Listened to Eddie's Town Hall this AM. First, this is the hardest thing he has had to do since his father's eulogy when he was 14? Way to make it about yourself! Then, asking if people know what it is like to fire a secretary or housekeeper? Total miss on that...housekeeper? Why not the butler too? If he was trying to make himself seem like a fit with all of the "regular" employees here, he just missed the mark and pointed out what an *** he is.
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@VFVziAy-2hwy All the long term dedicated employees have either been layed off, left for better jobs, or forced to retire early. There’s no one left in the stores that give a sh*t. They’ve been hiring anyone with a pulse for along time. And most of them don’t last long.
I thought it was useful, but the inventory question is tough. Can’t make money unless we acquire enough inventory prior to holiday.
Though I don’t have much confidence in the field to execute. I’ve worked at corporate for years and it seems like very often I visit the stores and the associates are too busy hiding out, scrolling on their phone or talking to sell much. Can’t move a lot of product that way lol...
Luckily they Pebble about movies and video games so we can stay in the know about that
This guy gets it.
Townhall was a waste of time
Eddie talked about his favorite subject.... himself
Scripted his own questions
No plan for the company
How we going to get sales with no vendors and no merchandise and no customers Eddie?
And yea the part about the housekeeper and secretary was priceless
any audio or video link available on this?
As a manager, I've had to let people go and still do. While it is sometimes a little difficult, it doesn't have such an impact on me that it was the most difficult thing I've done in my life. I have fired probably over 200 people in my 22 year career. Life goes on for me.
If firing a secretary or housekeeper was soooo life-alteringly difficult for him, Eddie needs to step out of his coccoon and see the real world!
Sears Home Services did not make $1B in profit in 2017. That is 100% incorrect, it doesn't even make sense given SHC expenses and margins reported at the corporate level.
Yes people work hard, they get paid. They work overtime, they get paid overtime.
I'm not sure what the issue is here.
Even before there was a comment around associates pouring their lifeblood into Sears...Really? Let's not get too dramatic. People came to work and they got paid when they worked. Yes they worked holidays and nights. That happens everywhere. People work they get paid. The owner decides to liquidate a business, the workers don't get paid anymore...
For the ones defending Eddie let me give you a reality check. He sold craftsman brand for 900 million to another company but he doesn’t understand why the board refused his offer to buy the Kenmore brand AND Home Services for 400 million. Yes Home Services profits are down, customers don’t purchase when they carry a MPA and think they get a free replacement when their current equipment is 20+ yrs old. Home Services brought in 1 Billion in profit in 2017, this came from Eddie himself at their kickoff meeting they had in this past spring. But techs working home services have to deal with disgusting homes not fit for animals, an hour a day of being told they aren’t selling enough and to quit finding ways to fix the equipment, and being told that you didn’t work enough and sell enough to get a raise. These guys work 12-16 hour days 5-6 days a week and their summer pay is thousands just in hourly pay from the over time. And Eddie tells them they aren’t doing enough to make the company profit. They have tools break that are very old and should have been replaced years ago and it takes 2 months to get a replacement. So quit praising Eddie when he made that all happen!
I used to work in CE at corporate. Seemed like at the time our biggest problem was store associates couldn't sell an HDMI cable with a TV...
Was Eddie here on a daily basis running the company? No! He is an investor/ business man and happened to have a large stack in the company already. He was not running the daily duties of the company is what I am saying. Look at pebble how many times a day do you see stores say they pebbled a question and no merchant had responded so they can sell their product at store level?? Some have the question for a week. That right there is the #1 problem. No communication within the company.
What do you mean he will get his money back as he should? If you buy something and it fails, and it has no warranty, do you get your money back? The issues going on at Sears were around long before your three years here. He is the leader, he was the CEO. You can't say he wasn't in charge, he was. If you don't realize that, you haven't been paying attention. Payments were approved by him personally. If we didn't pay a vendor, it was at his direction. He doesn't deserve his money back, if you invest and it fails it is too bad for you. If I invest in the stock market and the stock price falls, I don't get that money back. If you have been working here for 3 years and don't understand finance, you might be part of the problem too.
I would appreciate a copy or link to the speech too..
