don't have nothing to do
and you keep on wasting your time.
And you say when you want to get your family some food
you gotta stand in a relief line.
Now it's a sin and a bloody shame
'bout the way they're pushing you 'round.
But when you decide not to take no more
you know I'll put my money down.
'Cause I've seen your kind many times before
And I'll see 'em many times again.
Oh but every bad thing that's happened to you
has happened to better men.
So don't explain that you've lost your way
that you've got no place to go.
You've got a hand and a voice and you're not alone
Brother that's all you need to know.
And if you're still wondering what I'm trying to say
let me tell you what it's all about.
Now nobody listens to a single man
when he's walkin' 'round down and out.
So if you're looking for an answer
he's standing there by your side.
And you'll never really know how far you'll go
'til you join together and try.
They did this about six years ago. It didn't kill them then. But with all the contributing factors in their downward spiral, it probably wasn't any extra load on that camel. This time though... I give them 12 more months before they start closing more stores.
Someone hates these cans.
If you don't own your own business you are at the mercy of your employer.
I'm a freelance programmer but also work a 40 hour job that could easily kick me out on the street with little or no reasoning (tho I do trust they won't because of their friendly track record). I might would disagree with their decision to can me, but I wouldn't even go as far as to think it immoral or unkind, unless it really were.. ie. based on race or age. I don't think this case with CC is either one of these. That said, I would like to see Circuit City get a brain and try to revamp their sales approach and store layouts so they could actually compete with best buy. Bad PR decisions like this don't always sort out the underlying issues and can make turning around even harder in the long run.
If that tends to be their policy, I'd be willing to be the CEO of the company for a quarter to half of what their current guy makes...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It hasn't panned out too well for Northwest Airlines yet...I am guessing it won't work much better for CC...at least customers lives aren't at risk with CC though...
dB Masters
So they will be replacing 3400 jobs averaging $62K with jobs averaging $21K.
I'm holding back my rant on livable wages and what I think about moves like this by corporations.
Hobby Robotics
No, what's scary is not the notion that the red shirts were referred to as "best in their field" but that people can with a straight face say they think $11/hour is highly paid. If they reduced all those people to minimum-wage, they'd only save $40M. That works out to a per-store savings of a whopping $167/day. How much do you think the profit margin is on a $7500 TV? These "overpaid" (now non-commissioned) salespeople could make up that "savings" in revenue by selling a single damned stereo per day
I should never have to worry about something like that. Oh wait......
There are alot of people who would like to be me. I just haven't met them yet.
i had a similar experience working for a telephone based fundraising business (not incredibly similar), where i was payed partially on commission for raising money for republican interest groups and the nra. it was a great job... just not something that i would want to do for xx hours per week. the requirement for this position is 20hrs/wk, which was more than i could spare. my first day, i managed 25% of the income for the campaign i worked. ultimately, the hour requirements weren't my cup of coffee, so i left.
maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it make sense to bend over backwards to [i]keep[/i] your best staff? why not dispose of some of the obscenely overpaid suits?
There are plenty of jobs at CompUSA! They should just move on over to th... oh, wait.
...why you can't get any help that's of any use from retail clerks. The corporate model isn't geared toward customer service and nobody seems to be understanding this. I don't know what the alternative is, but I'll tell you when someone has earned multiple raises to become the highest paid in a store, most of the time (if not always), especially in a place like Circuit City, it's because they are good at what they do. They are probably the knowledgeable staff that actually help you with issues versus the weekend/school workers that are just there to collect enough to pay for the keg of beer. Nowadays you have to spend all day researching most purchases just to insure you aren't getting screwed because the staff at the store know nothing, the people that stock the shelves know nothing and sometimes even the people at the electronics companies know nothing about what they are making or selling. You get what you pay for I suppose.
This country is out of production and manufacturing and is now relying upon sales, research and services for job growth. The simple fact of the matter is that the children of the largest section of the population that lied on factory jobs is waking up to find themselves forced into retail after high school. Certainly there are colleges, education, etc but like it or not some people don't always have these options. When you are forced to get a job out of high school nowadays it's usually at a circuit city or a walmart. Maybe this is why I agree with the Green Party in saying that they should make $10 an hour minimum wage. The simple fact is that it would force companies to pay a decent living wage for these workers they take for granted, play around with, throw everything on top of and then throw out the door once they start advancing their supposed "career." I for one will never shop at Circuit City again.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Ha ha!
Stocks are property, yes.
Bonds are property, yes.
Machines, land, buildings are property, yes.
A job is property,
no, nix, nah, nah.
--Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The modern version of the good 'ol fashioned American Dream...
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy."
What do employee/employer relationships at Best Buy have to do with democracy? Nobody has subverted representative government here. One particular corporate entity has made a business decision to cut labor costs by getting rid of some of its more highly-paid employees. There's no violation of contract, no usurpation of rights. There is no right to employment in the United States, and never has been.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Inquiring minds want to know.
Another corporation decides that saving a few dollars is more important than creating a stable work environment. I am sure CC will defend their actions by saying they need to be competitive, just like Wal-Mart in their similar policy of salary-capping their "associates" (which basically has the same effect as CC's action, the idea being workers will move on voluntarily once they hit the cap).
Why is it, then, that Costco is kicking Wal-Mart's (and Sam's Club's) in growth and profitibility? Costco pays their workers on average almost twice as much as Wal-Mart, and has generally employee-friendly benefits and policies. And they're making a ton of cash, too. Maybe, just maybe, it is actually GOOD for business to create a positive working environment, retain staff, and have good morale.
The Costco Way - Business Week (couple years old but relevant)
During my time in college I worked for both Circuit City and Best Buy in the same town. Overall I think CC treated their employees better. Everyone wants to boycott CC for screwing their employees over but they're missing a few important bits of information on how things work there. I'll see if I can shed some light. When CC went from commission to non-commissoned sales they gave their old employees one HELL of a deal. They tallied up everything the employee had made in the previous year (including comissions) and made that their new hourly wage. We had people at our store making $19 dollars an hour because of this. $19 an hour........selling digital cameras. Compare this to the $9.50 an hour that someone who came in after the commission/non-commision switch, and you can easily see that there were a lot of SERIOUSLY overpaid sales staff. These people weren't necessarily the best salesman they were just the ones that had happened to have been around at the right time. So this is not a killer of the american dream. This is not a case of canning people who have worked their way up the sales ladder. This is merely cutting some bloat, getting the labor prices back down to reasonable levels. Having been an employee (one of the $9.50 ones) I can say: good for them! Some of the $19 an hour people were WORSE salesman than I was. Now they can possibly get to a situation where people get raises based on merit as opposed to not being able to afford to give ANYONE raises because you have emplyoees being paid twice what they're worth.
Earlier this week, I hated BB because they swallowed up Speakeasy. Now I hate Circuit City, so things are good with my ISP/Big Box conglomerate again.
:)
I kid, I kid... I still hate BB, and more so since Tuesday.
yesterday. Hmmm... Idiots. I hope the employees that are laid off get better paying more fulfilling jobs.
I'm not going to Worst Buy or Circuiy Shitty anymore. Go NewEgg!
This is why unions exist. I agree with people who say that no-one owes me a job. If they want they can fire my ass just because they want to, to cut costs if they want. They can they agree to rehire me later for less money. However I do not have to work for some company either. I can get together with a bunch other employees and form a union. We can insist on better pay and treatment and insist that we aren't treated like shit. They company doesn't have to listen to us. It can ignore us and fire us all and go out of business if it wants. Then maybe the employees will perhaps get some better health benefits and better pay and contracts that stop the company from abusing its workers. Bottom line: whats good for the goose is good for the gander. If you are gonna insist its a dog eat dog world then sometimes the company get to be bitten too and it too will suffer. So no wining about abusive unions....circuit city asked for this.
