The Daily Plunge » Circuit City

retail stories: crash your neon

Henshaw — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:40:17 +0000

On the evening of May 9, 2004 thieves stole a green Dodge Neon. It’s another chapter in my retail past. I can’t believe it’s been five years already. But for me this particular story actually starts May 10, 2004. That’s the morning I went to work and found the front entrance to the store boarded up. Circuit City was open for business, but there was damage.
Thieves broke into the store in the middle of the night. Actually, they crashed into the store. There’s no better way to spend a Sunday evening than laying siege to the local Circuit City. After the thieves stole the car they proceeded to crash into the front of the store.

Police say thieves used a Dodge Neon to smash into the front of a Circuit City in north Charlotte on Saturday. Concrete barriers were put in specifically to stop cars and trucks from being able to rob the store by smashing through the glass doors, but police say the thieves drove around them and squeezed the car through a narrow walkway, which was 72 inches wide.

When the engineers designed the Dodge Neon I’m sure they didn’t realize that one of the best features of the car (there weren’t many) was the ability to bypass concrete barriers. The car was so small the thieves just drove around. It was tight fit, but it allowed the thieves to break in and start grabbing merchandise. I wish I had the video footage. It was funny watching the men run into the store.
This wasn’t an organized break in. Don’t picture the ex-presidents from Point Break. There weren’t guys running around with ex-president masks. Yes, some wore masks but the footage I watched had more of a “riot feel” to me. It was a five minute shop-till-you-drop dash. Considering the nature of the break-in they didn’t steal that much stuff. They broke into one of the digital camera cases, but only took the cheap stuff. I guess they were in such a rush they forgot to go after the big brands. In total they only got away with a couple of thousand of dollars worth of merchandise.
There were probably four people involved in the break-in and if they sold the goods they made less than $500 each. That’s a lot of hassle for $500. Stealing the right car, finding the right store, and crashing into the building. In the end, the execution was missing. They should have grabbed laptops. Obviously this wasn’t the work of geniuses, but it’s another grand chapter in my retail stories.

retail stories: technical jargon

Henshaw — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:52:27 +0000

In hindsight I feel a little bad about this next retail story. My co-worker Trey was there that day. The faithful day when some twelve year old boy wanted to talk about video cards. This was fairly common at Circuit City. Some kid spends four hours a day studying hardware reviews and then wants to talk to the tech head at the local store. There’s really no harm in it, but what do you do when the kid won’t go away.
Well, on one such occasion Trey and I were having to build end-caps. We were unpacking laptops to put them on display. This kid just kept going on and on while we were working. Finally I asked him the question.

Henshaw: Have you read about echo chamber distortion?
Kid: Yeah
Henshaw: All the high end video cards have them.
Kid: I’ve been reading a lot about that online…

There’s only one problem with echo chamber distortion; it doesn’t exist. The look on Trey’s face while this conversation took place was priceless. He could barely stop himself from laughing. Finally the kid left us alone. I realize now I really don’t much about video cards anymore. I can’t tell you what the best Intel chip is… all that knowledge is gone. Like Circuit City it’s gone with wind.
Anyway, what can be learned from this encounter? Culturally speaking Americans tend to answer yes to questions like “did you see this” or “did you read about that?” Admittedly this kid wasn’t the last time I’ve pulled out echo chamber distortion. It sounds technical. The real trick is convincing the person you know what you’re talking about. Our president has mastered this art.

