Circuit City is on my hit list for stores treating employees like merchandise. When money gets tight, don’t have a sale, fire your highest-paid employees:
The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers — immediately — and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.
Way to sow harmony and loyalty there, CC. I mean, if a new hire knows for a fact that after a certain amount of time they’ll be hitting the bricks again whether they want to or not, why would they bother caring for their employer at all? But wait! The newly fired can reapply for their old jobs at a lower pay rate.
The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company’s total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.
Woo-hoo! Isn’t that nice of them? Who cares if you’ve given the company 10 glorious years of your life and you’re really hoping to someday make it to store mananger. Fuck you, says Circuit City, we’d rather get rid of the living merchandise than put our t.v.s on sale. Who cares if we want to sell our stuff to you and at the same time take away your money. Our stocks went up! It’s party time!
The company’s stock rose 35 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close at $19.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Unbelievable fuckassery*! My beef is that companies on American soil, selling to American consumers, treat American employees like they’re no better than last years floppy disks. We’re losing money, but it can’t be because we’re not undercutting the competition or offering incentive for customers to come, no it because we pay people too much. It almost seems to me like these nimrods are taking a page from Wal-Marts playbook**- employees are a dime a dozen, the cheaper the better. Seems to me people shop at CC because their people know what they’re talking about (at least that’s what their advertising says) and can help the less tech savvy make smart decisions. Well, NO MORE OF THAT SHIT! You’re just going to have to google like the rest of the world, kids. Just because you come here doesn’t mean we have to know what we’re selling you.
To me, this is a very disturbing trend by businesses. Sure, they have a right to make money, but these people are selling their products to the American public, and making it damned hard for that same public to afford their products. Someone making $10 an hour has a whole lot more buying power than someone make $6.85 an hour. And someone who has been at a company for a long time and has been treated well by that company will be loyal to that company and do what they can to boost it up. Including shopping at that store. When employees can’t shop at the stores they work at because they don’t make enough money, there’s something really, really wrong. Not to mention the fact that happy employees making for happy shopping experiences for consumers. Honestly, if you see a gloomy, ill-informed face every single time you walk into a store, pretty soon you do whatever you can in your power to avoid that store. I’m pretty sure Circuit City won’t be able to drive all of the competition out of an area so that people have nowhere else to shop - you know, like Wally World.
And via that same article I see that Home Depot has gone a completely different route.
Circuit City’s cuts come at a time when other retailers are trying to put more knowledgeable workers on store floors. Home Depot Inc., whose new chief executive is struggling to re-ignite sales growth at its stores, said it has raised pay to attract skilled tradespeople, such as carpenters and electricians.
Home Depot is adding 15,000 new jobs this year, according to spokesman Jerry Shields.
Hallalujeh! Finally some smart business choices. Considering that Home Depot also touts their employees’ expertise, I’d say this is a damned good decision. Here’s me hoping that Circuit City falls flat on it’s face on this one and that Home Depot goes into the electronics business.
*Thanks, Paula!
**Wal-Mart who capped all wages for their front end employees, and blatantly letting the higher paid employees go so they could bring in cheaper new hires. Bah!
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One would think they would be a little more diplomatic in their press releases.
The problem is these companies know that very few of us will stand on principle and refuse to buy their electronic crap at CC because they fucked over their help.
I once worked for a small construction outfit that laid off 5 carpenters without any notice whatsoever. One of the carpenters I was working with at the time, not subject to a layoff, walked up to the foreman as soon as he heard and said, “I quit”. When they asked why (he was one of the best lead carpenters they had), he said “Because this company treats employees like shit and I don’t want to be associated with that anymore.”
I learned a lot from Patrick about self-esteem and principle, especially that day.
That’s the thing with CC, though. There’s no lack of competition for electronics. They aren’t the cheapest, but they could have been top because of their knowledgeable sales people. Now, they’ve lost that. And when their competition sees their mistake, they could do like Home Depot hire more qualified help, putting CC in the doghouse. Wal-Mart was smart in that all of the local competition was driven out before their shady side was discovered- too late for some communities. So people in smaller/poorer communities don’t really have a choice but to shop there. That’s not the case with CC because their clientele are generally more affluent and can afford to shop around. Those that can’t afford them usually go to Wal-Mart or KMart for their electronics (or even Rent-A-Center).
It is a case of “I’m bigger than you and I can do what I want to”. There will always be people who need jobs and will grab at a chance to gain employment. They will not lose enough business that will force them to see the light. They will, however, terminate these people, in efforts to save a few bucks, and gain new employees trying to make a living.
A shame.
Dear CC.
I would like to thank you for taking a huge shit on the American People. We needed another one from big business as we were running low with only 14 big gloppy shits this month.
This comes in handy when your shit fertilizes the ground and you come out smelling like roses but leaves the rest of us with a bad taste in our mouths and fucked up shoes.
I does not however, change the fact that you are all morally bankrupt and ethically deprived.
Feel free to drop to your knees and kiss my big - mind - blowingly - white ass.
I won’t be shopping at CC any more.
Unfortunately it’s the way of the business world. In a way, this is at least legal. There’s a lot of dirty business because making money is king.
The real problem is that the population they’re counting on to replace the ones they’ve fired need jobs and most likely (almost wholly, I’m certain) lack the resources to be able to turn down a job. Yet, unless they do, there’s nothing stopping these companies from behaving this way.
You’d basically need a union, which might solve this problem, but would create an enormous set of other problems.
Don’t know the answer, but this is certainly crappy.
I like Best Buy better anyway