Everyone knows that I’ve been in panicky-job search mode lately.  I probably apply to at least two or three jobs per day now, all to no avail so far.  I’m not giving up though.  I need to find a job soon.

It’s really frustrating, and I can’t understand it.  I know the economy is bad, but it must be REALLY bad when places like Target aren’t even hiring.  To add even further curiosity to the mix, even UPS isn’t hiring.  UPS!  How can UPS not be hiring?  It makes no sense.

I’m still cautiously optimistic though.  I do have to admit, however, that there was no way I expected getting a job to be anywhere near this hard.  I have more than two decades of work experience, and fourteen years of that in management and supervisory positions!  When Radio Shack sends me an e-mail saying that I don’t meet their qualifications, I just have to laugh at the absurdity!  I could probably build a Radio Shack out of the spare parts in my closet, and then manage it with utmost efficiency and profitability.  Why do they bother to post job listings when they simply turn away qualified candidates?  Absurd.

Sorry if I seem like a schmuck.  I’m not trying to come across as some kind of braggart.  I’m not at all.  I lack a lot of formal education, because of poor choices in my youth, so I have to draw attention to the skills and experience that I have.  I am damn good at assessing situations and motivating people to do good work.  I’ve had way too much success to say otherwise, and I don’t think that’s bragging at all.  I have tons of computer and technical knowledge, and I’m good under pressure and in complex situations.  I’m not perfect, but then again no one is.  I can still bring a lot of experience and ability to any job, if they’d only give me a chance.

I’m pushing forward.  Just today I’ve applied for two jobs so far, and I have several job sites bookmarked, which I check frequently for updates.  It’s almost becoming an obsession.  You know you’re in trouble when every time you get in the car to drive somewhere, you constantly scan storefronts and shopping areas for “help wanted” signs.  I’m not destitute by any means, but I’m annoyed.  I want to get a job and be done with this worry. 

How did we ever come to this?  Isn’t this the land of opportunity?  What opportunity is there when someone with more than a decade of retail management experience can’t get hired at Radio Shack?  How did our country turn into such a mess?  I just don’t get this.

With the recent permanent demise of Circuit City, I got to thinking about my days in retail.  I remember when I first started with Best Buy in ‘98, Circuit City was the number one electronics retailer in the United States.  They were an unstoppable juggernaut bent on domination of the market, and places like Best Buy and Tweeter and HH Greg were considered only with smirks and chuckles.  My, how the mighty have fallen.  Now Circuit is dead, and their legacy will be one of absolute failure in a business that will eat you alive… if you let it.

Last week was the one-year anniversary of my departure from retail, and I though it would be fun to regale a few tales of my time at Best Buy.  For old-time’s sake.

I started with Best Buy because of a girl.  I was in the store in Trotwood, Ohio one day, just browsing around looking at cool stuff, when I spied a pretty girl working at the customer service desk.  Now normally I’m a shy guy, but for whatever reason that day I got it into my head that I wanted to talk to this girl.  I approached the counter, but the only thing that I could think to say (that didn’t sound stupid) was, “hi!  Can I have an application?”  She smiled at me, a very pretty smile, and handed me a card with a phone number on it.  Of course, it was the call-in application thing, but hey, she gave me a number right?  I chickened out then of course, took the card with a smile, and went on my way.

I already had a great job as a fitness instructor at a local gym.  Part of the greatness of this job was that I worked full-time Monday through Thursday, so I figured why not get a part-time job at Best Buy, maybe selling computers on the weekend, and earn some extra cash?  Sounded good to me anyway, so I called the number and applied.

My first interview was great.  The sales manager and I hit it off great, and I got my second interview with the store manager soon after.  As I sat down with her, she looked at me appraisingly, and then told me that things had changed since my first interview.  A senior (assistant to the supervisor) position had opened up in customer service, and because of my previous management experience with other companies, would I be interested?

Long story short, I was actually promoted twice before I even started.  My first day at Best Buy I walked in as a department supervisor, in charge of tens of thousands of dollars in retail electronics and a few young employees named Brandon, Amanda, Dan, Other Amanda, and a couple more I can’t remember, and had no idea what to do.  Good times.  I remember I was with the company for the better part of a year before I really got a good grasp on what I was doing.  Trial by fire.

Oh, the girl you ask?  Her name was Sally.  Very cute blonde… worked part-time at customer service.  We never hooked up, but we were friendly with each other and chatted a few times.  I still remember her pretty smile.

That first year was tough.  I never got any real training, other than the “manual” for my department, known as the “purple book.”  I didn’t have a senior position for my area, so the whole leadership structure consisted of me.  My department was also a new thing, something that Best Buy was really counting on being the “next big thing.”  I sold cell phones, satellite TV, Web TV, and giant-ass digital cameras that you put floppy disks into.  This whole mess was termed “Cellular and Satellite Systems”, or CSS, and here I was running it with no clue.  Digital cameras I could handle, Web TV was a joke but easy, but cell phones freaked me out.  Remember, this was in 1998-99, when cell phones were all analog and about the size of a box of Kleenex.  Plus, the activation procedure was a nightmare, and the credit check and deposit was always seemingly too much for most people.

