Thread regarding Barnes & Noble layoffs

I just wrote on a couple of the career sites. Even a loser can tell the rave reviews are totally fake and written by corporate. Everyone looks for the bad reviews, haha!

"Bronko- his future, your future, my future, EVERYONE working at BN’s future will outlast BN’s future!"

Ain't that the truth. I'm frankly surprised that BN is still lurching along. I also understand that a lot of people hurt by this company (and are still getting hurt) deserve to be heard, and allowed to vent their feelings.

But, I stand by my earlier posts. As bad as you might think that corporate America is, in reality, it's much, much worse--particularly companies as horrifically run as BN. Imagine some drone middle-manager in NYC, fretting about keeping his own job; Len's ranting about some damned thing every day, and the drone wants to be seen as forward-leaning. He decides, let's lower the boom on some of this negative social media!, and bah-boom, they start lowering the boom on some of this negative social media. The broom that sweeps clean sweeps wide, and there's always some collateral damage.

Really bad things can happen to really good people. It happens all the time. If you are an ex-employee, like me, say what you will. If you are still there, keep what I said in mind.

And get your gosh darn resumes dusted off.

I've seen the nasty emails from our DM myself and I have copies of them.

Come after me!

Bronko- his future, your future, my future, EVERYONE working at BN’s future will outlast BN’s future!

Yes people need to know how to have a good resume and what to do & not do at an interview.

Yes people shouldn’t give their identity & location away.

We can read the pain some of these people have been through and are still in.

In theses posts I recall reading of DMs in that people have written about. But I think,Without specific stores mentioned they’d be hard pressed to pin down who wrote it. These DMs needed to be called out ( like I said : the pain these people were and still are in)

"Is this specific enough, Bronko?"

Sounds good to me, brother. But it's not my future at stake, it's yours. If you are still at BN, I wish you luck; I really do. From my previous posts here, we feel the same way about the company.

The DM in FRAMINGHAM, MA is the worst. Her and her team of witches forced so many good people out without good reason. So many lies. She has no clue what she's doing, has terrible ideas for the stores and blames everyone under her when sales are bad or cards aren't selling. She talks about everyone behind their backs and is an expert backstabber. Hopefully, she'll be forced to retire and someone smart and decent will replace her.

Is this specific enough, Bronko?

So, when you guys go off getting all hyped up about speaking the truth, don't bother telling me; I've been there, on both sides of the desk. And, I've got nothing to learn from you.

😂😂😂😂

If you guys think that posting on social media can't hurt you, vs. big business, keep posting on social media.

When the dinosaur dies, it's tail thrashes wide, and anybody or anything that's in its way gets smashed. If it's not you, it's some poor schmuck who gets mistaken for you.

Here's the real deal--if you badmouth your former employer, and it get's tracked back to you, then it's going to hurt you. It's going to hurt you really bad. You can quote the First Amendment chapter and verse, but employers who are looking to hire somebody will check it, and pass you by.

Now, if you want to vent and post your beefs here or anywhere, feel free; I could care less. Just make sure that you don't post enough to make it come back to sting you, or somebody else.

Also remember: when you go in to interview, don't badmouth your former employer. People looking to hire and looking for a reason not to hire somebody. When I interviewed prospective employees, and they beefed on former employers, I generally didn't hire them.

So, when you guys go off getting all hyped up about speaking the truth, don't bother telling me; I've been there, on both sides of the desk. And, I've got nothing to learn from you.

I wrote my review and I'm sure corporate will love it. ;)

I am so confused as to why they are closing our facility . We have always made our numbers and have some of the best results anywhere . Employee morale is at an all time high ! The leadership team is super talented and has won award after award over the years. How can they close a winning building?

I have been here almost 20 years and have never been happier . It just doesn’t make any sense.

Everybody here feels the same way . I always thought we were key to the overall success of our larger work team . Why doesn’t the company leadership understand how this business should be run !!!!

Imagine , having Plant B now making the chips , at the same time they are making the salsa.

It doesn’t make any sense . Everyone knows that chips are so much harder to manufacture than salsa . It used to be that ......huh? What....this isn’t the site for complaining about Tony’s Snack Food Company . ....huh ? This is the Barnes and Noble site ? Oooops , sorry ...... . You guys keep up the good work over there. Love the section where the self help books are . I am there all the time .

