Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Our liquidator was the worst. Many of us, around 15, got so fed up we just didnt show up one day and quit. I was told they brought in temp workers at twice what we were making to finish the liquidation.

@5kao - Eat a duck? You bet, especially if it is prepared Peking style; absolutely delicious! Don't forget the accompanying Mandarin pancakes and hoi sin sauce.

To 2zvt: It sounds like you had the same liquidator that my store was afflicted with. Helping out at other store closings, I do know that there are some really decent liquidators out there; ones that are respectful to the employees, and understand that we are facing the loss of our livelihoods.

But the one that closed my store was absolutely terrible. She made it an even more miserable experience than it already was.

I know it's like any other occupation - you have the ones that can do the job, and the ones that do it really poorly. Unfortunately, ours was pretty bad. You're just never sure what you are going to get. It's just the luck of the draw.

Eventually, the liquidation of 40 year old bent and broken fixturing and broken box / distressed merchandise will dry up. Another victim of online sales.

Maybe in the past the soon to be departing employees were going to be transferred within the company, or be able to find a job in retail that had benefits .

This bird is cooked, or better yet scorched.

Ain't no transfers happening .

And the industries is dying.

I mean, if there was nothing left to liquidate and you were facing tough times. How much energy would you put into something that is tossing you to the curb?

the person who ran the liquidation for my store several years ago but have been an odd one then because he was nice compassionate and treated the store employees well his theory was there was no need to be a jerk to people losing their jobs kinda sad it seems this has changed now

Business Idea @1zmf, if Eddie had the smarts that everyone thought he did, he would have bought or started his own liquidation company a few years ago. Missed opportunity there.

Sorry, OP, the people on this site are too blind, defensive, angry, and frankly, stupid, to believe you. They lash out at anyone speaking the truth. I went thru the process a couple of years ago, and you are pretty much on the mark. As awful as losing a job was, once it was written in stone, the stress level really did go down. Since I wasn't fooled by the propaganda I lined up another job, so the closing was not as tragic for me as it was for those who refused to see the writing on the wall.

Open letter to liquidators, at least this one: Grow some humility. Compassion too.

You're the equivalent of someone who walks into the room after someone's loved one was just put on hospice care and starts trying to make plans with the family on what you can harvest from the dying person.

The only up side to dealing with one of you guys was that it cemented a bit more camaraderie between our managers and us subordinates because she equally drove all of us mad. We worked ourselves to the bone to watch our 55-year-old store and jobs die... Maybe you can't see it form that side, but it's REALLY hard both physically and mentally. Are you the one that has to physically condense, rearrange, and dismantle the place? Are you the one taking abuse from customers because the percents YOU decided on aren't yet "good enough"? Nope. To talk about store employees like little worthless peons is incredibly insulting.

But I know a lot of the attitude probably comes from the fact that how well the liquidation goes plays a part in the liquidator's next gig... I hate people who think they can be a tyrant and bully their way to success. We put up with that garbage from customers that try to do it to get their way, and some people are unlucky enough to have managers that do it, we don't need some unknown person coming in there to kill our store treating us like that as well.

But thank you liquidators... You taught me and the rest of my coworkers the valuable lesson to never be foolish enough to stay through liquidation again. Most of us that stayed (aside from managers who kind of had to) did so because we wanted to, out of loyalty to our store and coworkers. But you guys just come in and turns things more miserable than they have to be. Fun? Yeah right.

Please ,answer me this .Dosen't Mr.Lampert own the liquidation company? The ones he uses to close down Sears and K-mart.

I would tell this liquidator to kindly go pound sand.

This.

@1vyq I don't know about that. The pompous, condescending, holier-than-thou attitude seems about right for a liquidator from what I've heard from others that were involved in liquidation.

Then again, it could very well be a "parody" written by a frustrated Sears employee experiencing a store liquidation?

@Tg93e8k-1vyq

It would take like 15 minutes to write something like this...

I question the authenticity of the letter. I spoke to a couple of liquidators I've known from the past and they said neither they nor any liquidators they know would ever put a letter like this on a forum like this. They said they are too busy to be concerned with writing and posting a letter like this. Somebody would have to have a lot of free time on their hands.

The store still has a Store Manager! I could've liquidated my own store! I had a team full of sign makers and selling fixtures wasn't sh--! Sears is wasting money hiring yall!