But, as someone with a degree in economics, I love to throw this argument out to people who act like they know WTF they are talking about:
If this is a free market, and people are resources, why shouldn't someone start a company, much like a union or guild, that manages the sale of labor? A union is a business whose product is selling labor.
Oh, there's a whole lot of information, debate, and schools of thought around unions and labor, but the above simplicity usually makes the armchair Randians STFU.
What amazes me about this is, i know they will lose atleast myself as a customer from this move.
I doubt im the only one.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
Whenever a company has to derive profit from the salary of their employees its a sure sign that the company is on the brink of bankruptcy.
Don't believe me? Check out their ticker today. $18 and falling.
I'm not sure I'd want to make a purchase there - they may not be around to service their warranty or return policy.
Oh yes, I am sure that the senior management of CC will also be fired and offered the chance to apply for their jobs at lesser salary packages ...oh sorry, that would be Leadership.
Even better, how about firing 8% of management employees above the store level, and see if that changes anything.
In Canada CC bought out Radio Shack (but not the name) and made it "The Source: by Circuit City."
Last time I was in one of their stores a sales drone told me, in all seriousness, that he didn't know how many milli-amps there were in an amp.
Three Squirrels
Behind all of this is the mentality that the only way to become more profitable is to reduce wage expenses. This is the typical beancounter mentality that all American companies seem to suffer from today.
You know, if they fired all the high-paid beancounters, they could probably hire 3,400 additional highest-paid sales-staff and actually make more money through increased sales! Instead, they have decreased sales-staff (no matter how temporarily) which will definitely decrease sales/profits and they still have the beancounters, who don't sell a damned thing, on salary.
the "American Dream" working at Circuit City (Best Buy, WalMart, etc...), you deserve whatever you get...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
If you think the American Dream was ever anything more than exactly what it says it is (a dream), I'm sorry pal, but the joke is on you. The American Dream, like religions and ideology, has been given to us in order to keep us motivated in our task of generating more wealth for the elites and upper classes, obeying their rules, and perpetuating the class system that keeps the elite in power.
Isn't it unfair to those people Circuit City will employ who are willing to work at the lower wage if CC doesn't do this?
I mean if there is more supply of labour then demand then the price should be lowered. I don't understand why people think seniority matters in a low end job, its not that the skills and training you require to do a passable job are unatainable. If you want to be paid more you have to be worth more to the company.
Selling electronics from a brick and mortar store is a thing of the past. My parents will still buy their television at a store. I might buy one out of ten electronic devices at a store, but my kids, I imagine, will buy online and have it delivered to them.
In my area, CompUSA is gone, Fry's never showed up, Circuit City is dying, and only BestBuy, Staples (et. al.) and Apple are left. But go to BestBuy and you'll see that they don't know anything about the products they sell either. Go to Staples and it's much worse.
****Disclaimer: I do not own a Mac, but I do own an iPod****
Only the Apple store has people who know about the product they sell. The problem there is that they either don't know about PCs or are so starry-eyed about Apple that they can only denigrate anything else that isn't Apple made.
My kids won't know much about brick and mortar electronics stores. They will evaluate, comparison shop, and buy on the web. In other words, this is just another company imploding through its own stupidity.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
The bottom 90% is losing ground. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.h tml?ei=5065&en=f30aed8087a73065&ex=1175745600&part ner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Why they don't just restructure sales staff's pay to be mostly commission-only. That way they don't cost anything if they don't sell anything, and anybody earning more money is actually worth it.
It bears mentioning that this layoff isn't just sales. It is *any* hourly associate making $.50 above an unrevealed cap for that position (the cap appears to be industry ave. pay for that position). So there are Customer Service, delivery guys, techs as well. I know this cause I am one of the layoffees. Circuit City ain't exactly a career, but it also isn't McDonald's. Many of you mention clueless associates, and poor service, which certainly exists. Most of these clueless are people hired to replace the well-trained people laid off when they got rid of commission. In short, they just got rid of the rest of us that new our butts from a hole in the ground to be replaced by cheaper clueless clerks, and not just sales, as I said. One of you guys (can't remember who..) said "doubling someone's pay wont make them smarter." I agree with that, but these were mostly people who earned what they made. "Wow, you are doing a great job here is a raise. Now you're too expensive, you're fired." And before you complain about the quality of service you personally have experienced, remember these competent people account for only 8% of the nationwide staff, and so you probably never ran into one. I wonder though, how much money will this save, and how much will it cost? Most of these people are only making $3-5/hr more than their replacements, but CC will lose revenue from customers not being helped (low staffing until replacements are hired), poor customer service increasing, and from boycotts and the like. O'Krap PS Are you hiring? :)
What I am getting at is this: Circuit City doesn't care one whit about the success of our civilization, and accordingly, the value of their employees as ANYTHING OTHER than "human resources" is essentially nil. There is no value in seeing them as people, because well, it makes them just slightly less profitable. Can't have that now.
Actually, they can't. If they don't cut corners, someone else (Walmart) will. And if they can't keep their overhead low enough to compete with Walmart, the consumers will shop at Walmart instead. If the consumers shop at Walmart instead, Circuit City will have to cut employees and close stores that are close to Walmarts.
The end result would be exactly the same. Some number of CC stores would close, Walmart would take over the market segment and would rehire some portion those former CC employees at a lower wage.
So you can't really say that CC is being unethical here, they're just doing what they can in a crappy situation. And it's not like taking down Walmart would end it either. There is a huge demand in the American public for low cost goods. If Walmart wasn't available to fulfill that need, someone else (KMart, ShopKo, Sams, etc...) would gladly move to fill it.
And it's not like legislating it will improve it either. With the continued growth of Internet commerce, you have international competition from organizations that are not subject to US labor laws.
Point being, so long as consumers demand the lowest possible price on goods, companies will have to cut corners to remain competitive in that market segment. If you actually want to look for someplace to start working on a solution, look at consumer debt, that's the real demon.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
It just so happens that the majority like to shop at places like Circuit City and... gack... Wal Mart. In that sense, democracy triumphed over the minority using capitalism as a means. Arguably, it triumphed over the majority as well as the minority. How is that possible? Well... it's just self-destructive tendancy en masse. Yep. The whole country has gone self-mutilating emo. Excuse me. The sun is out. I need to either hide from it, or burn myself with a magnifying glass.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I suggest you do a little research.
http://a-76.nih.gov/a76_rev2003.pdf
If you want to make more than the minimum wage, then learn to do something worth more than the minimum wage.
Yes, it sucks that CEOs are paid so much, especially when they're not worth it. But moaning that the CEO makes too much is just scapegoating. It's like complaining that people win the lottery.
Not paying you what you want has nothing to do with how much the CEO makes. In fact, the CEO's *JOB* is to not pay you any more than they have to. That's what companies do.
But you know what? This works both ways. You can work for anybody you want! So find a better job, and work that one!
The problem here isn't that the company is always looking for lower-cost labor. The problem here is that the labor isn't always looking for a better-paying job. If the labor spent as much effort trying to get higher pay as the companies spent trying to pay less, maybe the labor would be making more money.
paintball
Screw the notion of entitlement. Death to RIAA!!
