gwydian.com

Well, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy yesterday. While I should feel gratified, I do not. I feel deep hurt for many of the salespeople who still work there. I left because of clinically deranged management in my department. I knew a number who followed after me… and even more who were let go because they made too much money in the year that followed. Still, a number of people I know as friends continue to call selling at  CC their career. They are who came to mind when I heard of the bankruptcy filing.

Maybe I am just old. But I never wanted to spend my life jumping from job to job. However the global marketplace has essentially made it ‘business as usual.’ I have even warned my daughter that, unfortunately, job loyalty from both employee and employer viewpoints is a thing of the past.

The world just seems a bit more gray with Circuit City in its death throws. Here is to the time I spent as a project specialist at Circuit City and to all the friends in management, sales force and even customer base that I made.  Better days!

“Days after federal officials agreed to an $85 billion bailout of American International Group (AIG), the insurance firm spent more than $440,000 for a corporate retreat at a swanky California resort.”

– The Smoking Gun

Was any of this in the natrional news??? WTF were these exectutives thinking?? WTF were the people that went on this retreat thinking? Maybe I have too much integrity or something, but had I been part of the planned retreat group I simply would not have gone and would have likely blown the whistle on them early to news media!

But apparently some did go… and they MUST BE CALLED OUT on this bull shit!!

Tracy Morgan is not.

“MSN Money released the results of its second annual “Customer Service Hall of Shame” on Tuesday. The nationwide survey, conducted by Zogby International in March, is a ranking of companies with the worst customer service.

Time Warner’s AOL ranked at the bottom of the customer-service rankings with 47 percent of the people surveyed classifying its service as “poor.”"I don’t know what to attribute that to,” AOL spokeswoman Dori Salcido told MSN. “I just do know that we continue to improve customer service.”

It’s been a tough few days for AOL as PCWorld.com on Friday called American Online the “Worst Tech Product Of All Time.”"

– KETV.com

ROFL!! “I don’t know what to attribute it to.” ????
Here’s a clue… outsourcing and AOL’s longtime attitude of stock holders first, paying members last!

An article on Rueters caught my attention… http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0836799020080508

“An attendant at a Canadian restaurant who was sacked for giving a bite-sized doughnut, worth 16 cents, to an agitated toddler was given her job back on Thursday after the case received wide media attention.”

It goes on to say, “Tim Hortons had received a number of complaints. “Thankfully we’re able to go back to them and say we were able to fix the situation,” she said.”

Now, anyone who has ever been in retail KNOWS that as the employee was “caught” giving away merchandise without authorization, per company policy the manager had no choice but to release her or face being released himself. But that is not my point… it is I have ALWAYS been annoyed by upper management who set rules… hard and fast that apply to all… until they themselves are cornered by the public about their policy.

The solution is management by humans, not corporate mentality.
…Management by people who know how to manage and are not simply thrown in to the Peter Principle position by nepotism or general ass kissing.

There really is no other way to put it. Anyone who is FOR torture is FOR terrorism. Even if you are using the terror against terrorists, you are indeed a terrorist yourself…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawmakers included the anti-torture measure in a broader bill authorizing U.S. intelligence activities.

“Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added that the vetoed legislation “would diminish these vital tools.”

From Reuters Sat Mar 8, 2008 1:53pm EST

Seriously, anyone who is still backing this… person… needs to look in the mirror and ask, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?”

I think we all know or have seen and skirted around a young person that looks like this. This is Ryann Kropp who is a poster child for such people around whom skirting is an obviously good move. You see, Ryann was a cook at a Western Steakhouse in Wisconsin. Because he THOUGHT that a customer had complained about a steak being over cooked, he felt it was his right and responsibility to place his pubic hair in to the customer’s replacement steak.

Yeah! That would teach him!!

When Ryann was caught he claimed that he had put a few strands of his facial hair in the steak, not pubic hairs. Wow!! Ryann must really have some major SHORT and curlies! In any case, Ryann was unaware that whether it be pubic, facial or butt crack hair, it all ended up potentially equalling 3.5 years in prison and a $10K fine. I for one am hoping he gets the maximum… after all, facial hair or pubic hair… a week’s worth of civic duty or 10 years in prison… what’s the big deal, eh Ryann?

Black Friday… Whoever came up with this idea is certainly (or will be) burning in hell. To me the term causes the same reaction as Little Alex had midway through “Clockwork Orange” toward violence and Bach’s music. That is, I get nauseus. Black Friday seems to bring out the worst in many people. It is a day of gluttony, greed and gall.

It has been a year since I quit as a “product specialist” (read that as salesman) at Circuit City. The cause in great part was Black Friday. I had been scheduled to work what was to be a 20 hour day with one break and decided I did not want to drop dead as ’shoppers rush home with their presents’ all around me. I still recall the year before. The store was packed when a local female TV newscaster had a loud and childish fit in the middle of the store because SHE did not have a personal salesman. Another woman switched tags on an item and had her daughter lie for her that the tag was as she had found it. She left when she did not get the item but called the sheriff’s department and had them come in to the store about it. The deputity just shook his head and left.

Ya know, I overspend on Christmas presents. I have no problem with anyone doing that. But while Black Friday is the start of the holiday season, it is also the start of the salesman abuse season which seems to start on that Friday and runs through the end of January. Salespeople do not make store policies, buy store stock or set prices. They are no one’s personal slave. As you are shopping, try being overly nice to salesmen. At times it will make their day, at others it will shock them and the look on their faces will make yours.

Millions of toys recalled; contain ‘date rape’ drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.

The toy beads are sold in general merchandise stores and over the Internet for use in arts and crafts projects. They can be arranged into designs and fused together when sprayed with water.

When eaten, the compound — made from common and easily available ingredients — can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

– CNNMoney.com
November 7 2007

Seriously… at what point does the U.S. government pull its head out of its middle east ass and start paying attention to ONE other country that is killing our YOUNGER kids?

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon, which has asked Congress for more than $1 billion in emergency spending to combat a growing threat of sniper attacks in Iraq, has overstated the scope and number of such attacks, its own records show.

In last week’s $1.4 billion request, the Pentagon said sniper attacks have quadrupled in the past year and, if unchecked, the attacks could eclipse roadside bombs as the top killer of U.S. troops. However, the rate of sniper attacks has dropped slightly in 2007 and fallen dramatically in the past four months, according to military records given to USA TODAY.

Pentagon officials acknowledged the mistake Monday after questions about the data were raised by USA TODAY.

“The term quadrupled will be removed from the justification because it is simply incorrect, said Dave Patterson, deputy undersecretary of Defense.

In 2006, there were 386 sniper attacks on coalition forces, according to data from the Multi-National Force-Iraq headquarters in Iraq. Through Oct. 26 of this year, there were 269 sniper attacks, the figures show. In the first six months of 2007, the military recorded 213 such attacks, compared with 92 during the same time period in 2006.”
– Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
10.29.2007

Oh… uhh… yeah… it has not increased 400%… it actually is decreasing… but we still want $1,250,000,000.00.

At 1.4 billion dollars, should the sniper attacks actually equal the same number as in 2006, that is

$3,236,341.97 per sniper attack

WTF?