Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I recently suggested a solution to this dilemma based on someone's remark on that topic.
Basically, someone should set up "stores" that don't make money on sales at all, but essentially just rent you access to the showroom so you can figure out what you need (and then perhaps rate the people there based on how informative they are -- like Slashdot) and then find the cheapest place online to get it (either using their computers there or just go home having a better idea of what you need). They would have no qualms about telling you, "ah, you don't need this stuff".
Depending on the money needed to make it work, you could either run them for-profit or as a co-op where your "membership fee" is all or partly your service of working there part-time in a department you're already knowledgeable about. You help people find what computer they should get, and in return, old folks there teach you what gardening equipment you should get (for example).
Apology to Ubuntu forum.