Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Now more than ever the above statement rings true. We haven't lost the war yet folks. We may have lost some battles, true, but we still have a dog in this race.

11/10 bait m8

Rick dances with the janitorial mops in the restrooms

Wow! Rick, you previously made some incredibly elitist statements about the shoppers still loyal to our stores. According to your logic, being a savvy shopper makes one a "bottom feeder...clogging up our stores."

And then you dig that hole a little deeper with this head scratching statement:

"[members] NEED protection agreements and credit. Even if they don't know it."

Really? That statement doesn't respect the intelligence and financial decision-making of our customers. Every customer matters, no matter the amount of the sale. No matter if they are a member or not. No matter if they buy a PA or not. No matter if they apply for credit or not. Treat customers like people and not a metric, and you may possibly win them back. IMHO

Rick sears loses money on everything and their replacement plans and warrenties are garbage. Sears and kmart lose money everyday just by having their doors open

Donkey

Is Rick a donkey or a lion?

Amazon loses money on many products, sears makes money on everything but the real money is made on agreements and credit apps.

The sears employees just don't try to get our members on board. They NEED protection agreements and credit. Even if they don't know it.

yeah Rick

I hope your mops stand tall & proud

Best of luck to you Rick

True: Sears staff are lions.

But Sears leaders are donkeys.

Can't. Hours were cut again, remember?

Get back to work serfs!

"If everyone would just give a little extra we could turn this great company into the next Amazon."

Statements like the above shows very little forward thinking.

A company does not become great by being or wanting to be like another company.

A company becomes great by differentiating itself in such a way they are thought of first. Not by copying everything another company does and hoping that one day they will be as great as their successful competitor.

Think of what is lacking in the industry, implement the change to meet the need and make your customers come to YOU.

QUIT TRYING TO BE LIKE SOMEONE ELSE SEARS!

Sears already has the name and the history.

If you, OP, or Eddie, or whomever, would just ask the people in the trenches what is lacking in the industry, we would tell you. We see it everyday.

It certainly isn't mop water.

@ @M1GQbuy-2ebz

our folks who moved to tcs already being reassigned. it is not going to take them three years to make these changes. that deal is already stuffed. i doubt if more than 10 pct are retained for us by the 2018 holidays. now that is a double hypothesis in a sentence.

The company is not "Ours" anymore. Proven only by regional VP stating exactly that, "this is't Givein's Company". Makes one motivated.... Not

Sears could totally compete with Amazon. Just:

• totally rebuild the distribution network.

• totally rebuild the IT infrastructure

• vastly expand the number of sku's carried

• reverse years of negative opinions toward the brand and convince shoppers to risk doing business with them, vs a trustworthy brand like Amazon.

Or go back to the 80's and take a different course, become an early Internet pioneer, build the company greatly, and avoid the buyout by Kmart. That might be more feasible.

"If everyone would just give a little extra we could turn this great company into the next Amazon."

If it's going to be the next Amazon you know what that means? Closing brick and mortar stores. Wait, Sears has been doing that for years.

The only person who is going to make out like a bandit is Eddie himself. He's dumped so much of his hedge fund money (not HIS money) into Sears Holdings that when the company finally does fold, he will be the biggest creditor waiting to collect the final draw. It won't be 'rank and file' employees. Hourly folks at the stores will be out on the street. Call center folks will be (and already are) dumped. Home services techs will be let go in droves. Application teams will be (and already are) let go or reduced radically.

Not to mention the TCS debacle happening internally. How much institutional knowledge is walking right out the door being outsourced to India? And what happens when the TCS contract falls apart in less than 3 years. ALL the folks in-house and in India working for them will just be reassigned away and then where will any talent be? Not at Sears, that's for sure.

" sometimes recognition is more important than monetary compensation and the DMs know who is giving it over 100 percent. "

Man, we had some corporate guy come to our store around 5 years ago and that is exactly what he said. I think by the time he left he wishes he had never said it. We had single moms asking how recognition would pay their bills, we had a lady who was older and working because her husband had cancer, and some student who worked to pay for college. That guy got an earful and had no good answer except to say that was all the company could do. At least he admitted they could not afford raises and that was 5 years ago so it must be much worse now.

" sometimes recognition is more important than monetary compensation and the DMs know who is giving it over 100 percent. "

Yo Rick

We'll RECOGNIZE you as you give 120% while crawling out the door - can't miss you, - you'll be the one with the richly pigmented cocoa-colored nose

Give 100% to a company that is only going to give you the minimum it can in return?

Rick, I agree and we didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor either. Go SHC!!!

I noticed places like Home Depot also see protection agreements, the difference is that Home Depot's PAs are much more reasonably priced. Check it out sometime. The price difference PAs is MUCH lower at other stores.

Anyone with half a brain can figure out statistically extended warranties are a bad deal for the consumer. This is the only way they are so profitable for the company. In all actuality, they are an extremely overpriced insurance policy which you are unlikely to ever use.

Not everyone who declined the credit cards and protection agreements are d---beats. There's also the fiscally prudent, the kind that are OCD over their finances. They're happy with just one or two "good" cards (and Sears/Citi will never be a "good" card) and see past the hype and misinformation regarding the overpriced extended warranties (example: $499 for five years on a $1k fridge. Come on!). I am one of those people.