I'm walking in the door of the same motel building I walked into 17 years ago.
I started as a one night a week night auditor. Now I run the joint...
The hospitality industry is -I believe -the last industry that really enables people to move up readily based on ability.
My first day in this building was in April of 1990, and here it is, 2007.. I'm still here..... damn...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Ah yes...
Circuit Shitty , I never shop there because of a serious problem I had with "them" in 1989.
Haven't been back since!
By the way...
The Good Guys, are.
That's the whole point. If they can make $30 million more by NOT paying you, then guess what? They should fire you! You're not worth the $30 million.
That's like your plumber telling you "Hey, uh, you should really pay me twice as much, because if you don't, you're just going to keep the money for yourself."
If you want money, EARN it. Don't expect it to just be handed to you.
paintball
After I read this article yesterday I sent an email to their customer service department via the "contact us" link on their site and told them that they had lost a long-time customer over these announced "layoffs".
This is the response I received:
Dear XX,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We value our customers' feedback.
As we stated in our news release yesterday, we are taking a number of actions to improve our cost and expense structure. We are holding ourselves accountable to our associates, our customers, our communities, and our shareholders to build a strong company that generates sustainable growth for the future.
Our goal is to provide superior service while effectively competing against low-cost retailers. We are working towards this goal by making changes, such as announced yesterday, and with the help of over 40,000 associates who keep our customers at the center of everything we do. We hope you will allow our Circuit City team to serve you in the future.
Sincerely,
M. Garcia
Customer Support Coordinato
Seems to me they would be better served by canning the upper management that is so far removed from the customer experience in their stores to actually float this idea.
10 weeks pay by any chance??? I'm just curious about the 10 week gap before they can re apply for work there... maybe it's to do with benefits claims or something, maybe they can't claim unemployment if they're only off for 10 weeks. Some one over there please enlighten us...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Wrong. Their high end employees were replaced. The jobs we do not want to do(they are below us) in our industry got outsourced. Unless you were doing tech support, your probably are not hugely effected by outsourcing. Exceptions, of course, exist.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Reminds of the line from Amadeus: "The triumph of mediocrity".
[Insert pithy quote here]
I don't know everything, but it seems to me that the American Dream and what it takes has evolved and will continue to evolve. No longer can you just work hard and get your way to the top. How many posts on this article say that they work hard and it's not getting them anywhere.
The world is a very big place - much bigger than it was 50 years ago. To achieve success, long, hard hours is assumed, and always will be. But as time goes on, those who succeed above and beyond the rest must combine this hard work with smarts and cleverness, applied at just the right point in time.
I believe, in general, the world will pay you what you're worth. If you're doing the same thing that millions of other workers are doing, you'll probably get paid the same as they will. Remember, by default, the majority of us are "on average."
Think of it as:
1) You work for a corporation.
2) Profit is a corporation's (sole) objective.
3) It doesn't matter how good you are in your field: if someone will do the same thing you do well enough (i.e. not so bad that it would damage the profit) then, seriously, what you expect?
^[:q!
If your company sucks, leave it and go work somewhere else.
If you CHOOSE to continue working there, you deserve what you get. Just because it's easier to continue going to the same job forever doesn't mean it isn't your fault for choosing the easy way.
Employees need to pull their heads out of their butts and spend just as much effort looking for a better job as companies spend looking for cheaper employees. The people who do that are the ones who end up with better jobs, and the people who don't are the ones who end up stuck in the same job until the company downsizes.
Beat the company at their own game - LEAVE your job for a BETTER one!
paintball
Since when does highest paid equal best performing?? In my experience in noncommissioned retail jobs. Highest paid typically = been with the company the longest. The problem is retail for the most part is a pretty unskilled job. Why pay someone more and more each year to do the same the job?
Kilroy was here.
In the very near future, a retail electronics "outlet" will consist of little more than a warehouse and a pickup counter (maybe even a drive-thru). All research, purchase decisions, and ordering will be done online. The need for showrooms will be eliminated by liberal return policies (with liberal fine print no doubt).
I'm not saying this scenario is desireable, but current economic trends I believe make it inevitable.
Yet another company dooms itself to failure by kicking out management.
When times are tough, the smartest and most experienced people are exactly the ones you need to grow your business out of its problem. Now they have a balanced budget but no way to fix the original problem. Smart move. I give them a year before they implode.
I know you didn't major in Economics! The $30 million they "save" on wages will quickly have a major impact on lost sales and other losses. Those $30 million probably paid for their most experienced workers - and now they'll lose sales capacity, knowledge and experience in one fell swoop. And I am not referring to their technical knowledge alone - but the corporate business routines. The corporate machine will not run as smooth. I appreciate the need to save however this is literally cutting of your arms and legs.
They already did this in 2003 and like the article says: "At the time, the move hurt the company's sales, Whalin said."
It's more like the plumber not getting paid by his employers - they will loose sales and skills.
If you want to earn money - invest time and money.
>They will become K-Mart
:)
...
Excellent! There's a K-Mart near me, and the prices
rock
'course, I don't feel safe going in there unarmed
Circuit City was identified as the best performing company in Jim Collins' book, Good to Great. Over about 15 years, Circuit City transitioned from a mediocre retailer to a phenomenally performing company, beating the market over 18-fold over 15 years (1982 - 1997)! (p7 of the book).
So what happened?
I no longer shop at the local CC if I can avoid it. Black Friday last year they were a complete mess. It took several minutes to process a customer. Rebates were filled out by clerks, keeping the line waiting. Lines were randomly woven throughout the shopping aisles: you didn't know what aisle you were in and customers were kept from shopping by the congestion. Presently, during normal shopping, their checkout system is quite slow and cumbersome.
In contrast, Best Buy was very well organized and the checkout lines as fast as possible.
Where did the "great" Circuit City go?
Even during
ShoutingMan.com
I almost missed this comment, glad I lowered the threshold.
You can really see the "me" generation in these replies. Just because someone chooses to work in retail does not mean they aren't good at anything else. Some people enjoy working retail. It's amazing how people, especially here, seem to think that unless you are out clawing your way to the top of the corporate ladder by stepping on everyone else then you are a nobody.
My grandfather was a salesman for Sears & Roebuck. He worked there from the time he was 30 until the day he retired at 72. He was proud of what he did, and enjoyed every day of it. Back then people being a salesman was a noble profession. He knew every product he sold (appliances, hardware, etc.) and if a customer came in he would listen to them and recommend the best solution -- even if it was not a Sears solution.
I am sure there are people who work at Circuit City who are modern day versions of him. They may enjoy what they do, and enjoy helping people make the right decisions. Now, instead of cutting the fat from the top of this tanking company, they decide to attack the low level employees. I can tell you right now I will never shop there again.
People deserve respect no matter what they do in life. I'm shocked and disgusted by how I see people not only on this forum but elsewhere just have such utter disrespect for those who have lower-level jobs than they do.
Remember, at the end of life you are just as dead as the salesclerk, janitor or dishwasher will be. Try showing a bit of kindness and respect, you might be surprised how well that goes over.
Here at /. there seems to be a general support for paying people for their skills. Now, if Circuit City did that, it follows that the top-paid store workers would also be the most knowledgeable about the products sold - or at least the employees with the longest experience in the field and the greatest loyalty reflected by their staying in the company and having gotten raises to bring them where they are now. So imagine this conversation:
- Say, there is Frank? He always had the best contacts in the field and knew the latest release dates straight from the source...
