Hobbit
01-07-2009, 06:09 PM
So I've been looking around at all the panic and how people are reacting to it, and I thought I'd relate it all to something that has happened to me, personally, and how I read it. The market is being so driven now by feelings and beliefs, rather than facts and empirical evidence that it's sickening. During an entire economic boom we were fed a fat wad of lies about it being a recession, then, when something truly bad comes along, it suddenly becomes the end of the world, because if what we've been through was a recession, then what's this on the horizon? So, how does this relate to me? Well, I'm getting to that.
In early October, I was hired by Best Buy Inc. to work as a tech in the Geek Squad precinct at my local Best Buy store. Seeing as how I am a geek, it was pretty much a dream job, at least until I can finish college and move on to an even greater dream job, like computer programmer or U.S. Marine officer, depending on how 'in shape' I get between now and then. Anyway, I was hired on late in the year, so I was officially hired on a 'O/S' which stands for 'occasional/seasonal.' Officially, I was there to provide extra staffing needs until the end of the Christmas season, then, if I did a good job, I could be kept on, as every year, a few extra openings came up at the end of the year that were filled by the better O/S employees.
Well, I love the job and, like with all things I do that I love, I am exceptionally good at it, and not just the computer repair aspect. I've been consistently bringing in record amounts of revenue to the company per month for an individual employee, since a) I fully believe in both the efficacy of our services, b) I fully believe the clients need the ones I recommend, c) I am able to talk to them in a way that both lets them know I am knowledgeable and communicates to them in a way they can understand, and d) I am good at building up trust with my clients so that they believe what I am telling them, primarily through true, genuine honesty and concern. The staff love me and think I'm a model employee, most of the time, anyway. This is not to brag. As good as I am, there are better there, and I still lack the experience some of these guys have.
So in comes the Christmas shopping season. Contrary to popular belief, I'm allowed to say 'Merry Christmas,' but am encouraged to use my best judgement to avoid irritating people. Given that the local Circuit City was simply clearing out their inventory before shutting their doors for good (and doing so by jacking their prices, then cutting them back to their original rates and calling it a sale), we had a massive budget for that period. Our budget for Black Friday was over three quarters of a million dollars with a goal of an even million. We did massive sales that day, but due primarily to much of the panic that had begun to set in, we failed to meet the budget in some departments and missed our store wide budget, albeit by a small margin, but then, as people began to realize that Arkansas is actually doing pretty well compared to the rest of the country (primarily due to the Arkansas legislature thumbing their noses at the Community Organization Act and keeping its strict usury laws on the books, leading to rock bottom foreclosure rates around here) and bought stuff anyway. We hit 94% of our budget for that period of the year. Granted, we were supposed to hit 100%, but our budget was gigantic, far bigger than last years. To put it bluntly, in a slumping economy, we took in more money than we did last year, just not as much as we hoped we would.
Well, last year, several O/S employees were kept on, I was hearing nothing but good things from my bosses, and Geek Squad business picked up sharply after Christmas due to people getting computers as gifts without knowing how to actually use one correctly (giving somebody a computer without anti-virus/anti-spyware software is like giving them a bomb, just fyi) and people whose computers broke during Christmas, but wanted to get all of their Christmas affairs in order before getting it fixed. Yeah, the store didn't meet budget, but I wasn't too worried. That's when corporate came in. Rather than leaving even a modicum of control up to the local store managers who know firsthand what it takes to keep their stores running smoothly, corporate looked at the economy, looked at the budget projections (they're still making money hand over fist, just not as much as they expected), and promptly panicked. With Christmas traffic being so poor (it wasn't) and the economy only getting worse (even if it's really not so bad in some places), the company projected that sales would only get worse and that profitability would go down, so they did the only reasonable thing, given those two (stupid) assumptions.
Taking a page from the congressional playbook, they took loose projections garnered from central planners with little to no local input and issued a wise, all-powerful edict from the omniscient beings on high, and told the locals to stuff it, because this is how it's going to be. Best Buy has ordered all stores, company-wide (including their stores that go by different names in other countries) to let go of EVERY O/S employee, no exceptions. Then, they issued a hiring freeze until further notice. The last day for those getting tossed out on their rumps is January 16. Starting January 17, you can only go to work at Best Buy if you already work there.