Regarding PAs, anyone that can turn a screwdriver could repair most appliances and lawn/garden equipment...eBay and Google searches are your friend, parts are not as expensive as we'd like to believe. I replaced the control board in my LG dryer for $50, brand new. The dryer was almost six years old, so the highest PA coverage (5 years) would have just expired if I bought it. The PA on that dryer was 239.99 or something like that.

Don't blame the customer if they don't want to buy PAs or sign up for credit. It's an old, outdated business model. Ever stop to wonder why Sears stores are so empty? It's not just the internet. Our competitors have steady foot traffic. Maybe it's because we are over the top pushing PAs and SYW and credit cards. Word gets around. At other stores, a single "no" to these things is good enough. Not with us!

Rick - thnaks for the posts - put a smile on my face- never forget experience and treachery always beats enthusiasm and intelligence.

Rick here,

Do you people really think Eddie has nothing better to do on a weekend than go on message boards when I could be out enjoying fountainhead or driving one of his numerous automobiles?

I am just trying to point out that its easy to hit your metrics, if a member decides not to sign up for credit or get a protection agreement usually because it was not explained properly. Sure you may have the occasional d---beat that makes their way into our store and when asked if they want to sign up for credit, they know damn well that they wont get approved so they decline. We really don't need the bottom feeders as members, they wont effect our pocketbook. Let them go to Walmart. All they do is come in the store and buy a cheap item that has no margin and then they decline credit and protection agreements, we honestly don't need them clogging up our stores when we have members eager to participate in our great programs.

With even less coworkers in our store I step up to pick up the slack, sometimes recognition is more important than monetary compensation and the DMs know who is giving it over 100 percent.

"Rick" wins Internet Troll of the Week honors.

If this post were written by Eddie (which I think it is) you have to give him credit for trying to motivate us, it must show on some level he cares a little about our success?

Rick = Eddie

As a former employee, I have to say Rick (Eddie) you are out of touch. Eddie was caught a few times on Pebble under a false name. So you can understand why people would think you are Eddie or posting on his behalf.

Working off the clock will get you fired, I've seen it threatened and I've seen it happen. Actually, I've even seen salary workers get their positions changed to salary non exempt because Sears wasn't paying enough to justify anything more than 40 hours and it was a violation of HR rules.

Yes Eddie only makes $1 as CEO... just as I'm sure a fox would take a $1 to guard the henhouse. He doesn't make money from his salary, he makes money controlling the deals that get money out of Sears and into his other business interests. When he still owned Autozone, Sears Auto Centers were required to purchase from them first, regardless of cost, they could only go to another supplier if AutoZone didn't have the part... so both Sears and the customer would end up paying more because Eddie wanted to bump up AutoZones numbers before selling his position.

As far as protection agreements and such, have you tried to replace something, especially now that the selection is reduced. Additionally, things have been phased out of the lifetime warranty for example Craftsman pocket knives were once under the warranty, but Sears no longer makes them. So you can get a replacement, but your choices of replacement aren't all that great and most have a 1 year warranty (although some have 5 year warranty) and that lifetime tool you bought isn't lifetime anymore.... and while some may say well you can't expect a tool to last forever and you got your use out of it, not really for the prices they charge vs the quality you are better off going to Harbor Freight for cheap tools, and if you need better quality go to Home Depot or a specialized dealer. This is why Sears is failing, among countless other reasons. People want a value, and that is not what they get at Sears.

Eddie is taking a 100+ year old company into the ground simply because its a way to make money, and he doesn't care if he screws over the working class, the village and state (Threats to leave if he doesn't get massive tax breaks) or screws over the stockholders of Sears. As long as he comes out on top making money... especially now that his name is so tainted with the mismanagement of Sears, he needs all he can get out of Sears' corpse because he might not get another change!

I agree. Definitely sounds like Eddie.

Can't work off the clock.....can't work off the clock!!! It is contrary to rules established by the federal government and exposes your dear company to potential fines! This Rick character posted this to get a reaction out of you people and he obviously succeeded....

Rick - I'm interested in procuring some of whatever you're on. You don't think every single one of us has given their all? We have, and got nothing in return.

First off, you can't give 120%. It is mathematically and physically impossible. I know that the company expects you to do more than you can possibly do. They expect you to do the job of two people in half the time and to do it with excellence. They expect you to work 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 367 days a year, but that can't and won't happen. Maybe this type of accounting is why the company is failing. They think you can give more than your all make sales and have customers like it is the Sears of the 60's, magically make computers, printers, RMU's, registers and other equipment work even though they are from last century.

Secondly, when you work off the clock it makes it harder on everyone else because now management thinks that jobs can get done with less hours. So in effect you are costing people hours because you are working for free.

If you worked off the clock in our store you would be terminated. Highly illegal and can bring all sorts of lawsuits. Even if you do it voluntarily

The US government invested significantly during WW2 to the tune of $350 billion, irrespective of attitude, positive or negative, financial investment is needed. No investment is being made at SHC hence it will fail, if no investment was made during WW2 we would have failed.

"the maintenance man is let go."

why keep a maintenance man when maintenance is not being done - sure sign that store is closing or is on the hit list for future elimination

There are a lot of legal issues with having hourly people work off the clock.

My take from this week:

The maintenance man was laid off in a store that only had him for maintenance. No infusions of any new supplies or equipment. Just the maintenance man. And he was let go.

The top executives continue to get hired at a $1 mil per year each. On a revolving basis. But the maintenance man is let go.