Topic: The "complain about work" thread

[Tuxedo Mark]

And another article, this one starting that Sears Holdings shares should be $6:

http://wallstreetpit.com/87409-sears-holdings-shld-worth-6-imperial-says-so

[Captain Hero]

Relevant to poor business-doings is my old place of work: Zellers, Canada's own lower-end version of Wal-Mart. There's no K-Marts where I live (K-Mart left Canada and was bought out by Zellers in 1998), so Zellers effectively held that position in the great "Department Store Chain" ladder (though we never got stuck with slurpee machines or hot dog carts or whatever you guys ended up with). However, Zellers had been doing progressively worse for a good long while (despite being an affiliate of the Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest retailer in North America and a Canadian institution), especially once Wal-Mart hit Canada in the mid-1990s (they do the same thing... but better. And more of it). A while ago, Zellers was sold to Target, which is gonna start an invasion of Canada next year, giving us our first Target stores.

I can't imagine K-Mart is doing much better business than Zellers was. I wonder how much longer it'll last, or if Sears itself will go out of business. It seemed unthinkable that a major chain (there's several here in Edmonton, and even smaller towns have at least one) would die, but then, Canada's lost Eaton's, Woolworth's & Woodward's in the past 15-20 years, so anything's possible.

Part of me actually misses the old store. Not actually working there- it paid poorly (8 bucks an hour after three years is ridiculous), the managers were dolts (one guy was constantly creating "busy work" for staffers to do by uselessly having them change the "Ends"/aisle displayers every single day for no real reason), and being a poorer-focused store introduced a whole lot of scummy people trying to make deals and get things for cheaper all the time. But I missed the sense of being in a large mall (West Edmonton Mall, no less), and many of the people I worked with (I never saw most of them again). And now that the old store's going to be converted into a Target (most every Zellers is in a mall- not a Big Box store), I think I'll miss heading over there and reminiscing about old times.

Yeah, the Zellers store in my town is tanking, and tanking badly.  Every time you go in there, it's almost like playing Where's Waldo when it comes to finding either sales staff, or what you're looking for.  Maybe this conversion to Target will be the only thing that CAN help.

Although in some towns, Zellers does better than Walmart...such as the case with the Zellers in a town just a few kilometres away from where I am.  Though, the ones that are most successful are on the shortlist to be changed over first.

[Oldiesmann]

Things are getting a bit crazy for me at work...

For the past 4 1/2 years, I've worked at a local retail/entertainment venue as a cashier for the company that manages their garage and parking lots. On December 5th, we were notified that we had lost the contract effective January 1st. This came as a complete surprise to everyone, as the company was apparently making little to no money off the contract. Anyway, the new company is hiring everyone from the old company, pending background check and drug test results. Most of us went in and filled out all the paperwork and did the drug tests earlier this week, so we should hear back from them with job offers next week. I'm just hoping they won't cut our pay much (if at all).

[Tuxedo Mark]

Yesterday, it was insanely busy.

Shortly after I started my shift, the PM came to me and said M1 wanted to see me before I left. However, while I was bagging out at the end of my shift, the PM told me that M1 said he wasn't seeing me on that day, and she shrugged as if in confusion. I wonder what that's about.

I came across this article a short while ago:

http://money.msn.com/investment-advice/7-companies-on-the-ropes-in-2012

Guess who's on the list.

*sigh* A few more hours, and Great American Consumption Orgy 2011 will be over. Then Christmas can start.

[Tuxedo Mark]

There's talk on Retail-Worker of the Christmas season being "disasterous" for Sears Holdings. Obviously, the fourth-quarter numbers won't be known until later February, but it sounds like things are about to go south very quickly.

Another article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/does-anyone-shop-at-sears-anymore-2011-12-23?pagenumber=1

[Oldiesmann]

Now in our final week under the "old" parking company at work... I have to go in to an orientation meeting for the new company on Thursday. It's supposed to last 90 minutes and will cover things such as scheduling and company policies. Hopefully we'll get paid for it.

