Circuit City : Good Riddance…

I had a job at Circuit City about 15 years ago.

When I started there, I had just moved to Gainesville, FL.  My plan was to try and get into the University of Florida (I did) and to do that, I needed to make some money.  I signed up for a temporary holiday position and started working.

It was a fun job.  I sold computers and TVs and made a better than average wage for the time.  The job had flexible hours and I liked the people I worked with.  After the holiday season, they asked me to stay on and I took a part-time job there.

But somewhere along the line, things changed.

For one thing, management started scheduling me for 35 hours per week while still classifying me as part-time.  According to their own rules, I was supposed to be classified as full-time if I was regularly scheduled for more than 30 hours a week.  Being part-time meant I didn’t get any benefits.

Then they started cutting our commissions.  As a salesperson, we were paid a gross commission on the total dollar amount we sold as well as specific dollar amount (SPFs) on certain items.  The gross commission went from 1% to 0.5% and the SPFs were cut as well.

Then they started making it possible for customers to purchase items without involving a salesperson.  So we lost a bunch of sales.

The last straw came when they forced everyone to agree to a binding arbitration agreement for essentially everything that they might get sued for.  Think things like endangering worker health, racial discrimination,  or sexual harassment.

That’s when I left.

That’s why this latest bit of news didn’t surprise me.  It’s a sad tale but reflects a pattern of management behavior that made a sequence of decisions leading to their probable demise.  They treated their workforce as a cost rather than an asset and did everything they could to drive the good employees away and hire cheap ones.

It also reminded me that I had to leave school because my work was conflicting with my coursework.  I earned bad grades because I let Circuit City push me around.  They were interested in maximizing my availability and a degree program got in the way of that.  They simply didn’t care.  I was complicit in this because I stayed longer than I should have and I let my grades suffer to keep management happy.

I never made that mistake again.

When I started at Harvard Extension, my previous employer initially was supportive.  When it became clear that I needed more flexibility to complete my studies than they were used to giving, they tried to push me to give up my coursework.

This time I made the right choice and found another job.  As it happens, that employer had a tuition reimbursement program that gave me $4000 per year to apply to a degree program.  Not a lot, but every little bit helps.  They subsequently doubled that to $8000.

I’m lucky to be employed by a company that values their employees.  They have made an investment in me and my education and I’m grateful for that.  If you’ve ever been in my situation, you know how it feels for an employer to see you as a valued asset rather than a problem to be dealt with.  Companies that pay their employees well and treat them with respect tend to be more profitable as well.

A while back Circuit City made headlines when it laid off its most senior employees but offered to hire them back at reduced compensation level.  In essence, they were trying to get someone who had become good enough at their job to warrant a series of pay increases for a greatly reduced price.  Most of them (rightfully) declined.  Circuit City’s profits plunged in subsequent quarters as the less experienced and less productive employees couldn’t make up the shortfall in sales volume.

I know that a lot of people who read this blog are working professionals.  Quite a few are juggling work and family along with their studies.  It might seem obvious but if you are serious about doing well in school, you need to make sure your employer will value you and support your quest to earn a degree.

I’ve had the experience of working for one who didn’t and the one thing I learned is that it isn’t worth the hassle.  Changing jobs is never easy but it can be worthwhile if the cost of not doing so is a poor showing in your degree program.

UPDATE: Looks like it’s the beginning of the end.  Just don’t believe the line about “economic conditions” being the reason for this.  The nails were put into the coffin by management making a host of bad decisions about marketing and strategy, especially when it comes to their most valuable asset: their employees.