We are safe. We are solid and once again the AMAZING TALENTED FOLKS at FP (NYC & EA) will carry your sorry backsides in ES for a few more months until the next layoff when you’re culled once again. You can’t mess with success folks. Things might not be at their best but they’re better here than on the west coast.
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I can't imagine how cuts were made in AG. The cost of living in WI is so low they should move all of FP out there. Cheaper than Buffalo or NYC.
If it’s older then it needs to be updated, not fixed. too many cheese curds between the ears if you ask me. AG always had a ridiculously high priced business model that worked as a small time operation in the cheese capital of the US but on a global scale? meh.
Let’s cut all the crap o’ pious fellow FP employee. folks were high fiving in the NYC office at the end of the day when ES experienced their Red Wedding. Happy it wasn’t us, we might not be doing great and yeah we all make cost reduced garbage thanks to the initiatives set forth during the BS era but we are survivors. We are not being shuttered, not getting culled and jesus as my lord and savior we will rise above and be the shinning diamond protruding from this dung heap of a company.
Thank you for all that and our issues are so identical to yours. It's been such a slow, yet painful experience...it feels in a lot of ways like a systematic block of every efficient and effective way we were conducting business vs they way we are having to do it today. Every discipline in the company has been negatively impacted.
You are so correct...just because it's older, doesn't mean it needs to be fixed if it's working correctly. Change for the sake of change, gets us nowhere, but it's where we are today...unfortunately.
Thank you for that. I am sure there is so much I do not know, but here is what I feel has taken away from at least a portion- we are now everywhere, so no longer that ultimate experience- then there are fantastic inititives, but without the follow through and support to see that they work. That might have been ok but the icing in my mind was all our "System changes" without the investment to see that they work as intended, band aid fixes for "bugs" without support during "business hours"- "see yah it's 5:00-handle it" ...and then there is the new web platform- what already wasnt great got a whole lot worse...its supposed to be a premium brand. Three, four years ago your challenge was the screamers who could not accept the backorder- today its "sorry your order must be lost in cyber space" "oh geez, you placed an order by phone and its canceled, im not sure why- could it be your billing- could it be a charachter the system wont allow- wait maybe it errored out and your processor didnt see it---"sorry...I know we missed the big day" l circle back to the need to keep compiling more and more "new" without a care to as how it is executed- my thoughts are to stop, rewind- stop tryin to make whats always worked with the old, work woth the new. Take the time and money to see that things are done the right way and in a timely manner. You want something better but its built around what been done for decade....why? Its embarrassing to say the least...anyway- there is so much more im sure, but this is what I see.
To the AG poster, on behalf of FP, I want to apologize for any hard feelings that you may have towards us. Our reality, like yours and Mega, has been a slow and painful death, destruction, and demise of our once vibrant brand. I attribute all of this directly to our One Mattel way of operating a business.
We have seen our once profitable businesses taken under a single minded, maniacally driven system to become convoluted, overly complex, and grossly inefficient. Our products have been cheapened and rapped of all the price value and quality they once had.
This is our reality. At the same time, we are fighting like hell to change this idiotic way of doing business. I believe that what you might be confusing as arrogance, is actually our pride shining through to not allow this cancer to spread any further.
Please don't judge FP employees based on things posted on this forum, we are generally decent people. In many ways I imagine we are in a similar situation as AG and perhaps all the subsidiaries.
Can you give some insights into what's been driving AG business down? Perhaps we can all learn from your recent past and avoid similar stumbling blocks if possible in the future.
Do not work in EL Segundo but for AG, yah know- the bright shining star of 2013. Id love to sit and point fingers as to why our brand suffers as it does, but why bother. All personal items have been removed from my desk so that when my walking papers arrive, no one will be left to deal with my 18 years of junk. I feel a black cloud everyday I walk through thr door- emotions of feeling used, amd thrown out like yesterday's garbage. An emotional roller coaster that Im certain others can relate too. What has helped tremendously over the last couple of days is to read the horrible word vomit that FP feels the need to share. Never mind the contacts ive made in the west coast, in which I pray have not been sent away- its beyond disgusting to me that anyone would thrive on others losses. So to you I say, keep it- with behavior like yours it certain to end soon enough and probably not very well. And while I might not be a big Mattel employee, ive always felt part of the team, but would NEVER want to be a part of any team you are on. Matture you are not- but behavior I can only compare to 45...
No one is safe if Mattel goes bankrupt. The rate at which we are spending cash is alarming. Let's hope they can at least keep making payroll heading into the new year.
No one was cut at FP. just goes to show who has more value in the higher ups minds.
FP rules, El Segundo drools.
Look, dear FPers, while your brand suffers (as does all other brands at Mattel) because your advertising dollars have been shifted to artificially prop up Barbie, you don't REALLY have all that much to sing about.
You make exactly 1/2 the margin percentage of Barbie. This isn't something you should be proud of - but instead something should be aspiring to get to. You make less margin because your products have been sold on a COLLECT basis, while the rest of the company is sold on PREPAID. What's this mean? It means that when you're showing your wholesale prices to your customers (along with suggested retails), you are OVERSTATING the margin your giving the retailer.
In reality, and the retailers know it, you are giving them 8-12% lower margin than your competition. Whether you know it or not, you have always been hanging on by a thread based on this poor margin offering. The ONLY thing keep you in place was your advertising spend. But now that it's been cut so much, you will start to get delists for 2018.
To change this, you need to factor in the freight cost from your warehouse to the customers' stores that they have to pay for and then drive cost efficiencies and spending behaviors so you can be competitive. It's not easy, but it's required. Then, if you do that, you can sing all you want about how "solid" you are. In the meantime, stop saying what isn't true. I work for one of your retailers and just laugh when I see how blind you are to how things REALLY are.
Genius-envy, are you still mad at the result of the alabama election?
To the genius with the high IQ, it must have been you who came up with Jihad Barbie. Now that’s “rocket science” right? See what I did there? Mind “blown” away. Get it? Oh and Fat Barbie. Next season please give her excess elastic skin. Or is that a “stretch” to fat assume you’ll still be a “round”?
Thats all well and good for you. When the company gets broken apart in a sale you will fetch a good price. Then unceremoniously kicked to the curb. By all means keep your cheer up!
GIve me a break - fp is down too. I think fp is drinking the koolaid.
My, aren’t we full of ourselves. Maybe it’s because you make the most simplistic of toys....preschool toys are hardly rocket science. Probably a 90 IQ or so would suffice, no?
So you say.