Wow, talk about the cold side of capitalism.
Electronics retailer Circuit City is going to lay off 3,400 workers — and no, that’s not the bad part. Companies have to do things like that to survive from time to time.
I think consumers can understand that. What they will have trouble swallowing is something else Circuit City is doing.
It will replace the laid-off employees with new hires — who of course will make less money. Worse yet, some of those new hires could be … folks who just got laid off at Circuit City.
That’s right, tech-heads. Circuit City’s laid-off workers would get a severance package and could reapply for their former jobs — at lower pay, after a 10-week wait.
“This strategy strikes me as being quite cold,” Bernard Baumohl, executive director of The Economic Outlook Group, told the Associated Press. “I don’t think it’s in the best interest of Circuit City as a whole.”
No kidding, Bernie. Circuit City also dropped commissions for its sales workers in 2003, and sales slumped.
Surprised? Don’t be.
Employees who are not motivated will often do little more than show up. They won’t take initiative and hustle for sales or think of ways to improve the store. They will stand around and wait for customers to come to them.
The cold-hearted cuts come at a time when other retailers are paying more money to better-trained employees who can help them more. Home Depot is even hiring skilled craftsmen like carpenters and electricians, and they don’t come cheap.
You would think that Circuit City executives would think along those lines. After all, the store sells some pretty sophisticated electronics gear. If your sales clerk doesn’t know a byte from a bike, you’re not exactly going to be filled with confidence about the product.
Most consumers buy electronic stuff only a few times a year. They wouldn’t be going into a Circuit City a lot anyway. I think they will be making fewer trips now.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Short circuit
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Rock on!
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has always been, well, a bit of a contradiction.
Rock music is all about being young and wild. It’s raw and racy … often in a destructive way.
Hall of Fame, on the other hand, sounds so … formal and official. In other words, very unrock.
And in Cleveland? Yeah, I know; that’s where disc jockey Alan Freed — aka Moondog — first used the phrase “rock and roll” in the early ’50s. He also organized the first specifically described rock and roll concert, on March 21, 1952 at the Cleveland Arena.
Still, it’s surprising that Cleveland beat out L.A. or New York for this honor.
At any rate, the Rock Hall held a couple more inductions this week. The rule, by the way, is that you have to wait 25 years from your first national exposure to qualify for the hall. (Hang in there, Britney.)
The inductees were R.E.M. and Van Halen, both well-deserved giants from the ’80s.
R.E.M.’s members showed up — including drummer Bill Berry, who suffered an aneurysm on state two years before.
Van Halen’s turnout was … a bit less complete. In fact — in the spirit of rock and roll, disorganized and disrespectful — only the group’s second lead singer, Sammy Hagar, a former bass player, Michael Anthony, made it to the ceremony.
Guitarist Eddie Van Halen, the soul and namesake of the group, couldn’t be there because he’d just gone into rehab. And original singer David Lee Roth stayed away because he was cheesed off about which song he’d be allowed to perform.
Now that’s rock and roll!
… Will be on spring break until next week; no column on Sunday in the paper. Be good.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Sister Action
We’ve all seen those depressing stories about former athletes who end up doing stupid and destructive things. They blow their fortune, their health and their reputation, often because they don’t know what to do with themselves when their careers are over.
There aren’t many stories about former athletes who go on to do noble things. I’m pretty sure that former tennis star Andrea Jaeger has retired the trophy in that narrow competition.
You remember her, don’t you? She was that pig-tailed brace-mouthed phenom of the ’80s. At one point she was No. 2 in her sport. She routinely beat big-name stars. For a while, she was a threat to end up in the finals of any Grand Slam event she entered.
You might not believe what she’s doing now. Jaeger, now 41, has become a Dominican Anglican nun.
That’s right. A habit-wearing vow-of-chastity nun. She’s one step away from completing her transition. And she has dedicated her life to helping children fighting cancer.
You go, girl! … Er, make that, Godspeed, Sister Andrea!
This has to be the greatest turnaround in the history of modern sports. Jaeger went from the epitome of wealth and glamour … to the ultimate in humility and selflessness.
If that doesn’t restore at least part of your faith in human nature, you might want to check your pulse.