- Oh, he was laid off for earning too much money. He went to work for EB two blocks away.
- EB two blocks away, you say? *leaves and never returns*
Maybe Circuit City are satisfied with the following exchange?
- Excuse me, will this game work on my PC? I have a...
- Shut up and buy something!
Perhaps that's a reason for dwindling number of PC games in the stores: Selling PC games actually requires technical knowledge.
Maybe the execs should try to look at how much revenue they bring in personally. If you can keep 500 in-store employees by firing one suit, why wouldn't you? (The answer is of course because the suit is one of the same group that would do the firing.)
Circuit City, Best Buy, all the rest aren't interested and won't and can't help you with anything you want unless you're buying a big ticket item anyway. They could eliminate most of their floor space and most of their employees outright by pushing everything except flat screen TV's, car stereos, and appliances to the web. They don't need retail floor space for PC's, cameras, game consoles or any of the add-ons' like multifunction printers, scanners, drives and networking equipment. And racks of software, DVDs, CDs and games is just stupid. In other words, they should just brand all that stuff, stick on the web like CDW and leave the retail space for the high margin items.
The fired workers have a chance to apply for lower-paying positions after a 10-week wait, the company said.
However, that circuit city feels that they can exercise their lack of loyalty so egregiously is disgusting.
Recently, my girlfriend dumped me but said I was encouraged to reapply for the position of "friend" instead. I told her that if she upgraded the offer to "friends with benefits" that we could consider that a severance package for my being so loyal to her. She told me rather sternly to take or leave her original offer.
Bitch.
GMD
watch this
You see, they should have bought the "layoff protection plan" for $19.95. You can bring your job back to any Circuit City store for a replacement job, no questions asked.
CompUSA cut costs by closing stores; would it have been better for the employees on Circuit City if that happened?
There are/were simply to many of these same generic 'Box' stores around. CompUSA, Circuit City, Best Buy, overlapping with Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, and competing with Fry's, Target, Wal*Mart, Fred Meyer, Radio Shack... They utterly destroyed the small local computer shops with their over-expansion. With on-line sales now destroying the Box stores, there are just too many stores, and except for when something like the Wii launches, they are under customered.
I'm just waiting for Best Buy to fail utterly, I'd hate for them to be the sole survivor.
Circuit City laid off all of their best (highest paid) salespeople in 2003 and went to non-commisioned sales. Typical corporate thinking; if it didn't work the first time, you just didn't do enough of it. They also offered lower paid positions at the time, available immediately. Typically these were about 1/3 of current salary. Sorry I can't find a good link, WSJ has a good article if you pay for access.
We are born in Circuit City hospitals, we work in Circuit City outlets, and we are buried in Circuit City graveyards.
(yay pullman)
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Good point. I was talking more generically about corporations in general. I've heard about the hell that is floor jobs in retail, and never want to get into it. That said, I still think that even in retail, people underestimate the cost of training new hires.... what do you think?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Typically a business will pay its salesmen on commission. This has the result that the highest paid salesmen are also your most productive salesmen. They pay for themselves.
To lay off your most productive salesmen is an act of supreme stupidity.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
So, instead of depicting themselves as "lean and mean," they show that they're "skinny and psychotic."
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
New Egg Baby!
Oh, there's that and tons more problems. I never said that these "labor retailers" were monopolies (like unions). It just happens that traditional business models of unions require a monopoly to survive.
A better approach would be value-adds to both employee and employer, like a temp agency. That's why we've seen a big uptick in temp agencies in the last decade.
From my experience, hard work basically gets your... more work.
If you're in a union-style environment, hard work gets your work done just in time to have them ask you to do the work of the next guy who can't be fired (because he's union, and he hasn't done anything extreme like steal from the company, he just does 20% of the work you do).
If you're in a private/non-union environment, hard works gets your work done just in time to have the boss's son/nephew/niece/brother/cousin dump a bunch of half-baked shit on you... so you can fix up his mess so that he can tag out early head to the golf course.
..and he'll make really silly music? Okay, I don't listen to Phish. I just wanted to be the first on that joke.
from Engineering, not sales, jobs. The first time it was because I was the new guy without seniority. I found a better job before my termination pay ran out, although it was 1,000 miles away. The second time I was laid off because I was the senior higher paid guy. I changed careers for a few years and taught electronics instead of designing it, although I still kept my design hand in through consulting.
My point is that you can be laid off at either end of the spectrum. Feces occurs. There is no entitlement, and there shouldn't be. This isn't Soviet Russia....yet.
Be flexible. Roll with the punches. Have a "plan-B". Get used to it.
I wouldn't trade my career for anything. It's been good to me and allowed me to have a very good quality of life.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I think a lot of it depends on what type of retail. Clothing stores for example, training probably doesn't matter as much, there isn't too much product specific knowledge.
If you are selling electronics like in circuit city's case yes more knowledge and training will be required. But that has probably dropped of some recently as more and more customers are doing research before hand. Not to mention there a lot of high school and college students that know a lot about those products before hand. So the learning curve isn't has high for some employees.
It wouldn't surprise me if this might be more of move on Circuit City's part to dump some of their more expensive full time employees with benefits in favor of part time employees who don't receive any benefits.
Kilroy was here.
my girlfriend fired me, ops, dumped me and told me she would still like me to work in the "friend" position, with lower wages, ops, benefits, well, whatever. I said ok, and now she hardly says anything more than hi and goodbye to me. Since I am obviously not in the aforementioned "friend" position, should I sue her for breach of contract?
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
So let me get this straight.
Circuit City hired these employees, and set their salaries. When these employees were there long enough, or performed well enough, they were given raises, by Circuit City. And now, Circuit City has decided that they can't afford the salaries that they were responsible for setting?
What gets me is that they could have laid off the employees, and then a month or so later begun hiring new replacements. The ex-employees would have suspected (or even been sure of) that they were just cutting costs. But they come right out and admit that Circuit City's mistakes are costing the employees their jobs. What a set of cahones!
I cannot possibly fathom why this isn't grounds for a class-action lawsuit. Regardless of any "agreements" signed, this is not acting in good faith on the part of Circuit City. It also shows a serious lack of loyalty to those employees that Circuit City itself acknowledged were good enough to warrant raises. I hope Circuit City doesn't expect loyalty from the remaining employees in return.
Besides, what were the employees supposed to do? Turn down the raises because they were worried that they might out-earn their value!?
I think I'll choose to shop elsewhere.
Xesdeeni
Yes this is unfair (assuming the CEO wasn't included in the "highest paid get axed" scheme). But unless the highest paid sales staffers weren't being paid based on having the best performance; getting rid of them will *by definition* NOT increase profits.
My experience with Circuit City sales staffers has been that they are knowledgable and helpful without being pushy. As opposed to Best Buy's guys who say "Hi!" every two seconds, and then if you ask them something like, "Do have any bluetooth headsets?" will give you a blank look and reply, "Um, these one's over here are black and silver!".
People who know their wares make me more comfortable buying those wares than people who's knowledge is limited to which floor things are kept on. It seems to me that replacing effective salespeople with newbies will cut costs, but also sales, thus cutting profits.
Barring that though, it's easy enough to just make a big stink out of this and avoid Circuit City. If you lose more money by *publically* announcing you're getting rid of anyone experienced and competent (and generally treating workers like crap in the bargain), than you would by keeping them - you'll either avoid that odious behaviour... or lose in the marketplace to those wise enough to.
Why do I suspect the executives at Circuit City had some egregious bonus they could receive *IF ONLY* they could find some way to bump their stock price up a few points by the end of Q1 2007.