[Tuxedo Mark]

There's talk on Retail-Worker of the Christmas season being "disasterous" for Sears Holdings. Obviously, the fourth-quarter numbers won't be known until later February, but it sounds like things are about to go south very quickly.

Well, wadaya know? I talk crap, and crap happens. Lead story on Yahoo! at that (Yahoo! Mail, anyway):

http://news.yahoo.com/sears-close-120-stores-113743523.html

[Tuxedo Mark]

Two more articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16338641

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/27/news/companies/sears_kmart_closings/

[Biollante]

That was years in the making.  They can't blame it on the recession really.  Sales are up this year over all, and they were having huge problems well before the 2008 meltdown.  Personally, I would blame this on incompetence and laziness of Sears Holdings and the people that run K-Mart in particular.  No one wants to shop at K-Mart because all their locations have all become run down, dirty, ugly havens for white trash and the mentally insane.  Places like Target and Walmart that do the exact thing better and have invested money in their locations have eaten their lunch.  I think that's about all there is to it.

[aamrun]

Two more articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16338641

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/27/news/companies/sears_kmart_closings/

Hmmm, wonder if that means fewer orders for China ?

[Tuxedo Mark]

I would blame this on incompetence and laziness of Sears Holdings and the people that run K-Mart in particular.  No one wants to shop at K-Mart because all their locations have all become run down, dirty, ugly havens for white trash and the mentally insane.

QFTW.

Check out this video from CNBC yesterday:

http://finance.yahoo.com/video/cnbc-22844419/sears-to-shut-down-120-kmarts-27718532.html

There was a story on ABC's "World News" last night. People that they talked to described Sears stores as "dingy" and not the "cool" place to shop.

The story also said Illinois lawmakers feel angered and betrayed. Two weeks ago, they gave Sears Holdings a $150,000,000 tax break to keep its headquarters in Illinois. Sears, of course, never mentioned that it'd be closing this many stores. (Obviously, if it had, Illinois would have simply been like "Goodbye and good riddance.")

Furthermore, the company is not saying how many people will be losing their jobs over these store closings.

One telling thing that I learned from the story? Kmart was neither seen nor mentioned even once during the entire piece. It was all Sears. Even though Sears is a laughingstock of American retail, people at least care enough to talk about it when troubles abound. They don't care about Kmart.

[Tuxedo Mark]

There has been so much press coverage that I don't think I'll post everything here.

A few things before I get to the main point of the post:

I sold some Valentine's Day merchandise on the 23rd.

Yesterday, when I came in, the service desk woman was like "Did you work yesterday?" I said no. She said we're getting $60 from the service desk instead of $100. I don't know how this will break down yet, because she had to give me extra $5s to cover for the lack of quarters (so I got six $5s as previously). I'm not sure how many $1s that I got. I got the usual two rolls of pennies and nickels and a roll of dimes.

The PM called earlier and was like "Mark, you off Sunday. I need to know if you can work 9-2." I agreed. She was like "Okay."

Okay, now for the main event. Apparently, Sears Holdings has posted a partial store closings list (around 79 stores) at SearsMedia.com (why they decided to announce the store closings before having a list ready has been the subject of speculation), but I can't reach the server for the moment. It must be getting heavy traffic. Stay tuned.

[Tuxedo Mark]

I was just now able to get on (the graphics didn't load) and read the PDF file of the partial closings list. The Sears store in my mall will close, but not my Kmart (at least, not yet):

http://searsholdings.com/about/122711_close.pdf

[Tuxedo Mark]

Someone put the (currently known) closing locations on a map:

http://batchgeo.com/map/e8adf49a575672df8535d72c61958ef0

[Oldiesmann]

Seems like the stores in this area are safe for now. The only store on that list that's anywhere near here is the KMart in Springfield, Ohio. That's about 83 miles away (90 minutes driving time).

A Google search of the area turns up two Wal-Marts and a Target in Springfield. There's also a 2nd K-Mart store in town. Oddly enough though, the 2nd K-Mart is closer to Target than the one that's closing.