Thread regarding Sears layoffs

The retail side, there were too many stores mismanaged for too long. I know some say vendors weren’t sending supplies but I’ve walked into a store in AZ that was fully stocked. I was asked by each department if I needed any assistance or any questions. I happened to be close to a different store in AZ and walked in to bare shelves, whole sections just sitting empty and when asked where stock was they responded with ask the manager. The manager I located and he said corporate wouldn’t authorize the purchase of stock. That was 2 years before that 2nd store was closed. And Home Services they are ran drastically different from retail stores. Their managers micromanage everything, they are daily pressured to sell not fix, they don’t sell enough and they have to sit on the side of the road when they have to do a conference call with the district manager (direct manager) and the are manager (person over several districts) and this is dictated by John the manager for all of Home Services who gets his orders from Eddie himself. They don’t know how to manage properly without being too involved or not involved enough.

POS? Point of sale? Piece of s***?

1. What's an MSL?

2. Hassles? You mean like all the metrics everyone has to meet? I don't see those going away, though somebody did have a good point a couple threads back. If Sears didn't hassle its customers for a PA or a credit card, maybe it would have more business? I remember when I bought my washer and dryer from Lowe's, since Sears had the model I wanted not in stock for about a month out. I was never asked to sign up for a credit card and they asked me about the extended warranty once. I politely declined, and that was the end of it. No hassle whatsoever.

3. Depends - before leaving Sears, I worked at two stores. One with a really lazy/absent SM and one that was never in his office unless he had to be on a conference call, an interview, a weekly meeting with the other managers in the store or to send his bosses an email. He would fold clothes, help put freight away, sell a fridge or mower when everybody else was busy with a customer, ring up customers in softlines - all without complaint. He genuinely loved customer service and being a part of the store. The other one, not so much. She'd make the other managers do the dirty work. She wouldn't come out of her office to talk to customers when they asked for her. She never touched a till or a cart of freight.

4. The ASMs at both of the stores I worked at were always busier than they could handle, but YMMV.

5. The POS systems were much more reliable a few years ago when they used the DOS based software. I don't know if you were around when they had the old software, but it worked so much better than the touch interface they are using on the POS systems now. The new software is the main reason why the POS systems work so poorly. As for the POS hardware, it is outdated. It's around 20 years old, but if they cannot afford to replace the POS systems, they could squeeze some more time out of these if they rolled back to the old tried and true DOS software. If the hardware has lasted 20 years, what's another five years until they have the means to upgrade?

6. Retail chains have to have DMs, but yes, I think Sears could use some better ones. There is a lot more to being a district manager than to sit around and fire off commands through emails and conference calls. I had been with Sears for almost nine years (until last year) and I remember only seeing the district manager twice. They need to visit the stores more often. Roll up their sleeves and help out every once in a while. I have a friend who worked for Burlington Coat Factory and she said that the district managers would drop in, do their inspection and walk with the manager. Afterwards they would spend time on the registers or even projects around the store if they didn't have anywhere else to go.