Great business plan, that. Now may I ask what incentive future Circuit City employees have to perform well? So they can guarantee that they will be the first employees fired in the next round of lay offs?
What's my incentive as a customer to now shop there, knowing they have fired their best salesman?
Ah well, what's the loss of a few thousand of your best performing employees, the good faith of your customers, or the long-term financial health of your investors?
Yes, and steel, and mining, and longshoremen making $80K/year which gets added to the cost of all imported goods, etc, etc, etc...
The bottom 90% in the US is "maintaining" a lifestyle by borrowing, that will eventually collapse.
I'm curious, what do you call accumulating debt while others accumulate wealth?
That's what the gov't did. Poverty income for a family of 4 in Oklahoma is something like 18k. I'm sorry, but if you're a family of 4 living on 30k in Oklahoma you're poor and Oklahoma has one of the lowest costs of living in the states.
I don't generally shop at Circuit City, but from what I hear a major complaint that many people have is that most of the sales staff have no idea what they hell they're talking about. If you're trying to sell electronic equipment, it helps to know what it is that you're selling.
I don't shop there generally myself but I go in occasionally. And while I sometimes find a worker there who knows what they're talking about most don't. When I go to a store I want to be left alone until I have questions, and I want someone who is knowledgeable. This is getting harder and harder.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is pretty much like some people not realizing the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome. Unfortunately not everyone has the same opportunities depending on where they live and their socioeconomic background.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Now if they'd only cut the top 8% of management (presumably higher paid than the sales staff), THEN they would be accomplishing something!
I used to love Best Buy and even was bragging about the $4.50 voice recognition with microphone I found there on clearance. Being a loyal customer I went in to buy a laptop. Some cute young guy pressured me to do their finance plan with 0% interest. I firmly told him no! He wasted a half-hour of my time trying to convince me if a got a card how much sense it would make, but since my credit card, checkbook, and debit card were ready to pay the mere ~$1K or so I continued to say no. Then I went to the cashier and had some special paperwork to fill out since it was a large ticket item and I had to register the pre-installed microsoft software and free internet service. Well the cashier made three mistakes and I believe the young salesman convinced him to install the Best Buy credit card as well. By this point (45 minutes later!), I was late to an appointment and badly needed to go to the bathroom. The pathetic cashier tried to take off the BBcredit card and failed. He said a manager would be with me in another 20 minutes. I gave in. The laptop completely broke in about a week, I bought it to go out of town on business so I didn't need the internet, and I couldn't pay off the bill since I did not recieve it and was out-of-town. (All of my other bills are autodeducted [which takes 30 days and my trip was in a week], I desperately needed a computer to go out of town, due to the classified environment of my 3 month business trip-- I had very limited work access.) I couldn't pay online since my machine was broken. Who knows what this has done to my credit and I probably have some never-used "loose" Microsoft account that I cannot get to to save my life. I tried calling to no avail. I haven't been back to best buy in three years when I used to go there every month. Their sales guys may be good in the short run, but I don't know about the long run. This from someone with SPOTLESS credit who just got a mortgage a couple months earlier, so has records to prove it. For those of you in the DC area, this was the Route 7 Tysons area BB near Tiffanys.
~5 minutes away I bought a new laptop from Circuit City at Tyson's I mall in VA. It also broke within 3 days, but I showed the cute young sales guy who sold it to me there and he let me pay the difference right there for a better one. No pressure for anything-in and out in 5 minutes. It still works and all was paid off that day. I LOVE YOU CC GUYS!!! LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU! RADIO SHACK, newegg.com, and pricewatch.com THANK YOU AS WELL. If you are from Best Buy and know a good manager I can talk to *please* post the Manager's *DIRECT* line/extension. Thank you!!!!
Because it has happened before. Early 1970's and Travelers insurance company did the same thing in their DP department. How do I know? Well, my father was at the top of the list of those "laid off". To this day, Travelers HR tells people that they have never laid people off in their history.
Or how about Aetna? One days some years back, all employees were required to be at there desk at 8am one particular morning. If your phone range, you were fired.
So, to those of you all upset abotu this one. Well, where were you then?
I might shop there again if they changed their GD rebate lies. They screwed my household when three different people in the household bought laptops, and they noticed the address and denied one of them.
Another time I bought somthing and the online cart listed them as BOTH being eligible for rebate, and docked the price acordingly, only to have them turn around and deny one of them.
Liars and thieves, the whole lot.
Hell, fire your web site company while your at it, and get someone who doesnt spend as much money attempting to mislead customers.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Don't do like they did. If you take away their public failure kids will emulate their non-working, shifty asses.
Stay awake in school, work hard or prepare to eat a lot of mac and cheese in a weekly residential apartment.
I think your confusing ambition and drive. Ambition is the desire to succeed. Drive is the internal energy to actually do something to succeed.
Rich kids often have ambition but no drive.
You don't have to be a workaholic to succeed. Many a workaholic is burned out by 35. Working and playing hard and smart is the key (but beware the manager that uses that worn out phrase).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I dunno. By the mid 1990s, Apple, Inc. was losing money hand over fist. Apple bought NeXT (and Steve Jobs) and made him CEO of Apple. Jobs turned the company around and made it into the profitable company that it is today.
:)
Do you honestly think that 400 of Apple's finest engineers (or any 400 people you pick) could have done what Steve Jobs did and made Apple profitable again? (Ignoring, for the moment, that his salary at the time was $1)
Really, CEOs are worth 400x the regular employees. The good ones are, anyhow.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Hell, in an ideal world, machines would do all the work and we'd just sit on our asses all day.
When you have a machine do the job of a human, you take away somethng from the human.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You are an idiot that buys the worst possible car on the market and has the nerve to rip GM.
BTW VWs sales figures are awful. They reflect the lack of quality and maintainability the new VWs are affected with. Everybody from 'Consumer Reports' on up rates the last ten years of VWs as terrible. Don't walk away, run.
Enjoy taking you car to the dealer to get the spark plugs changed or the transmission fluid topped off. Mechanics love VWs (well they love getting all the work, they hate doing it because it's such shit work). First step to change the brake master cylinder in a new beetle? Remove front bumper (no exaggeration).
VW can't make a good water cooled car to save its life.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is the one of the most flagrant and egregious acts I have ever heard of. Corporate America has sunk to new all time lows. Well, Circuit City won't be getting my business (not that it really amounts to much anyway.) Have you ever noticed how the company asks, no demands, absolute loyalty from its employees but shows no reciprocity? At least in Japan, as a salaryman, you are shown the reciprocal amount of loyalty that you invest. Well, I can only hope that the media will spread this story like a firestorm and cause Circuit City to get a monster-sized case of acid indigestion. This has to be also one of the most ill-conceived plans to have ever been drafted. Was there that much utter disregard to the public relations nightmare that would ensue? Some heads will roll over this one.
If the company shows no loyalty to its employees, the employees owe no loyalty to the company.
I would steal as much I could if I worked at Circuit City.
No chance of advancing from $8 to $13/hr?
Steal a digital camera a week and boost your salary by several hundred dollars.
Customer has a question about product features? Who gives a f***?
But I've been avoiding them since they tried to screw up DVDs with Divx in the 90s.
Seriously if you think firing the most expensive people doing the same job is unreasonable and unfair you need a big reality check.
The reason employers are very reluctant to hire someone in the environment you describe is obvious to all but the most dim.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
But enough of this shit about the American dream! let's talk about what really matters, the great Samoian dream!
