IHWIR Admin - 28/347 - I Hate Working In Retail

Feb
14

RadioShack The Official Obituary

Category: Radioshack Tags: Radioshack Leave a Comment

After years of pain and struggle, electronics retail chain RadioShack passed away this week. Below is the store’s long-due obituary.

RadioShack (1921–2015)

RadioShack was always a small store, often nestled between a beauty salon and Little Caesar’s on the sides of roads with more potholes than traffic. The electronics retail chain grew up selling specialty radio parts for a burgeoning market. For a time, RadioShack thrived amongst Sunday catalogues, people who wanted handheld TVs, and kids who built little AM radios because they had no friends.

The store may never have been happier than it was in the 1990s, when people had money to spend on 900mHz cordless phones and digital watches that could also change the TV channel. For a few years the little store was even making commercials withSuperman: Adventures of Lois and Clark star Teri Hatcher, and Howie Long, a former football player allowed to act next to Ms. Hatcher.

Unfortunately, the highs proved as fleeting as the battery life of a Game Gear. Often confused about who it was, and rarely good with people, RadioShack had trouble keeping up with larger stores, and hated change, even refusing to acknowledge the internet existed until it was far too late. Indeed, neighbors say RadioShack began its slow descent into madness as many as 15 years ago, when walkie talkies stopped being really cool. Visitors noticed the increasingly unconfident store’s employees gave off a distinct impression that they were trapped and had no way of escape.

Although it had many relationships with CEOs throughout its life, none were meant to be, as each affair proved more toxic than the last. Perhaps it was RadioShack’s hygiene; if you spent any time in a RadioShack lately, you have surely recognized the dour scent of impending death.

It’s important to remember that it wasn’t always about work with RadioShack. Its other hobbies included closing locations and telling employees they were fired with one hour to leave the premises.

RadioShack is survived by 3,039 Sprint phones, 264 gold-plated Monster Cables, 921 RadioShack brand walkie talkies, 15 pairs of COBY wrap-around headphones, 73 remote-control cars collecting dust in the garages of elderly couples whose children are long gone, and the love of RadioShack’s life, Teri Hatcher.

There will be a service held 11:30 a.m. this Saturday at Circuit City Memorial Cemetery.

Sourced from funnyordie.com

Feb
14

By IHWIR Admin

Top 12 reasons your managers become assholes

Category: Life as a Retail Manager Tags: life of a retail manager Leave a Comment

In response to some angry comments about the large number of assholes running around in management roles here’s the first in a series of posts about assholes. There is also a follow up post on the top 12 reasons managers become great:

The top 12 reasons managers become assholes:

A boss they admired was an asshole. In trying to emulate someone more powerful then themselves, they didn’t separate the good qualities from the bad and copied it all. In their admiration they defend the bad as well as the good (note: people do this with their parents too). See The Jobsian Fallacy.
They are insecure in their role. The psychology of opposites goes a long way in understanding human nature. Overly aggressive people are often quite scared, and their aggression is a pre-emptive attack driven by fear: they attack first because they believe an attack from others is inevitable. Management makes many people nervous since it’s defined by having have less direct control, but more broad influence. Many managers never get over this, and micromanage: a clear sign of insecurity and confusion over their role and yours.
They prefer intimidation to leadership. If you have a gun, the fastest way to get someone to do something for you is to threaten them with it. But if you take away the gun, you have no power. However if you take the time to convince someone to do something for good reasons, those reasons can last no matter how armed or unarmed you are. A person who has confused intimidation with persuasion, or leadership, behaves poorly all the time. They rely on their guns, not their minds, which enslaves the people who work for them out of using their minds either.
Their life sucks. What percentage of people are miserable in the corporate world? I think 20-30% is a safe bet. If you’re miserable, you tend to inflict your misery on those who have less power than you do. If your life is miserable enough you won’t even notice how rude you are to waiters, assistants, and sub-ordinates. It may be nothing personal, or even work related, these people simply have a volcano of negative emotions that must escape somewhere, often in eruptions that they can not control. Just be glad you’re not their spouse or offspring.
They lose their way. Management is disorienting. You are not in the real world in the same way front line workers are. Everything is meta. Decisions become abstractions. People are numbers. Getting lost in middle management is common. Unless they find a guiding light to keep the bearings, and stay low to the ground, good people get lost. It’s smart when taking on a new role to ask someone closer to the ground to be your sanity check. Telling you when the front lines thinks you’re not the same guy anymore.
Promotion chasing. As you get further from front line work, the goals of promotion become clearer than the goals of the projects. Often what’s right for the project, and the people working on it, isn’t lined up with what’s going to get a manager promoted. This creates a moral dilemma, do what’s right for the team, or do what’s best for me. By spending more time with other managers than with front line workers, it’s easy to forget where the high ground is.
Their management chain is toxic. If you are a manager, and your boss is inflicting blame, disorder or pain on you, there are two choices. Either pass the pain on down, or suck it up and shield your team from the pain. Will you pass the blame on to your team, or take all the heat? The latter is much harder to do than the former, and the former will often be taken as being an asshole. Even if no solution is possible, one gutsy thing to say is “I don’t agree with this either, but I was unable to convince my boss, so we’re doing it anyway”. This takes guts as it makes you seem powerless. You must choose between seeming powerless vs. seeming like an asshole, and the latter often wins.
The Peter Principle. A 1968 book described this principle as the fact that in any hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. It sounds like a joke, but makes total sense. If Bob is a great marketer, he is soon promoted to senior marketer. If he does well, he’s promoted to managing marketers. What happens now? If he’s mediocre as a manager, he can likely stay there forever. He may not like the fact he’s not getting promoted anymore and doesn’t like being medicore, but is afraid of going back down the ladder, even though he might excel down there. He’s trapped. People who are trapped feel insecure (see above).
They’re not assholes, they’re just insensitive or oblivious. Would a Vulcan make a good manager? Not really. He’d make smart choices, for sure, but empathy is a huge part of what a decent manager offers their team. Managers are often faced with tough decisions that will negatively affect people, and they make the best choice they can. But they forget to empathize with or explain their decisions such that those negatively effected by them understand. Or even better, forget to involve those people in the decision so they become participants and not victims. The failure to do this is a fast way to earn a reputation as an asshole, even if you’re doing what’s best for the team / company / world.
Madly in love with themselves. Perhaps their Mom doted on them too much as children, or they got picked on in high school, whatever the reason, some people become infatuated with their power and fall in love with themselves. They put themselves in the center of everything because, emotionally, they need to be. The hole in their ego is so big, nothing can fill it, despite their pathological attempts to stuff bonuses, rewards, kudos and perks others deserve more into their stash. Megalomania is tragedy. It’s a good sign a person you despise has bigger problems with the world, than you have with them.
They always were assholes. I knew a kid in elementary school who always seemed like a jerk. Even then it wasn’t quite his fault, he just naturally annoyed and bothered people. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, I met him recently, 25 years later, and guess what? He’s still a jerk. Some people have been, and probably always will be, assholes. They have to work somewhere. Better managed companies hire fewer of them.
They took the promotion purely for money and status. In many organizations the only way to get higher status and more income is to become a manager. What if managers didn’t get paid more that the people they managed? Perhaps then more people would take the role simply because they wanted to be in that role, rather than because they primarily wanted more money.

Sourced from scottburkun.com

Feb
14

By IHWIR Admin

Infographic American Shoppers Spend $19 billion On Valentine’s Day!

Category: Fun Facts, infographics Tags: Fun Facts, infographic, Valentines day Leave a Comment

2015 Valentine’s Day Spending Stats

The NRF is reports Valentine’s Day spending at $19 billion with more than $142 per person as +60% of consumers say they will celebrate with purchases this year. Ebates.com announced a new Valentine’s survey that reports 39% have smartphones as a top choice for Valentine’s gifts for her, and him. With iPhone6 deals and iPad Air deals will surely creep into Valentine’s gift lists, we fully expect spending to exceed $20 billion this year. The trend to get something techie may not be as romantic as chocolates and flowers, but there are apps that can simulate a whole lot more than taste and fragrance! Traditional gifts will still be a boon for retailers though as half are expected to buy candy and 1/3 or more will once again buy flowers, with males outspending females 2 to 1. The guys may want to visit FatWallet’s Valentine’s Deals to find increased cash back and coupons to help them save some dough!

25 Valentine’s predictions and fun facts that indicate a 2015 shopping spree…of those who celebrate Valentine’s Day: