Thread regarding Walgreens layoffs

It’s an interesting read for sure, but you don’t even have to read any story. You can go on Glassdoor and read Michaels IT workers begging and pleading 4 help due to then cio’s conduct and orders. Wanted whole department to follow China’s model.
How he got hired by Walgreens is really strange with that kinda junk out there.

@4jyl+1pBANZur

Why would Walgreens/Pessina do many of the things they’ve done? Sad. But the hiring of RB is by far the worst of all of Pessina’s boneheaded moves. Charles R Walgreen, followed by his son and then his grandson, had a rule that any CEO had to have started in the pharmacy/hold a pharmacist’s degree & license. He clearly knew something. I suppose he wanted the CEO to think w a pharmacist’s mind/viewpoint. The first crack was Wasson- but at least he’d started in the stores as a pharmacy tech. Some might even view that as more impressive! But the reverse takeover (Boots Alliance) did occur on Greg’s watch. But then Pessina brings in an overpaid barista- and we ALL know why🙄 And she was NOT even ceo at Starbucks, but coo. She’d had one turn at CEO- @ Sam’s, where she also was mediocre at best & also forced out there. It’s also where she apparently hooked up w the likes of TB & HW. What the latter has done to the IT Dept will likely haunt the Co for YEARS… just as he destroyed Micheal’s IT Dept in a short 18mths & they are STILL trying to fix it. Coffee & Scrapbooks- not likely anyone will die if either get screwed up.
Encourage everyone to read Brittain Ladd’s pc on HW & Michael’s. Then imagine what he had access to at WBA.
Not.
Good.
Gawd only knows where this could go…
One huge hot mess! Cooler Doors are truly a mere distraction when you start talking CCP. TY- Mr Monaco🙄
SMH.

Why would Walgreens do business (cooler ad doors) with someone they fired /released from the company in the first place? Are there any concerns about 1 person being the majority shareholder and is perceived to be heavily involved in the decision making process?

@2clw+1pBANZur

In a word- yes. And worse- Pessina inked the Cooler Screen deal & has just sat back & watched the Breach of Contract Show w a big bowl of popcorn in Monaco🙄

So Walgreens is going to lose another lawsuit all because our previous CEO just decided to break a contract and no one from Compliance who tells us what we are doing wrong said anything or none of the lawyers said hey we can’t do that it is breach of contract. Gotcha

@ ndn+1pBANZur
No- this is completely false and as such irresponsible. It is important to get facts straight. Wasson ‘retired’ from Walgreens in 2014 after being pushed out by Pessina, who then inserted himself as CEO. Pessina was CEO of WBA they made the deal with Cooler Screens, which Wasson founded AFTER leaving WBA. I’m not sure why this is so hard to grasp other than some ppl need a certain demographic to blame. PESSINA inked the deal with Cooler Screens and has sat back & watched as they’ve reneged on a contract they willfully entered into aka BREACH OF CONTRACT. Furthermore, after the initial test sites, Pessina was EXPANDING the program. Then RB decided as she always does that the rules don’t apply to her and she does as she pleases, contracts be damned. Just bc she thought they looked ‘tacky’ (which again is hysterical given some of RB’s posse, ie TB🙄) she cannot, WBA cannot, simply ignore that to which they have CONTRACTUALLY COMMITTED AND ARE OBLIGATED TO FULFILL.
Again, timeline:
•Wasson retired 2014.
•Cooler Screens co did not exist!!!!!
•Pessina becomes CEO in 2015.
•The Smart Doors pilot launched in May 2018 at selected Walgreens locations & proved successful. In turn, Walgreens extended the test period, and in July 2019 (again- 2019- PESSINA is CEO) the companies entered into a longer-term deal to put Smart Doors in 2,500 Walgreens stores. Plans called for a two-phase rollout, starting with a 50-store deployment and then installations at the remaining 2,450 stores.
• Top Walgreens and Walgreens Boots Alliance executives—including then-CEO Stefano Pessina, Alex Gourlay, Richard Ashworth and Mark Vainisi—participated in talks for the agreement and exhibited high levels of collaboration with the project. However, the inception of a new CEO at Walgreens, Rosalind Brewer, in early 2021 later led to a “marked decline in the level of cooperation and support from Walgreens,” Cooler Screens states in their complaint. One could argue her comments in her 2015 CNN interview are coming into play here- perhaps one of the earliest examples of many during her tenure at WBA.
•When RB became CEO in March 2021, as we all know- rules simply not apply to her🙄 It’s just breach of contract after all- and Pessina unscrupulously sat back and watched.
We can hate the screens.
We can hate all of the players in this beyond screwed up mess, some of the players, or none of them.
What we can’t do, however, is not get facts correct. It only serves to weaken one’s argument.
Pessina inked the deal/signed a contract- w Cooler Screens while acting as agent for WBA as their CEO. Not Wasson, not Brewer- but Pessina. Regardless- in America, at least for now, contracts can’t simply be shrugged off. We are not in Monaco.

Gotta hand it to Wasson on selling costly and unreliable cooler doors to Walgreens that block the view of the merchandise and instead show an image of what may or may not be inside. That said, Pessina and Roz did the company no favors. Failure to innovate and adapt in a changing environment and way too much reliance on Covid revenue just to name a few. Obviously, Roz had no idea what she was doing but Wasson planted the seeds for Walgreen's demise with his "Re-wire" cost -cutting initiative and complete lack of oversight regarding opi--ds. Under Wasson's reign, opi--ds were dispensed will nilly and we're paying for it now through hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements. Re-wire destroyed morale with its cuts in pay and benefits and overemphasis on metrics. Unhappy employees don't make a customer-facing business grow and prosper.

“Brewer apparently did not share her predecessor’s enthusiasm for Cooler Screens. After visiting stores in which Smart Doors had been installed, Brewer decided that she did not like the way they looked,” Cooler Screens explained in the suit. “Brewer wanted to stop the deployment and remove the screens and related technology from the Smart Doors from all Walgreens locations.”

Greg made the deal with cooler screens when he was CEO. So, he made a deal with himself. That is highly unethical and corrupt.

@maw+1pBANZur

Nope. RB was the d-mbest idea ever. Coolers might be second, but a distant second…

This company is a complete joke

Those cooler screens are the d-mbest idea ever!