@Tg93e8k-1hag I don't believe it for a second , the first casualty of bankruptcy, much like war is truth

The liquidator guy does have a point about Sears managers being too lenient. I see it all the time in my store. People call out, nothing happens. People are consistently late, nothing happens. Dress code? It isn't enforced.

Some associates are constantly running out to their car for a smoke break. Others will text up a storm on their phone. The immature high schoolers will horse around. They are almost exclusively scheduled for closing shifts because of their school schedule and usually the backroom/support lead closes right along with them. He is the most lenient member of management of them all. They really like that. I dread it.

They will gather around him and watch Youtube videos on their phones and laugh. They know that they can get away with anything and some of them leave the store for 30-45 minutes for a "burger run" down the street after they've had their lunch and more than their share of breaks. They'll also have their friends/boyfriends/girlfriends come in too.

One night, about an hour before closing, the backroom lead and the "kids" went out and raced/revved their "souped-up" Hondas, Acuras and Infinitis in the parking lot. I found that out when a customer approached me and said that there were cars doing donuts in the parking lot. Walked over to the back entrance and sure enough, there they were. I couldn't believe it.

Guess what? They're all still here. It makes me sick!

@Tg93e8k-pir A pizza party? Is this middle school or a job? Did they give you dixie cup ice cream and caffeine free soda too? Oh I am so excited

@1hlk - Sorry, not propaganda at all. The story is true and accurate as the day is long! The two managers mentioned were both pieces of work and their haughty attitudes were legend. They just happened to cross the wrong person and they got their comeuppance. Couldn't have happened to two more deserving people!

1vbw - sorry but you mean "toe the line".

@Tg93e8k-1cuk

I’m not the op but I’ll just say this.

Sometimes it’s worth spending extra money to hire people quickly so that the process can go smoothly. Think about it. If you hire a new person to replace someone else and they cost $1-$2 per hour more you’re really only spending a couple hundred dollars to make sure a process that generates hundreds of thousands of dollars runs quickly and smoothly.

Versus putting that same low wage out there and potentially getting no bites. So then the store is understaffed and you lose money due to lost sales.

It’s 100% worth it.

O.P-- I need to ask a question. In the last liquidation of a store I worked at many of the regular store employees quit before liquidation. Within the next week we had new employees who were making more money than the old employees, someimes double the hourly wage.

Is this normal? If someone quits do you bring in temporary workers at a higher wage?

Aslo, I understand how you want things to go as normal but do liquidators understand that when you lose your job, no one really cares about the business (sears/Kmart) any more and would like to do as much damage to a company that has constantly been dishonest and uncaring?

When I read the last sentence in this part of the letter I burst out laughing.

-Listen and follow our directions to the letter: We have our own set of rules, they replace many of the rules and "the old way of doing things". Understand that there are procedures in place to make the process easier for everyone involved. Please don't try to deviate from that. This also goes for anyone staying on board that held a supervisory/managerial role.

The gentleman that was in charge of our store liquidation was the most amiable and respectful person you could hope to deal with. However, from the get-go, both our store manager and a district support manager showed him nothing but insolence and insubordination. After about a week of this abuse the liquidator commented that they apparently did not understand how the liquidation process works. The liquidator then placed one phone call to headquarters and both of those managers were cut off at the knees! From that point on those two chastised managers toed the line till our store closed. It warmed my heart to see those two managers get their rear ends handed to them on a plate!

poorly written and thinly veiled propaganda , oh please tell us again how "heartwarming it was"

":The attitudes expressed by some posters here are in line with being employed by a failed business and the employees failed to move on. Get off the pitty pot "

I don't see any of that happening here, what I see is a knee jerk reaction to a pompous directive that basically says , "Comply with my rules arbitrarily , you are dishonest at your core , we don't trust you, we are watching, we read 1984 as a guide on how to do business not the warning it was intended to be, everything you know goes into the memory hole, we are watching"

Because current year and reasons

It's not exactly a nice way to win friends and influence people is it ? OP's post is an Iron fist edict and those rarely produce intended result. Liquidators are often levels lower than carnivals, door to door magazine sales that use nearly enslaved runaway teenagers and pavement gypsies. I stand by that remark. Posts like the one OP posted are an example of my theory. No one is denying that SHLD is tanking , very few people are not making plans to move on and working toward that goal . Insinuating that we do not understand what's happening is equal to talking down to the people you will have to deal with and that is not a good idea. A wise man once said , if you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind.

