New OT Post - as Roy is still slacking

This will get Budd back! This is where they need a UNION!!!!

No, I'll not shop there again. Wonder if they have a site so we can email them.

I think it's pathetic and just another example of how poor management is at many U.S. companies. They are the type of executive team that would move their jobs to Asia except for the fact their stores are in the U.S. I for one will never shop there again.

I was blown away by these mind-boggling statistics on Wal-Mart!

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend ,000,000 every hour of every day.
2. This works out to ,928 profit every minute!

1. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

2. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

1. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

2. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

1. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

2. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

1. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

2. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

1. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion).

2. 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

Walmart, although a great success story of business that has brought cheaper goods to our homes, is also a symbol of America's decline.

Walmart does not make anything. It only sells items that are made in China. Walmart is our number one employer, when at one time companies like General Motors, Bethlehem Steel and Westinghouse were our major employers. This shift shows that jobs have left our country for China. Look what is happening to General Motors and Ford. Americans now work for low paying Walmart jobs when their parents worked for high paying union jobs at industrial manufacturing companies that are now in China.

A few years ago I bought a defective computer printer in Circuit City. When I returned it they charged me a restocking fee. Now I can see this if I just didn't want the printer. But charge me a restocking fee for a defective printer that they sold me? I spoke the manager on duty as well as called their customer service hot line. They wouldn't budge. I disputed the charge with my CC company and won. But because of this experience I haven't set foot in a Circuit City store in over 10 years. This latest ploy to get rid of their loyal employees is just another reason why I won't step foot in a Circuit City ever again.

Bob

restocking fees are bullshit anyways. they are still going to sell the product at full price. and in your case that's even bigger BS! i havent been to a Circuit city store in years and wont be going back....Best buy is another one that will never see my shadow darken its doors.

I don't know what is going on there.

However, in a similar store, Best Buy appears to only have computers using Windows Vista. The smallest computer there has 1 GB of RAM, and it runs about 75% of the RAM with no programs operating at all. Is Winblows getting more RAM hungry? It sure appears so. One computer I had in the past ran win 98SE on 64 megs of RAM. Slowly, perhaps, but it did run.

Thanks for the head up.

I've heard horror stories about Home Depot, also. Unfortunately for me, HD is the nearest big box hardware store. I have a small town hardware a bit closer, I should shop at the local store first,

I worked for Sears in 1996, and saw enough not to want to come back.

Windoze snags (60 ~ 80%) most of the RAM almost all the time. Try Win2K Pro on a 433 mhz laptop with 64 mgs or RAM. I'll NEVER try that again. Lame Turtles and Snails passed it at will...HAD to go back to Win98...it was virtually unusable with Win2KPro.

I had to look it up after seeing your post. It stinks. Maybe they should replace their old slogan "Circuit City, where service is state of the art" with "Circuit City, service?, what service?" If all this keeps up there won't be anyplace left for me to shop. I don't do self service check outs. No check, no work! If you want me to check myself out, you better be giving me a paycheck! Next they'll think we're dumb enough to stock the shelves for them, wait, we're already falling for self service checkout, maybe they're right...

What did you see at Sears that turned you off to them? I always go there first for their tool department.

Those self check outs have bothered me since they came out. I don't use them, I don't care how long the line is. Must be my union background It means less job's. Oddly, I was in one store waiting in line for a person to check me out and the cashiers say's "you can use the self check out if you want" I asked her if she was ready to give up her job, she looks at me kinda funny and say's what do you mean? Took me a few minutes to get it in her head that if enough people that use the self deal after a bit they won't need her. So by sending people to it she is basicly helping to lay herself off.

I'm very much a free market kind of guy. IMHO, "trimming expenses" is an intellectually vacant way to improve profits unless of course you've allowed them to get out of hand, then what kind of management are you anyway? Employees aren't just debits on a balance sheet, they're assets to the company, they're how the work we need done gets performed. It doesn't generally take much of an increase in employee pay to get a disproportionate increase in productivity. Vice versa of course. An added benefit is reduced management load due to having competent employees that don't cause unnecessary problems to be solved by management

Once again, IMHO, it's this kind of thing that made unions necessary to begin with. Management has allowed accountants far too much influence. Shortsightedness seems to be one of the major hallmarks of accountants. There's work and profits beyond next quarter.

Laziness is probably behind your cashier's attitude, the more people using self checkout, less work for her. And she's right, LOTS less work, and unemployment. Maybe she has an excellent future in accounting?

Can I get an AMEN !?!

Dead on the money BigIron. When was it that 10 more cents on the balance sheet became more important than the quality and pride derived from producing something of value?

The past four CEO's of the company I work for were former CFO's. Big, BIG mistake. Accept in rare cases, CEO's should always come from the operations side (COO's). Why? They know how the core business works. They realize, in my experience, that employees are assets and not simply expendible resources/tools. COO's also seem to have a bit more loyalty to American labor as opposed to off-shoring everything to save $0.01.

Craig C.

Speaking of e-mail, I did e-mail Home Depot about their self checkout and complained. They don't have a real person to monitor their e-mail, they have a computer with "artificial intelligence". It's VERY artificial; it couldn't categorize my complaint to formulate a proper response. I gave up, haven't been back since.

The mobile service repair guys were pressured for "first time completes". So, they would go to the house and replace a part. The right part if they had it on the truck, but the wrong part if they didn't have the right part. Of course, the customer would call back cause it wasn't really fixed. But at least the tech had a first time complete. Instead of going back to the company and get the right part, which would have been a two trip call.

We are pleased that you are happy with the new Home Depot (R) and will have someone review this news group post and get back to you. In the meantime, have you checked out our web site? So many wonderful things on sale. You'll be just as pleased with our web site.