Thread regarding Sears layoffs

I am really amazed by the stories of junk filled rooms on this thread. At our store there have been numerous purge fests over the years; all initiated by our DMs. Sometimes during these throwaway frenzies even current fixtures and displays would get tossed. The motto was, "If in doubt, throw it out." We weren't even allowed to keep the boxes, instructions or accessories for the power tools on display in our hardware department!

I THINK I AM THRU WITH IT . I want peace. I have put so much of me into this grievios thing called SHC that I will not anymore.

Not only do we have exposed puchouts in our panel, the door to our panel has been missing for a year. It rusted off and fell on the floor. We have no QMT so when someone comes in to fix things they put in for a repair and by the time they get approval and get back the person has quit and we have a new guy that has no idea what is going on.

We also have a whole upstairs filled with rusted, bent, broken shelving, hooks, peg board, paper but we cannot get rid of it because the DM says it is an inventory item and they don't want to pay for disposal. If these pieces of junk are counted as inventory then the company is worse than what they say.

Based on my workings in a dozen stores over the past ten years, I can attest that the Kmart side is far leaner in its junk accumulation. Each location I have worked in struggles just to complete layouts because it lacks the proper hooks, shelves, pegboard, back paper, etc. When additional fixtures do come, they are the product from the nearby location that recently closed.

Each store has a collection point of excess fixtures in both sections (hardlines and softlines) of the store, with many in disrepair that they are not usable. In my current location, Receiving contains quite a few fashions racks that seem to change out each week (again, likely from the newly closed location nearby). We have so much fashions it is a wonder that our midways are now filled with racks to display the endless bounty.

I can only confirm that I've seen one pallet of new, unused metal fixtures sitting on scaffolding for years on end in the back room. (It's existed there for as long as I can recall and was part of an infant initiative that failed due to the aisles being of an incompatible dimension.

Admittedly, our store does possess a dozen broken shopping carts outside the Receiving doors. I am confident for every cart that breaks, we'll receive five "new ones" from the closed store - that's just how things roll at Kmart (including the auto-replenishment system).

I do have my eye on one thing! It involves me having someone take it off a wall! I hope they give us a chance to keep some of what they consider junk!l

@L54MHsy-1vzl: You say light switches in breaker panels? Try duct tape over where the unfilled breaker spots are, with the knockouts missing, where it could be punched through or pulled away, exposing someone to lethal amperage (it's not necessarily the volts that kill you).

Right behind the duct tape where the metal knockouts are supposed to be, a 400 amp bus bar awaits underneath just in case your finger slips and pushes the duct tape away. 0.8 Amps can kill someone, to put that into perspective.

It was like this until we had a qmt that came in and had the panel replaced, which probably took a lot of begging, borrowing, pleading and stealing to do since Sears doesn't like to pay for things.

OP here. I sent my express techs and the FNG back there today for my little scheme to redesign my little crappy auto center. Only one of the three had ever been back there before. They came back and two guys who had never been back before were incredulous. Of course they didn't find anything that we needed.

I'm thinking a "The Sears Witch Project: A Retail Grave Yard" phone camera movie short needs to be made.

They end up with a lot of "hoarded" inventory because the company doesn't allow enough writeoff to get rid of old crap. Every year they have to count a bunch of stuff which can't possibly sell to avoid facing the problem. This has been going on for decades. In addition they won't budget enough payroll hours to take care of these areas. There's no obvious short term "profitability" to having people work on piles of junk in the back rooms. This is a dysfunctional company in so many ways it's hard to fathom.

There's some interesting stuff in these forgotten rooms. Probably not worth anything but brings back memories for us oldtimers!! So sorry to see it end this way!! Had many great times,friends and memories!!!😥😥

OP here. So I am not the only one and thanks for the comments. I didn't get a chance today to get back there again but I will eventually. Maybe you or I will find a cool keepsake of our time at Sears. I kind of doubt that I will be keeping my misspelled business cards. Hey at least they got the phone number correct.

Our store has a large area where odds and ends go. It's dark and kind of scary, especially the big red exhaust fan at the end, which is about 6 feet in diameter. Something you don't want to be near if or when it is running. Boxes of old files, tons of boxes of old credit app forms, promo pamphlets, old computer equipment including ancient IBM dumb terminals circa 1985, a couple of appliances that somehow missed MDO haulaway...Then there are various closets and storerooms across the store. The electronics storeroom is full of old projection bulbs, VCRs, promo signs, and a whole bunch of junk. There are four or five washing machine boxes full of clothes in the footwear stockroom, probably old clothes that were supposed to be sent back (MRN). Don't forget that each space has tons of metal shelving, most of which is haphazardly stacked.

It must be pretty interesting when a liquidator liquidates a Sears or Kmart store. Sears has a hoarding problem. Our store manager seems unmotivated to eliminate anything, in fact, the answer is "there's no payroll" to do a cleanup.

As for the locations owned by Sears, just about all of them are riddled with asbestos. Then there about 100 different issues like MAJOR roof leaks with molding fiberglass insulation, foundation problems, malfunctioning HVAC and things that are definitely not to code (like having light switches, yes, LIGHT SWITCHES, installed in circuit breaker boxes!!!). Eddie is going to be in a world of hurt when he realizes that no one will want to buy these stores, even at 80% below value. Most aren't even in good, high traffic locations.

We have a whole upstairs filled with displays from the past 10 years still in the boxes. We also have at least 50 boxes of filters for the HVAC system that are not being used as well as still in boxes shelving, ceiling tiles, floor tiles, 100 gallons of paint, 50 boxes of bathroom tile as well as faucets, toilet seats, disc drives, old printer paper (the kind with the holes on the side __100 boxes), moldy, new file folders, 300 florecent bulbs for old fixtures and the list goes on. All still in the original boxes, all not being used, all wasted money. Some buyer must have got a kick-back or something

Back when I was there, the equipment rooms were jammed with crap as well. The endless ordering of new displays meant someone at corporate must have had a heck of a racket going on, because all of that time, Walmart and its "warehouse look" stores was stealing the customer base while the decorators at Sears were busy "spending money like they had it " on endless new rollouts that were not giving returns to the bottom line.

Sounds like you found the old display shop.

When my local K-Mart was closing earlier this year, they had all sorts of stuff on the sales floor- CRT monitors, 80GB data tapes (who even uses data tapes anymore!), sponge packaging with copyright 1998 on them (and even it weren't manufactured that year, it had MADE IN USA on it)!