Thread regarding Barnes & Noble layoffs

On the floor customer service was a hallmark of Sears and Montgomery Ward. Ask how well that's working out for them.

Yes, retail workers are pointless and unnecessary. People who clean & disinfect retail stores are very necessary. But BN no longer employs them. Just the pointless, unnecessary ones.

On the floor customer service was a hallmark of Sears and Montgomery Ward. Ask how well that's working out for them.

You’re totally wrong. Customers will ALWAYS care about service! Read reviews. They will trash a company for bad customer service and will not return.
If a customer in Walmart or Target has an issue, they’ll ask for a manager. How their problem is handled will define whether they return. ( there’s usually more than one Walmart in a city)

It's awfully easy to be good management when your profit margins are 30%+ in the last century. It's not so easy to be good management when your competitor is operating at a 2% margin and you're saddled by things like ObamaCare and other benefits which practically double compensation for full time minimum wage workers, and you're saddled with things like local taxes, leasing retail space, and an excess of employees that don't make up the overhead of their salaries in book and coffee sales. Customers care about the costs of their books, and don't give a damn about customer service, otherwise Walmart and Target would have floor salesmen in each department like days of yore. But Walmart and Target put those companies out of business, and Amazon doesn't even have to have people in the same state as their customers to bring in the majority of business. It ends up that floor customer service is less than worthless in the Internet era, so long as you can't undercut your competition in price. What will bring people in is coffee and cheesecake, because people are actually willing to pay a premium for that. The bookstore is just a money losing appendage in this day and age.

Even prior to covid I had to clean up after the dirty customers. Parent and their kids would sneeze right onto the books and hand them to me. They would leave their food and drinks from the BN Kitchen all over the store. I especially enjoyed removing their tissues and napkins from the furniture and floors. We had one custodial person working but they couldn’t keep up with the filthy toilets from westchester’s finest. I can’t I machine how bad it is now.

Getting rid of maintenance staff during a pandemic is not good! In fact, it's downright dangerous.

It’s not good.
It is dangerous.
It shows a lack of care for employees and customers.
It’s st*pid.

Getting rid of maintenance staff during a pandemic is not good! In fact, it's downright dangerous.

Well said !