Thread regarding Sam's Club layoffs

I think it's terrible they took the APPLE VALLEY lab out. A HUGE MISTAKE ... only reason we had the membership

My lab was closed in July to make room for t-b-cco. Sams is getting away from customer intensive services. Photo labs were inserted into d–g stores, grocery stores and box stores not to make money from the service, but to bring captive customers into the building to buy other things while they waited for their prints. Sam's club lured professional photographers with low prices for proofing and add-ons.
Sam's Club used to have the moniker "We're in business for small business". But they left a huge void in a still viable market for professional photographers which could be tapped by whoever wants to take the plunge.

about 5yrs ago there were 2 full time and 1 part time positions in our lab. in a region with 19 total clubs, our lab was always ranked 1 or 2 in our region's sales and many times over the years (11 for myself), we ranked number 1 in sales company wide.

so again, this was about 5yrs ago, when the photo associates were gathered in a meeting with management and told that we were changing our operating hours from 9am-8:30 to 10am-7pm. at first, we were excited to finally have the same hours other specialty departments used. but we were told that only the full timer with the most seniority would stay in photo, that myself (full time) would now work primarily in the electronicsame dept. and the other associate (part time) would now be working wireless. the part time guy quit shortly after and I began working those departments (unless the photo person was off, then I'd be scheduled photo. I started to hate working photo then, since the regular photo person normally had me to fall back on, but since I only worked photo when they were off, nobody ever helped me when I'd go to break or lunch (which was an hour long now), instead the other electronics associates would just tell members when to expect me back and I'd get to come back to angry people most of my photo shifts.

but, believe it or not, the photo sales were still considerable (we didn't lead the company as often, but continued to lead our region and every club in our region had labs). fast forward to the beginning of this year and everyone is told that our club will be receiving what's referred to as a "premier level" remodel. those of us who worked in the lab had been told by fuji techs, that since they were finished upgrading the photo equipment in Walmart stores, that we would be having our upgrade after the end of the fiscal year in Feb 17.

so Feb 17 was also when the clubs remodeling was scheduled, and it was also about that same time that the full time photo associate and myself were pulled into meetings with our gm (separately) and explained the details of severance packages. you see, for the past 5yrs, even though I had been scheduled for workdays in other departments, they had left me keyed as a photo associate (since our management likes to steal hours from departments to use them where they'd prefer instead).

It had been decided the lab would not be part of the remodel, that would be online only moving forward. a lot of members were and still are pissed about it, there are no other labs to use but Walmart now (and everyone complains of their quality) plus, they were looking forward to the new equipment. it's odd, you can still place online photo orders and pick them up at our club, but the orders are completed by the send out lab and delivered to the service desk now (and again, nobody likes the quality).

so now, myself and the other full time photo person are working in electronics, (we couldn't affor to take the severance we were offered). along with ourselves, 3 long term associates (15+ yrs) that worked full time on our audit team were also offered them.

and for anyone interested, we were all offered 3months salary and paid out for any pto we had saved (not the personal or sick time we had banked, you lose that). sorry this was so long, but hopefully this might answer some questions.

Some photo labs are actually super busy like mine, In the top 25 usually. a

my remodel was cancelled but now I hear there is still a chance photo might be removed.. I have members all day long and always come back because of our service . I've worked for the lab for over 12 years and if they decide to remove it I would be devastated along with our members who having been coming to us for years .

I DO NOT stand around, what looks like standing around is working on an order for a member who is coming back in a few minutes. When there is nothing to do we are all over the building helping all the other departments get and things done.

To many people think Photo is easy... not if you do it right, there is lots to do in Photo alone of you know what needs to be done.

This guy says we get to stand around. hahahahaha. Yea. Ok. In my club we have to work in other areas too, not just the photo lab so basically I'm getting paid crap for knowing more than one department. F--- off.

In my club I am in the Photo lab but am all over the place, I drive a forklift and help out in electronics and all over the sales floor, and when I am in Photo it's busy (they come in waves) I have no time to just standing around when I'm in Photo.

Sad but true, Sam’s is looking to outsource its photolab now to cut down on supply cost and labor. Our club was fortunate to be able to keep our lab after our remodel. But that was one of debates in the middle of the remodel wether or not to keep it. I think because they had just purchased the new dry lab right before the remodel, they didn’t want to lose out on the money they would lost if they had to auction the equipment. Another club in our market just had there lab shut down, so we’ve been getting most of their traffic now. Good luck!

Enjoy it cause you get to stand around and do nothing while the rest of us work. Photo is a waste of the company's money. Close all photo labs put them on registers.