This sounds like one of those future management case studies everybody will learn about in business classes in a few years. "Why did Dell fail? Well, they sacked all their sales people and nobody could buy their product!"
I remember studying one of those. Can't remember the company off the top of my head, some retail electronics outfit. They sacked all their senior sales people on the floor to save money and ended up going out of business because people could find anybody to help them adequately when they were in the store with money.
It wasn't the worst job I ever had, but the place was really poorly run, and they took advantage of me.
I was just a high school kid stocking shelves, but knew as much or more about the computers as the fulltime commissioned sales people. I was constantly getting paged to assist a salesperson.
I would do all the work, explaining the product and helping the customer make a decision, and then the salesperson, would say "Thanks, I'll take it from here."
Also, their theft control was atrocious. The cameras were not on, the guy checking receipts at the door barely looked, and people just walked about with expensive stuff all the time.
As someone who used to have that job, the only thing I was thinking when someone said that was: well it’s going to happen eventually, and I’m glad retail is not my career
In reference to those low-paying retail jobs: I have done some research on large US retailers like J.C. Penney, Gamestop, Macy's, Sears and Tailored Brands. It's quite scary to see how dire the situation is for these firms. Shrinking revenues, plenty of debt, hardly any profit in sight.
The most shocking to is the number of people they employ (more than 90k in the case of J.C. Penney), many of whom can be sure to be laid off in the next few years.
Best teenage job I ever had. They treated us with respect and the pay was exceptional for the job, you could live a middle class lifestyle on it. Sundays they paid time and a half. They also had great holiday events, with a very memorable Christmas party I still cherish. I wish more retailers would treat their employees so well.
EDIT: it does go to the top. The CEO resisted investor pressure to reduce wages and perks. Mad respect to him for treating his employees like people instead of cogs.
Interesting perspective of a retailer that invested in its employees and found success. It's sad to see employee benefits and loyalty and an all-time low across society when just a generation ago it was so strong.
When the local Sears was about to close up shop, the kids they hired to help with the closing were playing Marco Polo over the store intercom. Eventually the person in charge came over the intercom and told them to cut it out. Was the only thing I enjoyed while in that store at the time.
Negative - as mentioned in a couple other comments here, a different industry. Not a really large company either, like 1700 people, which is a good place as a private firm with a 60% margin on professional services and low overhead…
I worked at Best Buy so I recognized the signs immediately. The expression was “man he/she really bleeds blue” and if you hung out with the managers after work - because they all hung out together (and drove the same Scions lol) - you’d be in line for the next promotion. For some people that was a good path. Store Manager life and pay is legit.
It’s definitely a “high school hero” type thing where there’s not of lot of experience with leadership outside of sports like football. If it’s all they know, yeah, it’s their playbook. Fortunately here in Texas I know that playbook and I’m helping him go Mike Leach on them and they’re really surprised and not taking it well. Which is good for him.
This reminds me of something I told a friend of mine a few years ago when he bought a retail store: be aware you're buying yourself a job. He's since sold his store and moved back to being an employee.
I worked at Best Buy for a while. They would literally threaten our jobs over anything. Your hours were based on how many people you signed up for their warranty/Geek Squad bullshit. They expected you to push it on people (especially old people/non-tech people). I was also expected to sell their credit cards. On Black Friday, I was forced to work 18 hours. They literally made me feel like working there was as serious as doing brain surgery.
It is a shitty retail job.
It was a horrible environment.
People want cushy gigs. A friend just shut down a 3 generation jewelry store because the kids wanted to get out of retail hours. They ended up getting into commercial banking.
It's almost like upper management went out of their way to irritate employees and customers? I had a manager literally
follow me out the store trying to get me to buy a cell phone.
I never understood the Tie requirement--it's a electronics store? I applied in high school, but lasted one day with a
angry local manager.(I don't blame the local manager--he had
two, or three jobs at the time). I knew the problem was that
upper management was stuck in the 50's; much like Sears?
I’m a shopper at a grocery store and I do my best to shop like I’m shopping for myself. Am either fast or in my training grace period. I’m a terrible employee generally, too much care. I assume I’ll be fired and will do my best shopping until then. I did get the job randomly and had shopped there often prior, a clerk brought me to the hiring manager so it was easy to get hired. Of course each day it sinks in that it’s a business with managers and metrics. At least programming technical debt paid well, it seems clear that outside of boutique consulting it’s all about the numbers... good to know for sure.
I worked briefly at a Blockbuster as a teen, and it was the worst job I ever had. Everyone stole, the manager stole boxes full of candy, nobody tried to do their job even remotely. It was the most dispiriting and incompetent place I've ever been; I quit within a month.
That they declared bankruptcy this year has been a tasty bit of schadenfreude.
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