On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:44:16 -0500, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"John H" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:36:29 -0500, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"John H" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 08:31:19 -0500, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

"John H" wrote in message
om...
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:40:58 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"hk" wrote in message
news:tOKdnSJgIZhGpezUnZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d@earth link.com...

Circuit City to liquidate, shutter stores
Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:08pm EST

By Karen Jacobs and Emily Chasan

ATLANTA/RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Bankrupt electronics retailer
Circuit City Stores said on Friday it will liquidate its assets and
shutter hundreds of U.S. stores after failing to reach a deal to
sell
the
company.


Good riddance. Circuit City was one of the worst retail stores for
consumer
electronics (or anything for that matter) that I can think of.
Sales
"associates" walking around with cell phones stuck in their ear,
talking
to
friends or congregating in groups yuking it up while customers wait at
the
register to pay for purchases or need assistance. We had two in this
area,
one was in business for several years, the other relatively new. Both
stores had the same cavalier culture when it came to the customers.

Plus, typically they didn't know anything about the products they
sold.
Most
were high school kids working after school. At least Best Buy has
some
trained sales associates that know something about what they sell.
For
the
market it was supposed to serve, Circuit City was no better than a
Target
or
Wal-Mart.

I am surprised they stayed in business as long as they did, economic
slowdown or no economic slowdown.

Eisboch

I wish someone could explain the satisfaction Harry finds in the fact
that
companies are going out of business.

Is this good for liberals somehow? Circuit City had employees who had
jobs,
even if those folks did nothing. Is it in the best interest of
liberals
that the unemployed numbers grow larger?

I'm missing something somewhere.

Yes, you are missing something, and so is Harry. Circuit City was in bad
shape way before the economy went down the toilet. There are badly run
businesses and there are well run businesses. Capitalism is based on
competition - the survival of the fittest. Circuit City deserved to die.
I
feel bad for their employees, but hopefully, a few of them will learn a
lesson from their experience. Probably not, though, because their
managers
expected to make money for doing pretty much nothing special, so they
were
lousy role models.

When I was in the audio business, we expected new employees to learn
every
piece of equipment in the store. On slow days, we'd send them to the
upstairs office during lunch with a receiver or whatever, and told them
to
learn it until they could work it blindfolded. If there were no
customers,
we'd stick them in the sound room and tell them to listen hard to all
the
speakers until they could describe the differences adequately. We made
them
study, in other words. We all took home demo pieces overnight to
learning
purposes.

A friend from those days is now an independent sales trainer. He said
"no"
to working for CC after one disturbing experience. He played customer &
called our local store, asking if they had a certain Harmon Kardon
receiver
in stock. The employee told him they didn't carry Harmon Kardon. My
friend
knew, of course, that they carried HK, and several HK items had been
featured in their Sunday newspaper ad that same week. When he told their
regional manager about his experience, the guy pretty much yawned and
said
"That's why we want you to do training for us." My friend said no
thanks,
figuring that if the employees didn't care enough to walk around their
own
store and see what brands they carried, sales training was the least of
their problems. Even worse was that the manager didn't have clue about
the
real problem.

The only advantage CC offered me was the ability to order online and
pick
up
an item at the store. That's pretty expensive real estate for what
amounts
to nothing but a warehouse.

Meanwhile, we have the perfect model of capitalism here. Maybe Rochester
customers have high expectations because of this company:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3795
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/1124/166_print.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...4048/index.htm


Doug, it's not the focus on CC that prompted my question. It's the
posting
of any article which discusses the problems companies are having, and
the
gloating that occurs therewith.

*That's* what I don't understand. Why take pleasure in the fact that
companies (any company) is going out of business?


Because it represents the potential for an improvement in the industry.
But,
I realize that's idealistic at best. We get what we deserve, so as long as
there are customers who think a $3.99 bottle of detergent is cheaper at
one
store than the exact same $3.99 bottle at another store, because the first
store yells "We're cheaper!" all the time, then we will always have bad
retailers around.


Survival of the fittest...OK. So it's actually a 'pro-corporation'
attitude
that causes the gleeful publication and comments whenever a corporation is
hurting or going out of business.

Then the loss of all these jobs due to the congressional initiated
recession is actually 'good' for corporations. Makes sense to me.


I know a half dozen people who got downsized out of Kodak over the last 10
years and said it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to
them. You never know.


Good to hear. My BIL just lost his job at a big appliance store in
Richmond. The company is going from three stores to one and doesn't need
the management people. Two days later he got a call from the owner of a
'high end' appliance shop. Hired him at a slightly less salary, but with a
much better outlook.