“Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’” – Charles M. Schulz
Prime Parking Available
I was just in time today to see absolutely nothing happen at Circuit City’s headquarters. The parking lot didn’t look this massive when it actually had cars. For anyone unaware of Circuit City’s demise, the management of this old, established electronics retailer propelled the company nose first into the ground. Their competitors hardly had to break a sweat to overtake them and while leadership rubbed their chins and pondered, The City became a ghost town.
Christmas Lite
Because I live a few miles from HQ I’ve seen former employees’ pain firsthand. The 2008 holidays were not very happy. One thing is clear: Circuit City had a lot of loyal employees. They stayed and worked through the holidays, through their own hardships, and took a load of crap from shoppers. Most didn’t bolt to find another job while there were still jobs to find. They stayed until it hurt, and then some. Consider this:
Employees that lost their jobs: 34,000
Severance: none
Accrued vacation pay: none
Bonuses to associates: promised but not delivered
WARN compliance (60 days notice before layoffs): incomplete (class action pending)
COBRA health insurance plan: none
Suckerfish and Scum Sucking Bottom Dwellers
Bonus bait was used to keep managers and employees in the stores until they were empty. The managers got a bonus. Their employees got nada. Close your eyes and thing about the last time you were a sucker. Stings, doesn’t it?
This bonus thing is a big issue. The same inept corporate management that killed the business will get bonuses to shut down the company. Ironic? They shut down the company without bonuses! 14 “essential employees” will get an average of $116,000 each, and another 135 will get $17,500. 33,850 former employees get no bonus, no severance, no insurance, and get cheated out of pay.
Customer Spittle
Income and benefits weren’t the only disaster. Plenty of customers were truly nasty as stores were liquidated. Employees got comments such as:
Quiz: Who Were The Huns?
I want to believe that most Circuit City employees – I’m excluding management – were good people in a bad situation, not Huns that pillaged the castle. Did you get this kind of abuse? How does your situation compare?
“So You Think You Have It Bad” is a series that profiles a company’s demise and how it treated its employees. I vote that Circuit City gets an F. What do you think?
Laurie Phillips writes for businesses who want to focus their energy on making money. You can read more about her at Sundance Research.
I Was Able to // May 5, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Hi, nice post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for sharing. I’ll certainly be coming back to your posts. Keep up great writing
Laurie Phillips // May 8, 2009 at 7:09 am
Thank you! If you have a particular topic you’d like us to cover please let me know through the contact form above.
Josh // May 7, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I was part of the employees greatly let down. My store was part of the first cuts in November. I lost my supervisory position, my pay, and upon being taken in at another location my pay was further cut below my original starting pay from 3 yrs ago, my hours were cut from 38 to 12 I lost my health insurance and all my PTO. Upon a month of arguing I gained my 118 hours of PTO back just to be locked from using it due to being classified as “seasonal” so much for the prior three years. Come January it all happened again. Everyone scrambled to apply their PTO before it was gone. 90% of customers always made comments about spending forever in unemployment lines now, and that we should have got out while there were still jobs. I was told at least twice a day sucks to be you, living pay check to pay check and now you don’t have one. Grind more salt in the wounds. At least 1/4 my old store mates are still looking for jobs. Many others went to work for the competition at surprise surprise new lower starting rates. For the most part the liquidators made their payments and most employees were paid for hours worked but at least 50% of PTO was not paid out and there were tiny bonuses for store management (Seems the average was about $1.5k-$3k depending on volume of the store)
Laurie Phillips // May 8, 2009 at 7:14 am
I hope someone leaves CC and sets up a competitor to Best Buy. In that or any other business they can apply the lessons they learned from CC’s inhumane treatment of the same people that let them stay in business for so many years. It’s very sad. Remember it’s not your fault and you will eventually take something positive away from all this.
Mark // May 7, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Oh heck yes. I worked in what management called the “profit center” of the store, the TV/Home Theater dept. We received $25 for every comcast customer we signed up. Over the course of the incentive, I had over $1400 due. No go. Canceled payments. Insult to injury, they decided to pay it out after the stores closed for good. I received an e-mail to log on the corporate reward site as the funds had been released. Bad news was since I was officially termed (fired) on the 8th of March, my password and login (that I used at the register for EVERY SALE) was “unable to validate” Duh. I had been removed from the employee system. So, in essence, we will pay you what you earned, but fat chance getting to it. I understand that companies go under, I understand that money can be lost, but to wait until 3 days after I was released, THEN e-mail me that I can go to the site to tell then where to send it, only to be unable to access it, was a very cruel joke.
Laurie Phillips // May 8, 2009 at 7:11 am
This is one of the ugliest liquidations I’ve heard of. Yet they’re paying big dollars for remaining executives to do an orderly shutdown. And this is orderly? Are there any answers from management out there?
Jennifer // May 11, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I agree the liquidation process was awful and noone really understood our pain except for well the ones going through it! We had a horrible and I mean horrible liquidator! We had a customer attack one of our customer service employees over a $10 used game because we couldnt return it! Even after ever thing that happened to me losing my job, pay, benefits, Circuit City came out of the grave to screw me over one last time. I recieved a bill from the doctor saying I owe them $200 dollars because in 2007 I hurt my knee @ work and Ccity had 3 years to file a claim, so they waited to tie up all there loose ends so that workers compensation wouldnt have to pay for it. I tried for 3 weeks before everyone @ corp was gone to get some answers, no one EVER called back, and $200 may not sound like alot but when ur unemployed and have other important bills to pay then it really is alot of money! I really feel like Ive been done dirty, and left hanging with alot of feelings of anger, confusion, and sadness! Dont get me wrong I loved the people I worked with my 3 and a half yrs there, we were a team, and I loved my job but I cant help to be angry with the higher ups who were responsible for all of this!