BN fired their full timers. Then threatening their severance pay, made them sign a paper that they would not say anything negative about them on social media.

You think they thought what they did was wrong? That someone might say something? Why do you think they thought a signed document was necessary?!

But let’s keep quiet.

Let’s not do the math that they dismissed 4 to 5 positions in each of over 600 stores but claimed they dismissed 1800. I can add.They can too.

Why do they get to LIE & you can’t give a truthful but negative review ?

Oh , by the way, I still work there part time ( I have a REAL full time job. One that pays well, provides benefits and treats employees like they matter) why do I stay part time ( 2,4 hour shifts a week) my family reads. A LOT.The discount is why I stay for 8 hrs a week.

Bad mouth who you “worked” for ?

I’ll always tell the truth. If they want to “sue” me. Go ahead. Prove my truths are lies. Fire me ? Ok. So I buy from Amazon.

Don’t let LIARS bully you.

It would take a real imbecile to post a bad review on Indeed of their former company.

And THAT’s how companies control you. With the “threat” of retaliation they bully you to keep silent.

So by your rational, don’t post a bad review of a restaurant you’ve eaten in. They might wait for you to return & spit in your food.

Don’t write a bad review of poor service in a store. They might treat you worse if you return.

Right ?

I have to assume if you’re writing a bad review of a place you’ve worked , like the restaurant or the store (where service was bad) you won’t be returning to work at that company.

But yeah, by all means, keep quiet. Let their practices and how bad they are, go unchecked . THAT’s how they get away with it.

This is was the worst job I ever had. They took advantage of how hard I worked by refusing to respect my time and refusing to pay me more. I hesitate to even shop at Barnes & Noble anymore.

It is a terrible place to work. My managers always scheduled their favorites the best hours and threatened to fire us if we didn't reach daily goals for the rewards programs. The only pro was 20% off regularly priced items. It went up to 30% right before Christmas.

The once great company which turned on its dedicated,most knowledgeable, best working veterans and threw them out with security.

The District Manager pits people against people for her enjoyment.

And if you call HR to complain, they refer you back to her.

Worked at BN for 15 years. From management to part time and every department. Beyond shady. I worked enough hours to get benefits but was "coded" at 12 hours so I could never get them. Full time positions were almost all eliminated they laid off great, tenured people to do it. Workload to staff ratio was exhausting. Cafe employees left alone for whole shift practically begging for a break which was covered by a manager who was barely trained in there. No training, horrible customers, horrible pay, horrible management, no honesty, shady disrespectful upper management. It started out great but the employees are the most miserable people. All of us were on Indeed looking to jump this sinking ship. Shut it down.

Did not enjoy working here. The mission was loosely followed and the turnover rate is ridiculous due to unruly supervisors. Will not return back to this and wouldn't recommend it.

Very toxic work environment. Abusive upper management. HR not helpful when I reported that I was being verbally abused and harassed by my store manager and assistant manager.

B&N is clearly headed in a downward direction. It's a non supportive environment that I would never recommend.

B&N in the Chicago area has some of the worst, untalented (DM and above) managers that I've ever worked with. They are completely lacking in people skills and simply don't care about the people they manage.

This is not the kind of job that can financially sustain an adult. You will have to surrender your entire schedule to management to get even close to 30 hours. Every week, the schedule changes, with only a couple days notice.

You will be forced to hound every customer for their email and try to get them to sign up for the membership.

Terrible job, forces you to stay late after closing by force and demands you to come early for morning shifts. Will work you to death during busy seasons even though we are always understaffed no matter what, especially during the slow seasons because they just cut people's hours without care of if they can pay for the rent because the company only cares about their own profits. I was harassed by a lead and a manager who had anger issues and would threaten customers all the time and nothing was done in either situation. I was blocked by the lead manager to get in contact with HR over the harassment I was dealing with for over months at that point. I was promised by managers that I would get a response or hear back over what happened and nothing. Management is terrible, always had to deal with homeless people and d--g addicts in the store as well and manager didn't care about our own safety, just told me to keep it quiet around customers when I had to deal with the same addict multiple times and afraid for my own safety. Easiest store to steal from because they don't have their own security and always understaffed so never enough people to keep eyes on anything at all in the store. Discount is not even worth much, better to just save your money and buy off of Amazon. I can't wait until they go out of business because you deserve to. Four hour shifts is utterly insane and still I hear people getting hours cut to two hours or just sent home once they arrive to work. They also cut our discount from the B&N cafe, because they are so greedy they just want to profit more off of the workers that are already struggling to get by. No one who isn't a manager can not afford to live with these wages without having a second job. Stay away, this corporation is dying and taking you down with them.

