Thread regarding Sears layoffs

"nobody's getting a raise whether they get a good review or not so what difference does it make?"

Probably negligible at the store level, but some managers at the corporate level may use it as a factor when deciding who gets laid off sooner rather than later. Or worse, write you up for it so they can fire for 'cause' rather than lay you off, which would make you ineligible for unemployment benefits.

Pebble's a joke. It has done nothing constructive for this company. It's either a means to k-ss a-- or a means to waste time to talk about things not even remotely related to work.

I guess you could put me down as a "0". Not that I care, because nobody's getting a raise whether they get a good review or not so what difference does it make? I haven't signed into Pebble in over a year. I think the last time I signed in was to get help with something and my question was never answered. Go figure.

I never could figure out why they don't just do away with Pebble if they are struggling for money that bad. It must cost a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to pay for the upkeep, the infrastructure and the salaries of the people maintaining that site.

Also, I never see associates browsing a company social media on a kiosk or while they walk around with an IPAD at other stores! They are too busy working!

It grinds my gears when I'm putting stuff away, cleaning my department, making sure everything is signed correctly or helping the few customers coming in while some other associates are browsing Pebble on their IPAD or a kiosk for hours on end or just stand around in a huddle and shoot the breeze with their coworkers, and the managers seem to be unphased by it all! I would be sending them home until they were ready to work and I wouldn't put up with this Pebble nonsense.

Actually manager did use your pebble post to rate your involvement with company. Couple years back we work with this team that get your post count to rate your performance. The rate is 1 to 9. 1 being the super star. 9 is being one who should be fired, or the HR term should be in pip (performance improvement plan). As a manager we still have to rate you by answering a question if you participated in pebble often or not. Those who wanted to use pebble as metric left the company and went to work elsewhere.

Sears loss prevention went to h**l after Bill Titus left and it was changed to AP.

I recall at corporate we were told to post one item a week on Pebble and I think we had to put it as a requirement in our performance goals. The problem was that our managers had better things to do that police Pebble postings... so after a while the requirement fell by the wayside. Some associates were posting technical issues or other work related issues on Pebble instead of opening a formal ticket so that made our support team have to scan thru Pebble to see if there were issues posted there (creating extra work). As any other social media tool, one has to be careful what is posted as it can come back to bite you later on. Pebble can be good at sharing job information among large and geographically diverse teams.... but expecting associates to post their true feelings there is a bit of a stretch. That's why anonymous forums like this one work best if you 'really' want to get the pulse of an organization...sure there is going to be some comments that are inappropriate but one can filter out all of that to get what people are really experiencing.

I worked Sears AP for over a decade. I could write a book detailing the mind blowing insanity I witnessed from the people running Sears AP, but no one would ever believe it. That's how bad it was. And still is. You have Regionals, DMs, and now "zone managers" who collect high salaries for doing nothing but creating hoops for the store level people to jump through. It's ridiculous.

".........Why post anything and just keep silent? Or are corporate people required to comment and make Rah, Rah post for the store level employees?......."

Certain teams and people have Pebble quotas. I used to post the most inane BS that I knew were lies to make my quota.

Op here

There were in fact requirements on how many pebble posts you had to make, HR even published them to hiring directors saying you were not eligible for promotion if they were not met.

In response to the rest I will simply repeat the phrases “blinded by pride” ,”making a name for themselves” and of course “Many of us spoke up, anyone who did was cleaved, Human Resources issued retaliatory write ups“.

Many people did in fact post legitimate questions on pebble in a professional and respectful manner only to be fired for it (for questing our “dear leader” Eddie) and have the posts deleted, Eddie also used fake accounts on pebble as did his sycophants. One may comment on the irony of me posting anonymously and to them I simply say that I am not a billionaire and cannot defend myself being outspent by an angry and childish self appointed CEO who would come after me civilly in court.

When people with years of experience at corporate have a husband, wife, and children who depend on their salary they are not as willing to risk themselves without something else lined up, so they play along as little as they must to give the appearance while they look for another job. It should be noted to never mistake acquiesce for real support.

Others totally buy into the idea but it is a blind follower who is chasing and supporting a blind leader and they both will always fail or fall (for a little humor). You should never follow anyone who is their own role model.

Constructive criticism and arguing ideas with opposition is what made some of the best policy’s and procedures companies have ever known. Following up on a test deployment by talking to the workers and getting their feedback perfects it as no one knows everything regardless of their education. Anyone who thinks “they are smart” and everyone else is dumb is truly not a leader or even a decent human being.

Humility and Ethics are the most important things and contrary to popular belief the higher you go in a company the less power you have, the ability of a employee to work or not work, to speak harshly about their employer or not is what makes or breaks companies and you lose that ability to influence that the higher you go.

Sears and Kmart had that approach and vision taken from them when Sears Holdings took over.

So O.P or any other corporate person on here, I have a question. If things are so bad then why all the Rah, Rah on Pebble? I get why you would have to keep up appearances and make it seem like all is well with the company. I also understand why you would just do your job and make the best of it.

What I don't understand is when someone makes a post from HE there are more comments of "great idea", "delighting members", "transformation success", "great idea", etc. It seems like whenever someone says or does anything no matter how small there is tons of people who then comment on how "great" it is or how "this is how SHC will win"...