Jaeger felt this calling from God even as a teenage star. She took time out to visit sick kids in hospitals while her competitors were hanging out in discos.
Incredibly, tennis officials who tolerated drug use and sexual hijinks from other stars were unsettled by Jaeger’s piety.
At one point, she was called into tour headquarters, where an official disdainfully threw a copy of The New York Times at her. Her offense? The paper recounted her inspirational visit to a high school that had suffered two suicides close together.
“I just got yelled at, told to quit doing it, because I was making the rest of them look bad,” Jaeger told the Associated Press.
Wow. Can you say, “inverted priorities”?
She’s left that warped world far behind. Now she works at a foundation she established, Little Star, in Southwestern Colorado.
Her biggest challenge today is a familiar one: raising money. She has long since given up the fortune she made. Now she needs more money to help more sick kids.
Unless you’re suffering from mega-cynicism, you might consider Little Star the next time you’re in a charitable mood.
And the next time some ex-jock winds up in the police blotter, remember Sister Andrea, and remember that there’s hope after all.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Lottery luck
I finally did it; I won the Mega Millions lottery!
And I picked a good time to do it. The jackpot totaled $370 million. To everybody except Bill Gates, that’s a nice chunk of change.
I haven’t decided yet how to spend my windfall. You don’t want to rush into a decision like this.
… OK, clarification time: I didn’t exactly win all of the $370 million. I didn’t exactly match all six numbers.
But I did nail three of ’em — 16, 22 and 39. If I’d included 29 and 42 along with a Mega Ball of 20, I’d be pricing Lear jets right now.
Then again, I really didn’t pick any of those numbers. The computer did, as I chose the ol’ quick-pick option.
My philosophy is, it’s hard enough to win the lottery. If you’re gonna roll the dice, go all the way and let the machine control your fate.
As for my winnings, they add up to … $7.
Maybe I wasn’t so lucky after all. In Texas 46,427 people also matched 3 of 5 numbers. If we’d matched 3 of 5 along with the Mega Ball, our winnings would skyrocket to $150.
Oh well, maybe next time. Then again, I know someone who refers to the playing the lottery as “paying the stupid tax.”
Well, Mr. Smartypants, here’s the difference between you and me: You won’t play because you know you won’t win. I know I won’t win, but I play anyhow.
Does that make sense? I guess not.
One final thought: If you need another reason to realize that psychics and fortune-tellers are phony — and you shouldn’t — think about this:
If these people have that “special gift,” why don’t they ever scrunch up their brains and figure out which numbers will win the lottery the day before the drawing?
If they could do that, they wouldn’t have to read palms for ten bucks.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Food fight
It has not been a good week for those of us who think we can defy Father Time with things like vitamins and food supplements.
On Tuesday, the Enterprise headline said it all: “Garlic study reveals no healing power.”
The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, was called “the most rigorous, head-to-head study of raw garlic and popular garlic supplements. … ”
Though the pungent herb may protect your blood by warding off vampires, it won’t thin the sludge in your veins.
Talk about a blow to the stomach. Those of us who have been swallowing those nasty pills for years to cut our cholesterol have been, well, wasting our time.
Turns out we were inflicting those nasty side effects — bad breath, body odor, flatulence — on ourselves for no reason. I think I’m gonna be sick.
As if that news weren’t depressing enough, it turns out that antioxidants — vitamins A, E and C along with beta carotene and selenium — won’t help you live longer either.
That study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, actually analyzed 68 other studies on antioxidants involving 232,606 people.
The good news: They didn’t hurt anything.
The bad news: They didn’t help either.
So the up to 160 million people in the United States and Europe who have been gulping antioxidants can find something else to swallow. (Like our pride.)
If you’re tempted by all this bad news to buy a gallon of ice-cream and pig out, well, that might not be a bad idea.
You see, a diet rich in ice-cream and other high-fat dairy foods can help women become pregnant. That’s good news if you’re a woman trying to become pregnant.
A Nurses Health Study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that women who ate at least one fatty dairy food a day were 27 percent less likely to suffer from one form of infertility.
Blue Bell, anyone?
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