Locally, my store manager is highly irritated, the services manager (who oversees Geek Squad, car install, home theater delivery, etc.) is straight pissed, and the Geek Squad manager is livid. As it stands, every agent is going to be working as many hours as corporate will allow with some of us working overnight (like me, tonight) to try to stem the rising tide of extra work that's coming in. Hundreds, if not thousands of people a week are more than willing to pay us to fix their computers, and the store would love to take their money, but if there's not enough people to actually do the work, what happens? The managers all think the hiring freeze will be lifted in about a month, and I'm on the top of the list for rehiring once that happens (which would lift the dreaded O/S label). Until then, I have bills to pay and I have to eat something, and I'll sell body parts before I go on welfare (with the exception of the student aid I am receiving from a variety of places but which doesn't pay everything). It's true what they say. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours, only I have a modern update. A depression is when nobody can afford to buy anything. A recession is when nobody thinks they can afford to hire anybody to sell anything. However, there is good news.
Unlike the unwashed masses who feed at the government trough, I LOVE self-sufficiency. While I have learned that sometimes I need to accept, or even ask for, help (and that's a longer sadder story for another time), I receive it hesitantly and feel like a leech whenever I do. I also believe in planning for things to go wrong, which goes hand in hand with that, since, when things go bad, I'd rather not do like everybody else and <s>beg for</s> demand help whenever things go bad. That's why I've been pinching pennies, scraping the bottom, etc. for every dollar I can get my grubby little hands on and paying myself and God before anybody else. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of every paycheck I have received has gone straight into a savings account, never to emerge again. This is enough now to cover food, rent, etc. for another month or so. I'm also not going to count on corporate coming to their senses and lifting the hiring freeze any time in the foreseeable future, so I'm already on the lookout for another job, and being honest enough to admit that if and when Best Buy comes through, I'll likely put in a two weeks' notice. I also plan to going back to freelancing my tech work as soon as I'm laid off. It doesn't pay as well and I don't have brand recognition or all of the tools, but I can undercut the competition and working for myself has its perks. I didn't panic. I didn't base my actions on projections. I didn't do anything stupid, and now, I'm reaping the benefits, even as I reap the penalties for my employers doing the opposite, and that, right there, is sort of my point. I can't make congress behave responsibly. I can't slap CEOs upside the head and then shove their noses in their own stupidity. No, I can only truly control my own actions, and until all of my liberties have been eroded, there's always reward in doing that correctly. If everyone in the country had followed my example, there wouldn't be a housing or banking crisis, and congress wouldn't have anything to demagogue. Nobody would need to government to bail them out and maybe our elected representatives would have something better to do than slap their tits on the table and tell us to drink up, knowing full well that they'll be dead before their checks al bounce.
In early October, I was hired by Best Buy Inc. to work as a tech in the Geek Squad precinct at my local Best Buy store. Seeing as how I am a geek, it was pretty much a dream job, at least until I can finish college and move on to an even greater dream job, like computer programmer or U.S. Marine officer, depending on how 'in shape' I get between now and then. Anyway, I was hired on late in the year, so I was officially hired on a 'O/S' which stands for 'occasional/seasonal.' Officially, I was there to provide extra staffing needs until the end of the Christmas season, then, if I did a good job, I could be kept on, as every year, a few extra openings came up at the end of the year that were filled by the better O/S employees.
Well, I love the job and, like with all things I do that I love, I am exceptionally good at it, and not just the computer repair aspect. I've been consistently bringing in record amounts of revenue to the company per month for an individual employee, since a) I fully believe in both the efficacy of our services, b) I fully believe the clients need the ones I recommend, c) I am able to talk to them in a way that both lets them know I am knowledgeable and communicates to them in a way they can understand, and d) I am good at building up trust with my clients so that they believe what I am telling them, primarily through true, genuine honesty and concern. The staff love me and think I'm a model employee, most of the time, anyway. This is not to brag. As good as I am, there are better there, and I still lack the experience some of these guys have.
So in comes the Christmas shopping season. Contrary to popular belief, I'm allowed to say 'Merry Christmas,' but am encouraged to use my best judgement to avoid irritating people. Given that the local Circuit City was simply clearing out their inventory before shutting their doors for good (and doing so by jacking their prices, then cutting them back to their original rates and calling it a sale), we had a massive budget for that period. Our budget for Black Friday was over three quarters of a million dollars with a goal of an even million. We did massive sales that day, but due primarily to much of the panic that had begun to set in, we failed to meet the budget in some departments and missed our store wide budget, albeit by a small margin, but then, as people began to realize that Arkansas is actually doing pretty well compared to the rest of the country (primarily due to the Arkansas legislature thumbing their noses at the Community Organization Act and keeping its strict usury laws on the books, leading to rock bottom foreclosure rates around here) and bought stuff anyway. We hit 94% of our budget for that period of the year. Granted, we were supposed to hit 100%, but our budget was gigantic, far bigger than last years. To put it bluntly, in a slumping economy, we took in more money than we did last year, just not as much as we hoped we would.