Actually, thinking back on that, I remember one time Roger Troutman came into my department.  He and his brother Larry came in sometimes, always dressed to the hilt in loud, stylish suits and throwing cash around like it was nothing.  I mean, Roger was a Funk and Hip-Hop legend, so money should be no object to him, right?  He curiously eyed some of my new Nokia 6162 cell phones –cool new styles with a “flip” cover– and asked if he could buy a few.  “Sure, no problem” I said.  I had him fill out the form and told him to hold on for a minute while I did the credit check and activation.  He said, “no way man.  I got stuff to do, places to go.  I’m a busy cat, you dig?”  He gave me his personal cell number (apparently he already had at least one cell phone) and told me to call him when the phones were ready.  Well, Roger Troutman, Hip-Hop legend, inspiration to a generation of Rap artists, and singer of “I Wanna Be your Man” and “California Love” (with Dr. Dre, no less) failed the credit check just like everyone else.  No new “flip” phone for Roger.

Not long after that, brother Larry shot Roger several times in an alley near his recording studio, and then shot himself.  Roger died in the hospital.   I don’t know if he ever got to own a “flip” phone.

I have so many memories of the last ten years.  It was my initial intention to share a few of them here, but I’m coming to realize already that my post is getting too long.  I’m wordy like that.  All I’ve written so far happened in like the first four months.  I have TEN YEARS of Best Buy memories clogging up my brain.

Would you guys actually like to hear more?  Maybe I could do a little series or something.  I surely don’t wanna annoy people with my reflections.  Still, this was a big part of my life for ten years, a part most people don’t know much about.

Leave a comment and tell me if you want more.  Or you could just say, “please stop with your boring Best Buy stories!  We want to hear more bitching about gas prices and gay people and speed-bump stoppers!”  I’d oblige naturally.

It’s good to be back!

A 34 year-old man, working in a temporary position in a Wal Mart for the holidays, probably looking for a little extra cash to give his family something nice this year, was trampled to death during a Black Friday rush early this morning.

Having worked numerous Black Fridays in retail, I know all too well what that scene might have looked like.  I’ve spent many an hour in a store during the morning hours on the day after Thanksgiving, dutifully setting up displays and attending to last minute details, all the while staring at voracious masses just outside the front door waiting with no patience to get in.  These people are sometimes completely unruly, riotous  and without regard for others.  They’ll stop for nothing or no one to reach their objective.

Have you ever seen a zombie movie?  In every one, there’s always a point where the heroes are trapped in a building or structure of some kind, while outside the undead masses — completely void of higher brain functions and of single-minded determination — scratch and claw and group in huge bunches in an attempt to seize their prey.  This is exactly what Black Friday feels like from a retail worker’s perspective.  Unwashed masses by the thousands hungering for what you have with no thought to you or your person.

Even so, I blame Wal Mart for this.  Yes, I understand the initial crush of customers that come through in the beginning, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  You need people to go out beforehand and organize the crowds.  You have to have strong, direct people to stand up and tell the crowds how things are going to be.  You need organization, you have to have discipline and order, or else someone really can get hurt.

There was absolutely NO excuse for a mad dash through the doors.  None whatsoever.  Any managers working that early morning shift deserve immediate termination for failing to contain that situation.  What’s more, I hope the family of the victim sues the ass off Wal Mart and wins millions and millions of dollars.  No, this won’t bring the victim back, but it will help Wal Mart to see the big picture here.  Someone screwed up, and someone needs to pay.

And what if you were one of those shoppers?  What if you were one of those people who literally stepped on a helpless man in a Wal Mart isle early Friday morning in an attempt to buy some stupid, pointless toy or piece of junk DVD player or a crappy TV made in Korea?  How do you live with yourself knowing you took an innocent person’s life away in your greed and your insolence?  How do you sleep, knowing that when your kids open their shitty DVD player on Christmas, you paid for it with blood?  What about that man’s kids?  Just think of how their Christmas morning will play out, murderer.  You should be ashamed at the price of your foolishness.

What is it all really worth?

Today is the 23rd of September, 2008.  If things would have progressed the same old boring way they had for a long time, today would have been my tenth anniversary with Best Buy. 

Fortunately, (or unfortunately in a financial sense) it didn’t work out that way.  As you all know by now, the Big Yellow Tag decided to terminate my employment back in January over the matter of roughly $4 worth of broken DVD casing.  To add a little salt to the wound, they also challenged my Unemployment Insurance claim so that the state could deny me any sort of income after the fact.  I’m not bitter though.  In fact, I still have no regrets about it to this day, although I won’t shop there anymore.

Ten years is forever in retail terms.  In my position, which was management, the average term of employment is probably something like four or five years.  Really good managers tend to get recruited away to better-paying places, or they grow to hate policies that hold them back and leave for greener pastures, and sub-par managers tend to get weeded out.  It’s the average ones that tend to linger, and they still probably only stick around for seven or eight years.  The fact that I made it almost ten years is quite exceptional, and those that go on past ten are almost unheard of.  Retail is a harsh career, and it will swallow your soul after too long.  I’m glad I got out, regardless of how it happened.

I’ll look back with a few fond memories, and a few bitter ones.  In the end, it was a good experience overall.  I made lots of friends and got to travel the country.  It’s too bad it had to end the way that it did.