retail stories: bling bling

Henshaw — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:08:09 +0000

This story might be confusing at first, but in many ways it sums up the randomness of retail. It all starts with Bling Bling at Circuit City. I can’t remember his real name now. I think it was Ronny, but everyone knew him as Bling Bling.
He was from Brooklyn and liked flashy jewelry so I guess the guys just started calling him that. Bling Bling had transferred to a different store to be closer to family. I never really talked to him very much because I was in the computer dept. and he was in TVs.
It was his last day at our location when everything went down.I was working my section when a man entered the store. He walked up asked me if we had a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.
I took the man straight to the section of the store where the product was located. My first impression was that the man was clean cut and well dressed. All that changed quickly. It turned out that the item he wanted was out of stock, so I kindly told him we were out and that Best Buy might have it. He listened to me and seemed fine with my reply.
As he walked away I noticed something was amiss. What I had thought was a sharp-dressed man was wearing white sneakers with very dirty black slacks. None of this made much of an impression on me until what happened next.
As Mister Man left the store he started pushing over signs. When he got to the main doors, instead of waiting for them to open he pushed them off the tracks. While this is going on everyone is looking at me wondering what I said to the guy to set him off. While I tried to explain that nothing out of ordinary had happened we suddenly heard a car burning rubber out in the parking lot.
Mister Man had jumped into his truck,laid into the gas, and there was smoke piling up in the parking lot as he burned out. People out in the parking lot called the cops and wrote down his license plate. This is where Bling Bling comes into the story.
When the maniac was driving out of the parking lot dragster style he hit Bling Bling’s car and ripped the bumper off. That’s some pretty terrible luck and things only got worse. Fifteen minutes later the cops finally arrived. They talked to Bling Bling about his car and it turned out that he didn’t have car insurance. Oops! That’s against the law, so the cops gave him a ticket. Talk about a tough day at the office. Who knows if the cops ever found the crazy man? I’ve often wondered what it was that set him off. Did I say something wrong?

retail stories: box cutter blues

Henshaw — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:33:08 +0000

Yesterday while I was writing about Circuit City I had a rush of old memories from retail. I worked in retail for almost four years and I saw a lot of crazy stuff. In some ways I think people would be friendlier to each other if everyone had to work at some point in retail. You definitely learn to appreciate nice people. Anyway, I think I’m going to start a new category here at The Daily Plunge. I’ll call it retail stories. I’ve seen rotting frogs, walls covered in human feces, cars crashing into buildings, crazy customers, and other countless encounters that are all true.
This first story took place at Circuit City. I think this happened a couple of months after I started, but I could be wrong. I was walking back to the bathrooms. At that particular store to get to the bathrooms you had to pass through a door that led to car audio. When I approached the door I noticed there was blood on the door handle, a lot of blood. I used my foot to open the door with no idea what to expect on the other side. When I opened the door a man was laying on the floor in a pool of blood that covered at least fifteen square feet. I’ve never seen so much blood. The man was holding his arm, he was obviously cut bad. Laying about six feet away was a box cutter. I looked down at him and he looked up at me and we both looked at the knife. Mister Man then said “I cut myself on the door.” Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Obviously the box cutter had something to do with the all the blood. I left the room immediately and grabbed a manager. I told her to prepare for bloodfest and we called an ambulance.
I started investigating immediately and followed the blood trail to the corner of the store where I found a half open handheld TV container. This genius tried to cut the TV out of the plastic container and ended up slicing himself open across the arm. Panicked by the self-inflicted carnage he started running for the back exit and according to witnesses blood was squirting as he ran. The ambulance and cops arrived and took him away. I’m not sure what happened to him after that but the memory of floor covered in blood will stick with me forever.
I’m sure the burglar had reason for stealing. It was probably the strain of the Bush administration. The fact is he’s probably the real victim in this story (yeah, that’s sarcasm). I’m just happy I didn’t have to clean up the mess.

circuit city: echo chamber distortion

Henshaw — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:13:48 +0000

In January Circuit City went bankrupt. The once proud retailer is a prime example of what happens when a company is managed poorly. During the Summer of 2002 I left Home Depot to pursue a job at Circuit City. After over a year at the Home Depot I liked the fact that Circuit City offered a commission sales structure and that was a far more attractive option at the time. Plus, the location of the store was close to where I went to school.
At Home Depot one of my favorite customers was a gentleman who was from Australia. He was a former rugby player and I aways had a great time talking to him. When I told him I was going to Circuit City he told me that he’d see me around, but never at Circuit City. When I asked him why he said it was because their commercials made men look like idiots. I never saw this gentlemen again.