Well, last year, several O/S employees were kept on, I was hearing nothing but good things from my bosses, and Geek Squad business picked up sharply after Christmas due to people getting computers as gifts without knowing how to actually use one correctly (giving somebody a computer without anti-virus/anti-spyware software is like giving them a bomb, just fyi) and people whose computers broke during Christmas, but wanted to get all of their Christmas affairs in order before getting it fixed. Yeah, the store didn't meet budget, but I wasn't too worried. That's when corporate came in. Rather than leaving even a modicum of control up to the local store managers who know firsthand what it takes to keep their stores running smoothly, corporate looked at the economy, looked at the budget projections (they're still making money hand over fist, just not as much as they expected), and promptly panicked. With Christmas traffic being so poor (it wasn't) and the economy only getting worse (even if it's really not so bad in some places), the company projected that sales would only get worse and that profitability would go down, so they did the only reasonable thing, given those two (stupid) assumptions.
Taking a page from the congressional playbook, they took loose projections garnered from central planners with little to no local input and issued a wise, all-powerful edict from the omniscient beings on high, and told the locals to stuff it, because this is how it's going to be. Best Buy has ordered all stores, company-wide (including their stores that go by different names in other countries) to let go of EVERY O/S employee, no exceptions. Then, they issued a hiring freeze until further notice. The last day for those getting tossed out on their rumps is January 16. Starting January 17, you can only go to work at Best Buy if you already work there.
Locally, my store manager is highly irritated, the services manager (who oversees Geek Squad, car install, home theater delivery, etc.) is straight pissed, and the Geek Squad manager is livid. As it stands, every agent is going to be working as many hours as corporate will allow with some of us working overnight (like me, tonight) to try to stem the rising tide of extra work that's coming in. Hundreds, if not thousands of people a week are more than willing to pay us to fix their computers, and the store would love to take their money, but if there's not enough people to actually do the work, what happens? The managers all think the hiring freeze will be lifted in about a month, and I'm on the top of the list for rehiring once that happens (which would lift the dreaded O/S label). Until then, I have bills to pay and I have to eat something, and I'll sell body parts before I go on welfare (with the exception of the student aid I am receiving from a variety of places but which doesn't pay everything). It's true what they say. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours, only I have a modern update. A depression is when nobody can afford to buy anything. A recession is when nobody thinks they can afford to hire anybody to sell anything. However, there is good news.
Unlike the unwashed masses who feed at the government trough, I LOVE self-sufficiency. While I have learned that sometimes I need to accept, or even ask for, help (and that's a longer sadder story for another time), I receive it hesitantly and feel like a leech whenever I do. I also believe in planning for things to go wrong, which goes hand in hand with that, since, when things go bad, I'd rather not do like everybody else and <s>beg for</s> demand help whenever things go bad. That's why I've been pinching pennies, scraping the bottom, etc. for every dollar I can get my grubby little hands on and paying myself and God before anybody else. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of every paycheck I have received has gone straight into a savings account, never to emerge again. This is enough now to cover food, rent, etc. for another month or so. I'm also not going to count on corporate coming to their senses and lifting the hiring freeze any time in the foreseeable future, so I'm already on the lookout for another job, and being honest enough to admit that if and when Best Buy comes through, I'll likely put in a two weeks' notice. I also plan to going back to freelancing my tech work as soon as I'm laid off. It doesn't pay as well and I don't have brand recognition or all of the tools, but I can undercut the competition and working for myself has its perks. I didn't panic. I didn't base my actions on projections. I didn't do anything stupid, and now, I'm reaping the benefits, even as I reap the penalties for my employers doing the opposite, and that, right there, is sort of my point. I can't make congress behave responsibly. I can't slap CEOs upside the head and then shove their noses in their own stupidity. No, I can only truly control my own actions, and until all of my liberties have been eroded, there's always reward in doing that correctly. If everyone in the country had followed my example, there wouldn't be a housing or banking crisis, and congress wouldn't have anything to demagogue. Nobody would need to government to bail them out and maybe our elected representatives would have something better to do than slap their tits on the table and tell us to drink up, knowing full well that they'll be dead before their checks al bounce.