Why is everyone bashing Eddie? I believe he truly tried to help the company. The company was given money and bail outs to try to make a change and we/ management are the ones that failed. He was basically a bank loaning money not the leader. I’ve been at corporate for 3 years and noticed right away how operations here were not up to par. No one can communicate within departments or with the stores. That is a major problem. He will get his money back as he should.
Does someone have a copy/recording of the speech?
Those rent checks keep him up at night . . . . . Counting them like sheep.
Poor Eddie. My heart bleeds for him. I'm so sad. The only thing that could cheer me up would be to hear HIS eulogy. Seriously. You Eddie cheerleaders make me sick. He IS an evil mastermind.
The company should have died 15 years ago . Like it or not, he kept it around and paid 2/3 of the pension obligations .
Nobody else was in a position to mess with it .
If you didn't see the red flags that a hedge fund guy was buying the two companies and you expected positives results, that's on you
I'm just saying you miss the mark and target audience by referencing firing your housekeeper. Was that really the only analogy he could come up with? Fire you assistant, fire your hairdresser, but housekeeper? It just felt very off the mark for me.
I have no issue with him making money, do it legally, don't do it legally, truthfully I don't care. But when you are standing in the room of the people who may or may not lose their jobs because of decisions you and your board have made, make sure your answers are well thought out. Target the audience, not the other board members.
You do realize that he's been making $$$$ from the SHC interest payments all this time. And who owns Seritage? He's done ok in more ways than we'll ever know.
People have poured their life blood into Sears so I think they gave more than enough. Remember it's retail. You are there holidays, nights and weekends. If that's not enough, most of the jobs are physically demanding and pay a low wage.
Back to Eddie -- He did not want to fail but this is failing. He thought he could have his cake (keeping the business running) and eat it too (financially extract everything possible) but it doesn't work like that. He also could have made the effort to live in Chicago. That says everything.
Also, there is nothing illegal to buy companies for gain, that's literally the number #1 reason people buy companies. To make money from them.
The guy had billions before he took over Kmart and Sears, why shouldn't he still have the billions after?
How much of your own personal wealth have you poured into SHC to keep it afloat?
Also, firing people in general is difficult no matter the circumstance, i believe that was the point. I've had to let good people go, as well as bad people. Both situations were difficult because despite poor performance, I still didn't enjoy negatively impacting someone's life by letting them go.
I'm not saying he's the only victim. I was making the point that people make him out to be this evil mastermind and in my opinion he's not.
The guy had billions before he took over Kmart and Sears, why shouldn't he still have the billions after?
How much of your own personal wealth have you poured into SHC to keep it afloat?
Also, firing people in general is difficult no matter the circumstance, i believe that was the point. I've had to let good people go, as well as bad people. Both situations were difficult because despite poor performance, I still didn't enjoy negatively impacting someone's life by letting them go.
I'm not saying he's the only victim. I was making the point that people make him out to be this evil mastermind and in my opinion he's not.
He bought this company to gut it for his gain. He should be in jail
I think Eddie might care about publicly going from the next Warren Buffet to the most hated CEO in America. I'm not sure that he cares about the food on your table. Ayn Rand would tell you to get a different job. Remember he wants to keep you on board because he needs workers.
Was his analogy that the housekeeper and Secretary were fired because he'd mismanaged his finances so much that he couldn't afford to keep them? That would be the direct parallel.
Yeah Eddie's the poor maligned victim here. Only he gets to sleep on his billions at night while his underlings worry whether or not they'll get another paycheck.
Spare me
I actually really liked his speech, it seemed genuine. And it would be very hard to be in that position. I think Eddie gets a bad wrap. Guy invests a ton of time and money into keeping the company afloat so I can keep my job for whatever amount of time i'm able to keep it, that merits my respect. Has he taken steps to protect his investment? Sure, but he would be stupid not to. It's his money, let him protect it how he wishes. I appreciate what he's done to keep food on the table for my family for several years.
He could have done some things differently, but who knows if it would have made a difference. Sears had issues long before Eddie came along. I see so many posts on this site about people stealing, wasting time and a whole host of other issues. Maybe if we didn't have people acting like that, some of the initiatives the company undertook would have turned out more successfully. Instead we just get the peanut gallery bashing the hand that feeds them lol.
How were you able to listen to his speech?