"Our enemies will talk themselves to death and we will bury them in their own confusion!"
I've been a loyal Micro Center customer ever since I bought my first PC, a 386, at the Columbus, OH store in 1986 or 87 (not sure exactly). It was the Micro Center house brand, Laser, and was an excellent computer. (Some of my young family members still use it for playing old games.) Over the last three or four years, however, I've become increasingly dissatisfied with the BestBuy-ization of their stores: the sales people aren't knowledgeable, after-sale service is really a crap shoot, there for a while the store was rearranged considerably every time I went in (I've stopped in at least once a month or so ever since that initial purchase). These days I find that it's only good for if I know exactly what the SKU is that I want before going in, need a decent price, and need it in hand today. And even then I somehow wind up disappointed with the experience.
Does anyone know of a better local store (Columbus, OH) where I can pick up parts when I need them the same day? If I can wait, I order from Newegg, but I can't always wait.
They just joined my boycott list. Alongside WalMart and Microsoft. These corporations disgust me with their "business" practices, and I choose not to supply these asshole executives with any more of that money they did not earn. I pray that all 3 go out of fucking business someday.
Death is life's great reward. R. Hoek
Why not fire the people who have made the silly decisions in the first place, the same people who get paid lots of money for sitting on there arse's dream about the next 5 years.
Its all coming down to people wanting there 20% growth in 1 year, more money to the share holders.....
sad sad sad
How about making the store not suck? Wow, what a concept!
Maybe if the store didn't suck people would shop there and buy things.
Oh no, the ship is sinking! Quick, throw the crew overboard!
What disgusts me most about the Circuit City scenario (which is also played out in many other industries every day) is that these "artificial persons" (for what is a corporation if not a legally recognized entity under law?) have forsaken their responsibility to society in order to worship at the altar of profitability.
They haven't forsaken it, corporations were ordered to abandon such responsibility by the courts; one of the last legal legacies of the robber baron age of capitalism.
And, yes, "artificial person" is the correct legal phrase according to my fifth edition of The Law Dictionary (based on the 1888 Cochran's Law Lexicon).
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The only people hiring now are lower-paid jobs like Wal Mart.
No wonder you're -1. *rolls eyes*
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Posting anonymously because some of my clients read /. and know I post here occasionally too.
I work in sales. I have for almost 20 years now. I started in retail back in high-school - home appliances. Did pretty well, but saw that it was a total dead-end. Went to college, worked my way through it by selling cars. Once I got the hang of it it was great money and a free car. Based on my performance (I was routinely at the top) I was made a manager even though I was only part-time. By the time I was two years out of college, I was managing the dealership and making 6 figures easily. Three years after that, I decided I was tired of selling cars and moved into tech, where I have been ever since.
I have a soul. I don't try to jam people and get them to buy unless it'll actually do something for 'em. I never pushed anyone to buy beyond their means when I was selling to consumers, and now that I do corporate sales I don't push stuff that just isn't needed. I try to add value where I can - yeah, part of my job is to get you to buy stuff, but a big part of my job is also to try to make your job easier by figuring out what you need and getting it to you. I work pretty hard - 60 hour weeks on average, sometimes more, sometimes less - but I like what I do so it isn't a hardship.
Last year I pulled in 7 figures. This year looks to be about the same. I'm going to be turning 40 next year and I could retire in comfort if I wanted to.
What's my point? My point is that I started in retail and I was good at what I did, and I got better at what I did, and I made things happen for myself. Nobody who's the "top of their field" in sales is going to sit on their ass working for Circuit City. Sales is the one career path that's a pure meritocracy - you make your sales, you get your commissions, and if you do better than everyone else you get bumped up, or you say fuck it and walk to go somewhere that rewards people who make money for 'em. I've showed my employers exactly the level of loyalty that they've shown me
So no, I don't have any pity for these people working at Circuit City. If they're any good at sales, they can go anywhere else and make a damn good living. If they aren't, well, then maybe they should have picked up some other skills along the way.
Mercenary and damn proud of it.
There aint no class war, there's a class massacre. McCollough retired in 2006, but I don't want to go through the most recent proxy. Sorry, a bit dated. W. Alan McCollough Chief Executive Officer Circuit City Stores Inc. In 2005, W. Alan McCollough raked in $5,470,049 in total compensation including stock option grants* from Circuit City Stores Inc.. From previous years' stock option grants, the Circuit City Stores Inc. executive cashed out $3,052,902 in stock option exercises. And W. Alan McCollough has another $20,773,329 in unexercised stock options from previous years.
The reason we are not as "wealthy" today as we were previously is because of excessive government regulation stifling innovation, manufacturing, and over the top taxation.
Libertas in infinitum
>Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We value our customers' feedback.
>
>As we stated in our news release yesterday, we are taking a number of actions
>to improve our cost and expense structure. We are holding ourselves accountable
>to our associates, our customers, our communities, and our shareholders to build
>a strong company that generates sustainable growth for the future.
>
>Our goal is to provide superior service while effectively competing against
>low-cost retailers. We are working towards this goal by making changes, such as
>announced yesterday, and with the help of over 40,000 associates who keep our
>customers at the center of everything we do. We hope you will allow our Circuit City
>team to serve you in the future.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>M. Garcia
>Customer Support Coordinator
There -- I said it. A strong union wouldn't let a company get away with this kind of shit.
Circuit City (is that the right one? they're all the same although they're owned by different people) has found that there is not enough difference in the sales between higher paid floor workers and poorly paid ones. That means their stuff either sells itself and people are just using the store as a 'warehouse', or, customers have no need for the higher level of knowledge that the more-experienced (the higher paid) floor workers have about the products on sale.
Also, are the positions being eliminated spread around the USA? or are they mostly in one geographic area? People in San Jose (you know which San Jose I'm talking about, you are Slashdaughters!) are going to make more money regardless of their experience level than people in, say, the central mid-west where the cost of living is cheaper. Will Circuit City fire 50% of the people in the Silicon Valley stores and offer those jobs to people in central Nebraska? Or will they just close stores in high-salary areas? Or is it 8% of the highest paid people in each store?
Has anyone else noticed how eBay (and CraigsList)has made stores like Circuit City obsolete? Why doesn't Circuit City accept items for sale on consignment? Not just Plasma TVs, but speciality electronic items like an original Jimi Hendrix FuzzFace guitar distortion with original Germanium transistors.
They are an electonics store, aren't they? Then why do they have such a difficult time actually selling electronics? Why are they so fucking inflexible?
I'm seeing a number of comments along the lines of, "The American Dream is a fantasy; no one's entitled to a steady paycheck," and, to a certain extent, I agree with those sentiments. Expecting lifetime employment with a single company -- at least in the US -- is, I think, naive. In my experience, asking US businesses to supply permenant employment for everyone is like asking God to make a sunny day last forever. It's a nice dream, but no matter how hard you wish for it, it's just not going to happen, at least not today.
Still, the American Dream has never been about entitlement. Some home-grown Americans seem to think it is, but immagrants know better. Poor, huddled masses don't leave their homes by the millions and come to America because they know there's a job waiting for them. People come to the US because it is one of the few places left in the world where an average person can work hard and expect a reward for their labors. That part of the American Dream is critical, and when companies like Circuit City ignore it, we are all in for a heap of trouble somewhere down the line.
