A couple of years ago Circuit City "laid off" (read: fired) its highest-paid employees, retaining the lowest-paid sales clerks and stopped paying them commissions. It was all done in the name of "cost reduction," a popular corporate euphemism for attempting to increase profits by sticking it to the workers...
At the time I thought that it was a short-sighted move because once you remove all employee incentives such as performance-related pay/promotions, affordable health care, etc. you eventually wind up with minimum-wage workers with no company loyalty or incentive to provide better customer service than your competitors, most of which are also staffed by minimum-wage, part-time employees (the part-time scheduling exempts companies from providing even minimal benefits in most locales.)
At our local Circuit City store the experienced employees (most of them older...) are long gone, replaced by young workers with little product knowledge who tend to congregate in small groups b.s.ing while customers shop in a decidedly self-service store. Circuit City might as well complete the process by installing check-out aisles with scanners like many large grocery stores and dispense with employees that actually interact with customers.
So I say Good Riddance to all those Circuit City stores and I predict that the remaining stores will soon follow in their wake. It may be rough justice but I have grown weary of corporate executives and shareholders being financially rewarded for transforming American companies into low-wage, no-benefits sweatshops.
