Wet Seal - Birmingham, Alabama http://i.imgur.com/JCAdGv4.jpg
6 replies (most recent on top)
Wet Seal sucks!!!
I worked at a corporate HQ for a retail company and we would also close stores with zero notice to employees after the store closed for the day because if we gave notice, there was concern the landlord(s) would change the locks and hold the stock hostage till payments were made for pulling out of a lease early. So we would set up the entire store to be emptied, and lock up the doors with chains from midnight - 4am. Then staff would find out the store closed by getting to work and seeing the chains on the door. This is also the reason why each retail store is called 10025674 Ontario (or whatever Province after a random number) Inc. instead of the company name. It makes it easier to file bankruptcy on the individual stores without affecting the main company, thus allowing them to not be charged for fee's for breaking lease (among other things). The employees didn't know till whoever was scheduled to open the store the following morning would show up only to see chains on the door and the store to be empty. We (at the corporate office) would hire an outside agency and get a few of our transport trucks to be there late at night and they would have the entire store empty before the store opened the next day (all done in about 5-6 hours). So there was no concern over employees not showing up, stealing, causing problems, etc. because they don't find out (not even the managers) until they show up and see an empty store that is chained closed. Once we had a giant restructuring and even managed to do this to 10+ stores in 5 provinces all in the same night so that word wouldn't get out beforehand.
"We are Invested We believe in our people, products, processes, and communities and show it by investing in them. We make a difference in the lives of those that we employ and serve."
We are The Wet Seal family.
Let me explain the logic here because I've been down this path with a few companies. The company, through poor planning, poor execution or unanticipated market changes slides into financial trouble. And it can happen relatively rapidly. In the Board meetings, once the trouble is recognized, we talk about how to save the company (or how not to lose more while selling or liquidating the company). Now, the Board itself is not a monolith. Some members will have written the company off in their heads and simply want a fast liquidation to recoup as much as possible - and that can be the best that can be made of a bad situation sometimes. But it we think the company can be saved, it's invariably going to require retention of key management - who already know the company and its business (and assuming the Board doesn't decide they are the problem). So you have your CFO sitting there, he knows the stock has been headed down, the company is in trouble and so do the headhunters. You know he's getting a call or two a day offering him a chance to move to a more stable company, but if he leaves, the recovery becomes even more unlikely. So to keep him on board, you offer raises or retention bonuses - enough to encourage him to stick around and work on a sinking company on the chance it could recover. Cause if he leaves, good luck hiring a decent CFO on to this sinking ship and even if you can hire a new CFO, he's not going to know the financial structure and pitfalls like your existing CFO - and the company is going to go under if he takes a couple months to get up to speed. The issue is compounded further by the risk of a bankruptcy court demanding the payments be repaid (which it can do under certain conditions). So yeah, there's a good reason the CFO may have gotten a raise or bonus at this point.
Their creditor on Friday defaulted on them. Don't know if it was sudden or not, but I wonder if it was a shock on corporate too.
Still shitty to let them go without severance, but they probably don't have any capital left. Also, they should have intimated that their stock is tumbling, but that's really public knowledge.
Really there should be some sort of insurance so that vacation+severance are paid in the event of a company collapse.
I did not even know this company existed and I hate them now.