When I read the last sentence in this part of the letter I burst out laughing.

-Listen and follow our directions to the letter: We have our own set of rules, they replace many of the rules and "the old way of doing things". Understand that there are procedures in place to make the process easier for everyone involved. Please don't try to deviate from that. This also goes for anyone staying on board that held a supervisory/managerial role.

The gentleman that was in charge of our store liquidation was the most amiable and respectful person you could hope to deal with. However, from the get-go, both our store manager and a district support manager showed him nothing but insolence and insubordination. After about a week of this abuse the liquidator commented that they apparently did not understand how the liquidation process works. The liquidator then placed one phone call to headquarters and both of those managers were cut off at the knees! From that point on those two chastised managers toed the line till our store closed. It warmed my heart to see those two managers get their rear ends handed to them on a plate!

The attitudes expressed by some posters here are in line with being employed by a failed business and the employees failed to move on. Get off the pitty pot

Worked as a 707 associate at multiple liquidating stores, and in my experience the most seemless and sucessful liquidations were the ones conducted with the "business as usual" mentality. Treating store operations with the same mindset as standard operating procedure until the very last day was a major factor in retaining associates until the end, encouraged associates to work over time, and took into consideration the knowledge and experience of the workforce and made applicable utilization of it. Most stores operated like this until recently.

The very last store I liquidated however had liquidators who imposed the same mentality displayed here, and it came as no surprise to anyone that many long time associates left even before the start of the liquidation, and those who stayed were losing their damn mind with being treated with contempt and being generally overworked. The workforce that was hired to provide coverage was repeatedly told they would be scrutinized the most, so turnaround was higher still. The management would walk the floor, be greeted, ignore the associates, and pick at what needed to be done. Nothing says productivity like moving the same item four times in one day. We just went ahead with that mentality until the very end.

Wouldn't know as to why the power trip has become so prevalent amongst multiple individuals amongst multiple seperate companies, but, something to take with a grain of salt, many of these individuals were former SHC.

people that run carnivals and traveling pavement gypsies are more honorable than most liquidators lol

As a liquidator myself, I find the original poster to be lacking in compassion, understanding and heartless. Demanding that soon to be jobless men and women tow the line while they are being "watched" a bit offensive. I question the motive behind the liquidators comments. Is he burnt out or just flexing his ego on those that are about to be out of a job. I find his whole attitude resentful.

Some associates are bitter because they worked many years of dedication to this company....20....30 years or more....and have been cast off like trash.....cut from Fulltime to part time....or told that they will not get their 8 weeks severance unless they work all the way through a liquidation.....or told they can reapply at another Sears store and start all over as a new employee with 0 years service.

The liquidator in this thread wants to be in charge of something....but does not want to deal with the problems and obstacles that comes with "being in charge".....Let him fire everyone in the building and replace them with temporary workers from a temp agency then.....and see how that works out when they don't show up for work...or walk out and quit and leave the liquidator to do it all himself.

When my old store was liquidated, the liquidators were reasonable people. They even threw a pizza party to kick off the last week before we closed. They're not nearly as awful as some of you are making them out to be, not by a long shot.

It sounds like some of you don't want to follow the rules and that's probably why an individual responsible for liquidating the stores came on here to start a conversation about this. Maybe he or she is bringing up this discussion because of people like you.

I can't believe that there are people that work in the same company as I do that have this mindset. It's embarrassing, to be honest, even more so because now you're airing out your dirty laundry in public. It makes those of us who do have a good work ethic look bad.

And at the end of the day, you're still just as unemployed

The liquidators also needs to realize that issues go with the territory....They are going to have to work hard for their money and cannot expect everything to be rosy and easy in a liquidation situation.

If the liquidators has a hard time dealing with tough situations, perhaps the liquidators themselves should find another line of work rather than threatening and brow beating the employees who have put up with enough of that already.....If the liquidators can't take the heat. stay out of the kitchen.

A liquidator's job is to squeeze as much money as possible out of whats left and then move on.

They raise the prices then offer a sh--ty discount that ends up costing more than it did. You can't

bring any of this stuff back for any reason. They bring in outside crap to rip you off more. The only reason they keep you on is because it is cheaper and easier than having their own people.It's the definition of a scummy bottom-feeder business.