We don't like to admit it, but we all know that not everyone is capable of running their own business, or educating themselves up to the point where they can seek-out and snag a high-paying, high-tech job. Some people just don't have the brains, or they're unwilling to take the risks to move beyond retail work. For those folks, the American Dream is what's left. The idea that you can succeed through shear effort is a powerful one; the American economy is built upon that very notion, and you don't need a textbook to see just powerful an idea this is when put into practice.
There are reasons why America is still the largest single economy in the world. There are reasons why American workers, across the board, tend to be more productive than their counterparts elsewhere. I submit that the American Dream is a crucial part of the American business strategy; the American Dream is, if you will, the secret sauce in the American formula for economic success. The American Dream offers hope on a massive scale. The American Dream motivates workers. Even if they aren't the smartest, or the most skillful, American workers still believe that hard work will get them ahead. They believe that what they do matters, not only to themselves, but to their families as well. Hard work makes a difference, and you don't need to be an Einstein to do the math on that fact.
What's troubling about Circuit City's move today isn't any loss of entitlement; what's really worrisome is that Circuit City's management has so obviously failed to comprehand what is perhaps the most important lesson in America's business playbook. You can see this by taking a quick peak at their stock price today -- Wall Street can be pretty bone-headed on occasion, but they can smell stupidity and impending failure a mile away. Today, Circuit City may shave a few dollars off the balance sheet, but they've done with a move that is certain to utterly kill employee morale. Today, Circuit City just told each and every one of their workers that the reward for hard work isn't a raise; it's a pink slip at the end of the week, and a future opportunity to take your experience and start again from the bottom of the ladder in 10 weeks time. With an incentive package like that, only the truely incompetant, destitute and/or desperate need apply for work at Circuit City.
For those of us not working in retail, consider this -- without the American Dream, US workers are little better than ill-organized serfs. Without the American Dream, the Chinese can do it just as well, and cheeper too, as can dozens of other nations scattered about the globe. Without the American Dream, even those of us with high-pay, high tech jobs can expect to feel the pain. When the girl standing behind the counter has no incentive to do it quicker, cheeper or better, what do you honestly think is going to happen?
The reason why Circuit City stores here in NY can't compete against Best Buy, Kmart and Walmart is so simple that if they can't figure it out they deserve to die off. At every CC store around here the checkout line and customer service line are merged into the same area where it is a confusing free for all when trying to buy something.
I HOPE AND PRAY that we slam back a 50% tax on everyone making over $300 grand a year and similarly lower the taxes on anyone earning under $44,000 a year (the "average" wage + 10%). I think business CEO's and so on should be taxed at 90% for everything over 20x the average salary (so currently about 800,000).
I am all for abolishing taxes on personal earned income period! If you work you should be able to keep the money you make from your labor. This includes privately owned businesses. But because corporations offer stockholders limited liability, the only thing a stockhold can loose is the amount they paid for the stocks they own, corporate profits should be taxed. I might also go along with a tax on corporations that pay executives more than an income X over the lowest paid employee, say X=1000 or something. So if a CEO were paid more than $26,000,000, say $52,000,000 and the lowest fulltime employee earned $26,000 the CEO's income over $26,000,000 would be taxed. However it woudn't be the CEO who was taxed but the corporation. Done this way the corp would have an incentive to increase the pay of the lowest paid employee. And because the corp doesn't collect employee income taxes to be remitted to the government they would be able to pay employees more.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'll pay the same price or slightly higher for an item if it's delivered to my door than visit a retail store unless I 'need it now'.
You might, but I want a local brick and mortor store I can return something I bought back to to get a refund or to have it repaired. Expecially for a big ticket item.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Looks like we actually agree on something! From what you wrote in your post I thought you didn't grasp the logic described in your reply. Of course, if those people did not produce any value they should be fired. But let's take a closer look at that.
I believe you are still missing the point here; those salaries represent far greater sales than $30 million - they have to in order to pay them! Those salaries probably produced several times over their value in sales (gross). They are losing more income than just the money needed to pay for those salaries. They are just looking at increasing profitability per employee and sale.
So now what they are looking at is hiring slightly cheaper, inexperienced sales people that will not sell for an equal amount - but still cost almost as much. You don't fire the productive and profitable workers! You find the dead weight. Non profitable stores get closed. A pay cut might have been better - but would still impact their sales (motivation).
Sure the company is taking the loss, no dispute. And you know what? Those losses that will accumulate, will have an even greater impact on the very problem they are trying to solve. Now, not only will they have less sales, efficiency and profit - they have just lost their greatest assets. And bad press to boot!
Lets see, there is Best Buy and... well... Circuit City. Ok Walmart sells some electronics, and Target sells a fucking toaster and an xbox360.
I just dont see how punishing workers that work hard for your company is the way you go about saving money. They are the ones that make your company great and a joy to return and do buisness with. Maybe i dont get it. Maybe i'm too idealistic.... But it just makes me hate the company more when they treat their workers like shit.
Maybe i'll return the headphones i bought at Circuit City the other day. They were $100 cheaper on amazon anyways... And the guy at circuit city was very nice and helpful, he even took a look online to see if the price was still $200. I fear that today he probably has lost his job.
If you want to compete with the industry powerhouses like Radioshack you have to use the latest technlogy.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
fired
Yea, you can fire productive employees or you can reduce the millions the executives take home. The question is which is better for the business's bottom line, keeping productive workers or firing them?
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is precisely why, even after doing my post-grad studies in the USA, I didn't stick around for a job. You never know when you'll be thrown out despite being the best in your field.
I'm half Irish. Do you know why so many people died in the potato famine (did you know there was a potato famine in Ireland? Just ask a Boston cop...) Anyway, Ireland had enough arable land to be self sufficient. it's just that the people who *owned* that land...lived in England. And They wanted cash crops. So guess what didn't get planted.
Somethng puzzles me about the Irish Potate Famine, why was there a famine caused by a shortage of potatos in Eire? Potatos were imported into Eirland, Ireland, from the Americas. So did Irish farmers stop farming indeginous crops then forgot how to grow them?
(an interesting line from "We're No Angles", a classic Bogie movie)
Ump, I don't recall that movie. I've got two of his movies, "African Queen" and "Casablanca" and I'd like to get "Key Largo". Key Largo offers some terrific scuba diving.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Words you mention in your post lead me to think that you do not understand what free market capitalism is. The United States does not have and for the most part, never has had, a free market.
For a short tyme the USA had a freemarket. Though it was being whittled away by the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of there still was a freemmarket when Alexis de Tocqueville toured the USA in the 1820's. Unfortunately it has been gone a long tyme though.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't know there but here in Brazil this is material for a class action suit. A company can't legally fire people and replace them for others with lower wages. Actually, they can't fire you and hire later for a lower salary either. I think our work-related laws here need a very good revamp but there is a few good things there.
Scientia est Potentia
WalMart has been doing this for years; sneeze at the wrong moment and you're gone. One at a time. The churn keeps the payroll cheap.
Actually turnover, your "churn", is a major expense for businesses. Everytime a new employee is hired there's all of the paperwork to be filled out, the new employee has to be trained, and there's other expenses to be paid. All of these expenses in fact means payroll is higher for high turnover than for low turnover businesses.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Its actually a lot easier than you think. There are 25.8 million businesses in the United States. About 17 million of them have only one employee. Those seventeen million business owners aren't ALL smarter, better educated, more savvy, etc. than you. They are, however, as a group a heck of a lot richer than you are. Two-thirds of American millionaires are self-employed. Some of them are in stereotypical "Oh, rich educated professionals only" jobs like law and medicine (not that all practioners in these fields are rich). Others, not so much.