My question is if you dont believe it, why comment?

Why post anything and just keep silent? Or are corporate people required to comment and make Rah, Rah post for the store level employees? Or is it everyone trying to brown nose everyone, hoping that one of you will escape this prison and take you with them?

Finally. Someone willing to tell the truth. Thank you.

The best post on this board ever. I read the board daily since 2014...

Kudos to the op, she or he is amazing

The original poster is SPOT ON. I too survived the last 8 years before being laid off. I daily decline was palpable. When brainstorming projects ( that shouldn't have BEEN projects) I would often preface my comments with, "If we were a REAL retailer we would....."

My department went from a lean and mean department of 5 to an inflated team of 12. My former boss was promoted to "Sr. Director" and I reported to a "Director" who had never managed a single person in her life....and it showed. She was intellectually bright, but dumb as a box or rocks in interpersonal skills. I loathe her with every fiber of my being.

I feel sorry for those left behind. Unless you are at the very top level, you are going to get SQUAT when the fat lady sings.

"Long time corporate employee here....in 2011 that was felt in 2012..."

And yet 6 years later you are still there.

This is how I see it:

Eddie

Shareholders

Eddie

Shareholders

Shareholders

VPs and higher

Members

Associates

OP's post with paragraph breaks added for readability:

" When Eddie took over he made business units fight for needed capital, at his amusiment, and reprimanded failures as his big floating head via webcam because he couldn’t be bothered to come to corporate. This implemented a game show mentality at the higher levels, he really thought he could manage without ever being on site.

Something changed in 2011 that was felt in 2012, support business units like IT and logitistics had no incentive to care about supporting retail operations they were just people taking capital and they badly needed it because of the old delapidated infrastructure that reduces cartons per hour and your bonus. So with the focus on numbers and not quality the decline started and long time business partners fragmented. Many of us knew this would lead to larger issues such as the unraveling of operational stability, tribal mentality, low morale, and declined performance year over year.

Many of us spoke up, anyone who did was cleaved, Human Resources issued retaliatory write ups basedon nothing, the ASO ethics departments also upheld the baseless claims and that forced people into compliance or out the door. Many onlookers started looking for other jobs and left around 2013 but some stayed out of a misplaced sense of loyalty like me. Then the company realized It no longer had the talent that made it run and rather than face this issue they ignored reality and hired, outsource, and promoted people who previously held nothing job titles to directors and sr managers, or to companies that had poor or no track records but were the lowest bid.

Then it started started to fall. Most of them did not have actual experience managing anything at a corporate level and this is when the field teams and stores started getting hundreds of new projects pushed out at the same time, none of them were tested, none of them worked, they were all political and based on people captivated by their own pride and stupidity trying to make a name for themselves.

Corporate meetings turned into screaming sessions where “leaders” blamed others for the inherent flaws of their own policy’s and projects. Even those who stayed out of loyalty now started leaving, then desperate for a turnaround, the horrible leaders decided they would double down with screaming, threats, intimidation, and humiliation as a way to fix performance. This toxicity had a trickledown effect and we are now approaching the end that has been a long time coming. If you have a boss who doesn’t do this you are lucky, someone is shielding you from them, like a manager should, but there is no way to fix the culture, no way to unblind the pride, and no way the trust can ever be restablished.

When this ends or you leave remember, it was Sears Holdings, not you, you are not worthless, you are not stupid, you should have never been treated the way you did, many good women and men spoke up and paid then price for it because they weren’t going to sit idly by, I am sorry we could not stop them and I won’t insult you by wishing you well or saying “thoughts and prayers”, you deserved better. I deserved better and everyone at the lowest levels actually moving boxes and product and talking to customers deserved far better. I can only hope that in the end, like with Enron or Lehman’s, Sears Holdings and Eddie eventually have to answer for what they have done. "

1. The fact that we have a great deal of work being done in India is NOT the reason we’re failing. Some of the hardest working people I’ve met are in India. How can you expect them to work miracles when SHLD doesn’t even give them the right guidance/procedures/etc from above?

2. A guy I used to partner with left a few weeks ago, even though he always said he was going to just ride it out and hope for a layoff and severance. He just couldn’t take the BS and poor leadership anymore, and I don’t blame him for hightailing it out of the garbage heap.

3. There is one person to blame, and only one person. EL created a culture that is toxic. LM bought into that and passed it right on down, but it comes from the top with EL.

I also worked at corporate but I knew it was over about 2 or 3 years ago. In my case I hung on because I was close to retirement. If I was younger ..... would have left there years ago. They haven't made a 401k contribution match in many years... I lost count how long it was and also no yearly salary increases in about the same time. Meanwhile, health insurance kept creeping up every year.....so anyone who stayed actually took a pay decrease every year they stayed. That didn't stop them from asking me to work long hours for ridiculous and arbitrary deadlines. Sears had the upper hand back in 2008 to 2011 when jobs were hard to find now the tide has turned and people are leaving.... Eddie has been cutting corners for the last 6 or 7 years... now it's reached critical mass and we are headed towards the end. I know you are upset but the best thing to do is count it as a learning experience, and just move on with your life.

Paragraphs.

Everyone's friend.

Thank you for honesty