[riri]

Neither did the other 3,900 highly paid commissioned salespeople

Now, we are supposed to believe that $54,000 a year is a highly paid post? That's nights, weekends, holidays and I would venture to guess not much in the way of benefits.

I guess he just got too greedy, too comfortable in that lucrative, cushy Circuit City sales job.

[riri]

bump

[Hodar]

I'm not intending to flame Circuit City ..... but....

1) I was unaware that Circuit City employees work on commission.
2) My experiences at Circuit City have been negative at every shopping experience
3) The 'knowledge' at my local Circuit City's certainly does not compete with the 'knowledge' I have found at Best Buy. The guys at my local Best Buy know HDTV, and can tell the difference between 720p, 720i and 1040i.
4) The return policy at Ciruit City is 180 degrees opposed to Best Buy (in *MY* experience).

Bottom line, I don't like high pressure sales, from people who don't know the product they are selling, nor the features of comparable models. I don't like having to 'sell' the idea of a refund on a non-functional product. I shop at Best Buy, and have never had a non-positive experience.

[Southack]

repost: I walked into a Circuit City store last week to buy a new digital camcorder.

They had an entire display of digital camcorders in one section. I walked around this display only to realize that NONE of the camcorders were "plugged in" or set up to actually use them in the store in order to try them out.

After I had circled the display a few times, a store "salesperson" came by and asked me if he could help me with anything.

I told him sure, turn on the camcorders so that I could pick out the best one and buy it today.

Oh, digital camcorders, he said... We're getting in the "new models" of them next month, so until then we aren't hooking up our old models.

Then he turned around and left. No other questions. No other "Can I help you with something else". No anything.

I couldn't spend my money in there no matter how hard I tried.

Now tell me, if that anecdotal experience is in any way indicative of Circuit city stores/management/salespeople in general, just how long are they going to be around?

Sure, it would have been nice to try out a few camcorders firsthand before buying, but barring that option I was compelled to return home (a considerable drive) and order a camcorder sight-unseen via the Internet.

So there is at least one Circuit City salesperson who deserves to be laid off, as he was less able to make a sale than was a non-living, virtual internet page, but the web page made the sale instead of him, after all.

That's hardly the kind of recommendation that you want to put on your resume, that you are less talented and less motivated than an inanimate web page.

Sayonara Circuit City, your laziness is why Americans enjoy our free market system, as this system will clean out the low-performing dregs of our society from our marketplace.

In other words, you're gonna take it on the chin.

[chance33_98]

I have seen the opposite many times in my field. Someone who has been working with the company for a few years and then they hire someone in new when a similar position opens and pays them more.

At my last job we had an excellent manager, a position opened up for a manager doing something similar, they offered him a lateral move - he was thinking about taking it when he found out they were also interviewing people and offering them about 20k more for the same position (and he was more than qualified for the job). These things happened on a very regular basis there, and has been the norm in other places I have worked. AT my current job they hired in a new guy, with no experience but had his ccna, and he makes 3k more a year than I do (with 10 years exp, ccna, scna, scsa). The reasoning? They were getting rid of the pay bands and just decided to be nice and give him the top of it before the change over.

Life goes on, my self training pays off, and I am moving to a new position as a unix engineer making 12k more. Sometimes you just have to shrug off the goofiness :)

[discostu]

Nothing unusual here at all. Layoffs are about salary, since management is generally immune that means high paid grunts get the axe. If you need to get rid of 2 million in salary it's faster to get rid of guys making 50 grand than guys making 30.

[Theodore R.]

This is the epitome of "No good deed goes unpunished."

One who warned about injustice of this kind was Patrick J. Buchanan, a critic of the "free-trade," multinational economy.

[Jeff Gordon]

It makes a lot of sense. During hard times every company wanting to go out of business should lay off their most productive employees.

[Cicero]

I don't know much first-hand about Circuit City, but this is a recipe for disaster. This guy sold $1,000,000 of equipment for a salary of $54,000. That's a pretty good deal for the company. So they fire all their best people and keep all the drones and idiots. They may get paid less, but they probably don't do any business, either.

If things are tough, the normal solution is to close the losing stores, shave inventory, get rid of items that aren't doing well, and maybe cut everyone's salaries across the board, including especially the bosses. If anyone gets fired it should be the footsoldiers who are least productive.

It must be depressing to work for a badly-run company where the bosses don't know which end is up.

[Centurion2000]

CRazy

[July 4th]

All the big home entertainment stores are good for these days is trying out a product before you go home and buy it on the web.

[TheDon]

The Invisible Hand at work...

[sarasmom]

The types of merchandise sold at consumer computer/electronics stores has dropped well over 50% in price over a two year period.
Nature of the product.
It is obsolete by the time it hits the store shelf.
How much did a DVD player cost two years ago? ($250-S400)
Now, it is $49.95.
These peple might have made a better career choice if they wanted retail sales, to stick to clothes or furniture.
Retail is always cutthroat.
Actually, this kind of makes me smile, because the preponderance of consumer electronics stores and their encroachment into the business marketplace,has severely cut margins in my company.
We re-tooled, retrained and adapted.I didnt hear of any tears for us,Professional AV dealers,during the process!

[PatrioticAmerican]

Cut your best performers, now how STUPID is that!

A company can only operate using low paid losers???

Amerika is done for, stick that fork in her.

[2Smart2BLiberal]

We have consistently experienced the absolute worst customer service at Circuit City. Their sales people don't even acknowledge that we've walked in the door. I think we last went to CC about 3 years ago. We'll never go back.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[moehoward]

Nothing new. Retail has operated this way forever. When the part time clerk works their way up to management the end is near. The day you buy that new USED car, you have about a month left.

[Jhoffa_]

Fact is, that electronics consumers are now savvy enough to choose their own products with a bare minimum of assistance from the sales staff.

Couple that with inflated prices, limited selection and inferior service.. and it's no wonder CC is laying it's high end salesmen off.

They simply aren't needed.

[XEHRpa]

Everyone seems to be missing the point of the story... What we're being told here is that George Bush is screwing the struggling worker by fouling up the economy. Expect to read increasing numbers of these kind of stories leading up to '04. It is exactly the model used leading to '92, even though the economy was already on the rebound.

And as soon as Slick was elected, the news stories did a 180 and the homeless were taken out of the newspapers (though not off the streets, mind you).

[dark_lord]

"It is not the person who earned the most that was always the best," says Mr. Wells.

Hmmm...except that the higher pay was directly related to commissions which were directly related to sales. So I guess he is right if "best" does not mean "best salesperson". But of course the Circuit City sales force now knows that if they want to get fired, just work real hard selling Circuit City product.

Sell. Sell now. These guys are going right down the toilet.