I know one guy who thought moving garbage was easy enough for any idiot to do it, so he might as well start. He went to the construction companies in the area and said "Hey, I've got a truck and time. You've got money and trash. Lets trade." Apparently, you can make a lot of money driving a truck between two fixed points. Anyhow, he was making pretty good money for a guy whose job is getting from A to B, and then he had a brainstorm: wait a second, I make enough money to pay for the loan on TWO trucks. I can get a buddy to drive the second truck, pay him a quarter of what the company pays me, use the second quarter to pay for the truck, and keep half! Anyhow, fast forward a decade, he now owns about a couple of dozen trucks and drives a... darn, I don't know the brand (sorry, I'm a geek, not a car lover). Whatever. Its one of those Alienware of cars where you pay a lot to let people know you've paid a lot.
Heck, I started my own small business with approximately two weeks of planning, half of which was coding the software product which I sell. My capital investment was $60. That business takes about 2-4 hours of work to maintain a month and, in March, I profited about $620 from it (pre-taxes). Obviously, I'm not planning on leaving the day job (which I enjoy) immediately, but as I gradually develop more sales and more software its certainly an option on the table. Its got a lot to recommend it to -- I can't get fired, I can read Slashdot at work without feeling guilty, I never feel bored at the meetings, and my raise is always determined by merit.
http://www.bingocardcreator.com/
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I believe there is a couple key point to the American Dream that you (and many others) inadvertantly miss. First, the American Dream cannot be realized by most people if they are willing to work for someone else. The American Dream--time and again--has been realized by those who, for whatever reason, could not or would not allow themselves to be wage-slaves. They started cottage industries--some failed, and some succeeded. Those who succeeded saw the American Dream fulfilled. Those who did not succeed faced a choice--either try again (to achieve the Dream) or believe that the American Dream is a lie.
Apparently you miss the idea that business ownership and all the ethical bankruptcy it brings are the universal path to the American Dream. The only way they got that way recently was by businesses given the signal that they can interfere with government (not the other way around) through Reagan's PATCO blunder.
What disgusts me most about the Circuit City scenario (which is also played out in many other industries every day) is that these "artificial persons" (for what is a corporation if not a legally recognized entity under law?) have forsaken their responsibility to society in order to worship at the altar of profitability.
That's called ethical bankruptcy, it comes with the territory. Thank all the pro-business signals being sent the last 30 years.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Being your own boss, owning your own home, having a wife that doesn't work and children in exclusionist school. French dream (lifelong employment at one employer). The two are completely irreconcilable.
Only if you're an adherent to Thatcher or Reagan.
France kept its head together (for once) and rejected globalization on the greater part, as well as seeing the CPE fail. The only thing better for them to do is to remove the lower tier of higher education and fully open up admissions to the upper.
They aren't doing incredibly well, but when you go it alone against countries that sell their workers down the river(post-Thatcher UK, post-PATCO US) to countries like China and India, they must be doing something right that keeps them running. I don't see them turning soon, much like Germany has.
What part of "businesses are not entities deserving godly privilege" do you not understand?
Repeat the part in quotes if you are in doubt of it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"Bottom line, in this country there's no limit except those we impose on ourselves."
In your ideal world everyone has the same natural ability. Unfortunately that's not true. 49% of the population has a below average IQ. Your friend from HS is the exception to the rule. She was where she was because of bad choices, not because she was stupid.
Lastly, I'd doubt very much that a single mother working a part time job received no government assistance while getting her education.
If they'd REMOVED a bad CEO and gotten on with working on what they had, they could have gotten themselves out of the worst of the situation.
If a good CEO can raise an entire corporation, a bad one can dump it in the tar pits.
I point you to John Ross Ex-CEO of Nortel as an example...
All those low skilled jobs went bye-bye when smart people with degrees(read: you) figured out, hey why not move all our factories overseas and fire all these high-payed no-skilled two-bit complaining fat-ass Americans and have all these agreeable starving foreigners(read: Chinese) work for much much less and we can treat them like crap, pollute their environment and they'll be happy about it! Plus we can all give ourselves raises for our brilliance! Brilliant!
Ah but you keep saying, "I'm no lazy ass redneck. I got a bunch of scribbles on a piece of pressed parchment see?" Well I got news for you. And Greenspan and Bill Gates have news for you:
Startion salaries for computer science grads in June 2001 were $52,473(adj. inflation $59,732.11) and in 2006 declined to $51,305.
Maybe we couldn't take the greeter and do the programmer's job but we got someone else to do the programmer's job and now he can compete with the greeter for his job. It's a win-win situation. You see, they really were the same in an economic sense--not Bill Gates.
Good luck with your $30/hr job. You will be earning the big bucks now.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
In the UK they have tried to give to private industries rein on services that have been traditionally run by the state.
Trains? Unreliable, unfrequent, umcofrtable (and still susidized, otherwise they would be even more expensive), but still some how, the CEOs and other fat cats get richer even when the companies underperfomr.
Water? Pipes are breaking all over London but the companies that now own the infrastructure keep being sold (who would not like to have a captive market?) making millons for the parties involved, but still water is wasted and somehow the companies don't touch their profits in order to fix the infrastructure.
Health Services? SInce competition was introduced hospital have been closing. For sure the most "efficient" remain, but most peoplr would prefer an inefficient hospital in their own locality than one efficient one far away from where they live.
IT procurement? Do not make me laugh. The UK IT sector is the bone of many jokes, even by lay persons, when it comes to represent all what is wrong with private procurement for the government.
Defense? One word: Eurofighter.
Anyway, my point is that many people put far too much faith in private enterprise when there are many examples of how unreliable private companies can be as well when providing public services.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... then no wonder it vanished in a cloud of Chinese smoke.
I can also dream with a pie in the sky, I am sure one day I will keep it after I have eaten it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Working hard entitles you to absolutely nothing but what is says in your employment contract.
Teachers work hard, make little. Some music pop stars get high, work little, earn millions.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
After coming to the US, I noticed that for many people it was "sue and get rich"... Where is the lawsuit in his case? :P
I never knew there was that much kool-aid in the world!
Data isn't the plural of anecdote. You could name some sports stars, actors and musicians if you think a few statistical outliers prove anything.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The Age of Enlightment "occurred solely in Germany, France, Britain, and Spain
Don't forget the Netherlands. We might not have as many big names as other countries, only Hugo de Groot and Spinoza come to mind.
I didn't forget the Netherlands, I didn't know this. All I did was copy and paste the wiki article, but thanks for the info. Since you know something about the Netherlands and the Age of Enlightenment maybe you can assist in editing the article.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why don't they cut the million dollar plus salaries of those top executives and spread that wealth to the employees they fired? They stated on Good Morning America today that if they took that kind of measure, those fired employees would have three years worth of wages. BAH! Corporate greed.
IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
Circuit City should fire their Harvard MBAs (or equivilant) and keep their best sales people. What IDIOT fires their best sales people. Corporate executive reward systems are all screwed up nationwide. Look at the demise of Digital Equipment and others high tech companies. CEOs were HUGELY rewarded for saving money vs. making money. Opps.... Sounds like Circuit City is suffering from the same illness. Simple plan for success: Reward your sales teams commiserate with their performance measured by gross profits. The rest will take care of itself. Reward your management on net profits plus business growth and make them manage the business, not micromanage the expenses. Circuit City rates a Darwin award! Just my $.20 worth (adjusted for inflation)