Management is terrible and very lazy. The stores will be closing soon mostly because they don’t understand readers. The employees are told to hard sell the books as if we were used car salesman. The lying one has to do is very difficult. You aren’t allowed to recommend a book that was actually good but were told to recommend whatever the company was trying to get rid of. The employees are treated as if they aren’t human beings with lives but plastic figures to be inserted where needed.

As a lead bookseller, I reported to Corporate headquarters, that the person under me would not follow my instructions, or requests- because he enjoyed the favors of the store manager. This has remained in my file- and has prevented me from ever working for any store ever afterwards. Most recently, this has happened with my application for work as a temporary bookseller in the Frederick, Maryland branch. It is either that, or because of my longevity, I am 64 years old now.

It would take a real imbecile to post a bad review on Indeed of their former company.

Why? Because only a real imbecile would say anything bad about the company they worked for, at least non-anonymously. The same thing goes here--I have said this before here and will say it again, don't ever say anything negative about a former employer and make it easy for them to track it back to you. It's stupid. It's silly. However unlikely it is for BN or any other former employer to bring a civil suit against you, it's still dumb.

What's not dumb is to get your resume together and use Indeed for what it's worth--to find another job.

You think they can afford to sue you ?!

They can’t even afford bags ! 😳😉

No one is going to sue anyone, let alone a bookseller making close to minimum wage.

They can't afford to go after anyone. In fact, they should be worried about all of the people they forced out with no good reason. I know one store that got rid of 2 women of a certain age at the exact same time. Talk about sleazy business practices!

I went to the BN indeed site. Was hard pressed to find any negative reviews.All were like it's such a fun laid back place to work, management was great, Co workers were friendly , etc, etc, etc. And these were all current Bull. Checked back a couple days later and most of the bad reviews were gone.

“You shouldn't be afraid to TELL THE TRUTH!”

Those fired in February 2018 had to sign a document that they would not say anything against BN on social media sites or risk receiving their severance,

Because BN knew what they were doing was pretty sh--ty and wanted to preserve their reputation ( which in the business world is worth NOTHING, now).

Some people believed BN would hunt each & every one of them down.

You shouldn't be afraid to TELL THE TRUTH!

“Tell us how you feel about the company, management and what we need to to better!”

you’ve already F’d up beyond redemption and can’t get it back !

You treated your BEST , career , invested employees like garbage !

Then INSULTED them by offering them part time jobs at minimum wage ! (ie: do your same job for less money & no benefits!)

Indeed wants your email & location. Someone suggested so they can sue you for an HONEST, TRUTHFUL, review. They’re so DESPERATE for money ,they’d pay the many expensive lawyers still employed by them to sue you. The “reviews” here are much more accurate & truthful than Indeed ( wouldn’t surprise me if most of the reviews are put there by BN, to try and look good).

I was trying to be funny. It's NOT from corporate... "We're her for you"- REALLY? Who would believe that!

I think everyone should write a review on Indeed and tell them exactly how you feel!

We're here for you? Like the February 2018 layoffs of some of the most hardworking and loyal people you had. Give me a break!

What the hell for, you didn't listen way back when, what makes you think we would waste our time to give you our input after you have already destroyed countless loyal employees and put the whole company in the sh*tbin. LOL Karma.

Yea....like that's gonna ever happen unless it is totally anonymous . No names, no states, no regions....NOTHING . Sounds like some sneaky way for corporate to track you down and sue you. I was watching tv where a lady put in a bad review on a company website....now they are trying to sue her for defamation of the company.....Corporate ....what a bunch of a**es.