In hindsight, maybe he was right. The first six months at Circuit City were challenging. My co-workers were mostly seasoned commissioned sales employees. All the sales employees were encouraged to sell warranties which wasn’t a big problem. There was a financial incentive to sell the warranties since we were being paid commission. I worked in the computer sales section; however, I was allowed to sale in other departments if I wished. Everything changed when Circuit City ended their commissioned sales structure. I survived the round of layoffs mainly because I hadn’t been there long enough. For the next year and a half I would never receive another pay raise. The reward for being most knowledgeable person in my department was that I got to do inventory every week. In many ways the writing was on the wall for Circuit City.
After the change in pay structure Circuit City became Best Buy Lite. The stores weren’t as appealing as the Best Buy stores and the employee morale was dismal. The managers at the store were under immense stress from corporate. Corporate management created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation for everyone who didn’t hold the company line. There was no tolerance for not selling warranties. Since I worked in the computer department this was annoying. There is no sales margin in computer sales so the only way Circuit City made money was on accessories and warranties. Selling a $150 warranty on a $450 e-Machine isn’t exactly an easy sell and it’s also a bad idea for the customer. That $5 USB cable you can buy online would only cost you $25 at Circuit City. With so much information available on the internet Circuit City didn’t have a clue what it was doing.
After a year of constant change my attitude had changed and I wasn’t the pleasant sales person I was when I started. It was a miserable place to work and I was completely stressed out. My store manager Virgil (who wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed) had me written up on one occasion because he said I didn’t “offer a warranty on a laptop sale.” The truth was he just didn’t like me. I had worked with the woman before and had already talked to her about the warranty. This is the kind of nonsense that was going on every day. For Virgil, besides having gizmovision that allowed him to see across the store in crystal clear HD he could also hear conversations 100 feet away. I still don’t understand why he was floundering around as a Circuit City manager when he had superpowers. I digress. It wasn’t Virgil’s fault. He had worked at the company for his entire life. He didn’t have a college education so the company was his clearest path to advancement. Virgil either did what management said or he’d get canned. In fact, the previous manager had been fired. I should mention that the location for my store was terrible and that caused a lot of headaches for everyone.
Eventually I moved on to greener pastures. A lot of the employees were going to college and it was a temporary stop on life’s road. I always felt bad for everyone else who had to stay. Circuit City was going south and the corporate management didn’t have an answer.

Meanwhile, not far up the road, Best Buy was selling largely the same products but in a way that was actually fun. Today, those two retailers can be taken as mirror images of one another — two approaches to the same challenge, one successful, one disastrous.
“Circuit City did not have a distinct brand position — they didn’t stand for anything in particular,” said Mark Michelson, who conducted the consumer research that was used to design the last round of Circuit City stores. “Best Buy is known for low price and good service; their employees are also among some of the most satisfied at any retailer. Wal-Mart became a stronger player in electronics, with dominance of the low price position. Amazon.com and other e-tailers offered convenience with low prices. Circuit City simply did not have a position, except a bad reputation for poor service and mistreating employees.”

The internet age was not kind to Circuit City. Shoppers were now more educated about products and were more concerned with price and availability. Best Buy’s stores were larger, more open, and their sales staff wouldn’t bombard you as you walked in the door.
I should also mention my immediate manager. Bobbie was her name and she was great. I believe she is retired now, but she was a tough woman who didn’t have tolerance for mediocrity. We butted heads on a few occasions but she was fair and I had a ton of respect for her. The people I worked with were great and I have a lot of great memories despite the fact the company was headed south. I still have friends who I worked with during that time and most of us are happy we don’t work at Circuit City anymore.