CompUSA, feh

[pegkerr]

It is bad enough that he has to work all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday on Thanksgiving weekend. But tonight was really the last straw.

Rob came home and told me that he is expected to be at the store on Thanksgiving from 9 p.m. until midnight. And the manager is making arrangements for employees to camp out at the store overnight in sleeping bags, because they open the doors at 5:30 a.m. and go for fourteen hours. Edited to add: Time in sleeping bags at the store is not mandatory and is not paid, I think. It is just meant as a convenience for employees who aren't inclined to drive home just to get a mere four hours sleep and then drive back for the 5:30 opening.

I really, really, really hate CompUSA. They couldn't even let us have Thanksgiving Day off.

Comments

[moony]

Is that even LEGAL?!

[naomikritzer]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that sucks.

[naomikritzer]

Oh, it's quite legal, but the time spent in sleeping bags had damn well better be paid.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

What are they paying Rob to demand that kind of committment in exchange? What are they paying all their employees? They aren't anything like an emergency room or fire department, where people might work incredible hours for pure altruism. They aren't a sports team or a tulip market, either. I've had problems with workaholic expectations, but this is so over-the-top I'm surprised Rob and his colleagues put up with it.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

Oh, that stinks. That really stinks.

I grew up in the grocery business, so we never got Thanksgiving off. But there's no reason for that to extend beyond Kroger. And this idea of starting the day-after shopping at 5:30 is nuts. Why? Who does it help? It's like an arms race.

[moony]

With time-and-a-half, I would hope.

God, I'm glad I got out of retail. That sounds like the sort of thing Apple might have tried.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Overnight in sleeping bags is not paid, I don't think. They don't have to be there at that time, but he meant it as a convenience so they wouldn't have to drive home, get only a mere four and a half hours sleep and drive back.

[naomikritzer]

Ah, I see. Bleaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

That well and truly sucks. With a straw.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

That's awful. With everything that sucked about working at the Container Store, they still never made us -- not even the managers -- work a whole holiday weekend.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

In Denmark there are laws that there has to be 11 hours between one gets off work, until one has to go to work again. The exception is if something else has been agreed on (i.e. the boss can't force anybody to), and even then there has to be at least 8 hours, and it cannot happen more than once a week.

Does the US not have any rules like that?

[ceilidh]

My husband works retail too, and the demands on them are just ridiculous.

But - if people weren't beating down the doors at 5 am the day after Thanksgiving, then managers wouldn't feel the need to do this kind of stuff.

[rabican.livejournal.com]

That's ... horrifying! I seriously thought there were laws against that kind of thing, but I guess I was naive.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I'm sooooo glad I don't work at the toy store anymore. I had to work every Black Friday and every Christmas Eve for five years because I was the fastest cashier (before scanners -- pays to be a typist). At least I always got the day after Christmas off.

That's ridiculous, though, and I think the above poster might have something about labor laws.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I'm appalled on your behalf. Is he going to do the sleeping-bag approach, or at least come home for a little bit?

Time to find a different job? Or at least look? Your family's sanity is important, too.

[archmage45.livejournal.com]

I'll second that! Such crap, what are they gonna pull around Christmas??

[naomikritzer]

There are laws like this for minors, and for jobs where safety is a major concern (truck drivers, airline pilots), but you can abuse you retail employees as much as you want, unfortunately. (Doctors, particularly residents, also often work insane hours, which seems like a patently bad idea for the same reason as truck drivers, but is consider essential to the practice of medicine by someone, I'm not sure who.)

[naomikritzer]

I don't understand the people who want to get up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday, either. I shopped on Black Friday last year, but not at 5 a.m. I still found the stuff I'd seen advertised that I wanted.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Go figure. In Denmark the law is universal - no matter age or job.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

the usual question I ask in situations like these is whether he is looking for another job.

[dreadmouse.livejournal.com]

Seconded. He's got to be able to find something better, no?

[redbird]

The flipside of that is that if managers weren't opening the doors at 5 a.m., people could just stand outside until the normal opening hours. If you respond to crowds at 8 for a scheduled 9 a.m. opening by opening at 8, that leads to crowds at 7, etc. Also, there is no legal or physical requirement for stores to do things like have special sales good only from 5 a.m. to noon on Thanksgiving.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I have begged him to find another job for years. He has not seriously looked, and I don't think he ever will. He hates job hunting.

So I have to put up with this shit.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

It's more of a union issue, I think:

"I have to go to the Phillipines to get good nurses, but I can replace YOU with any of 5000 slavering foreign medical grads in a heartbeat, so don't push it."

[naomikritzer]

I can totally understand hating job hunting. I find it hard to imagine hating it more than a retail job with crappy hours and mandatory Thursday through Sunday hours on Thanksgiving weekend, though -- that's what boggles my mind.

Have you thought about using the resources of your LJ friendslist to try to find him a better job? List his qualifications and see if anyone is hiring someone like them? Send his rough notes out to a resume-writing service so he doesn't have to actually write his own resume? I assume he wouldn't mind having an alternative job falling into his lap, it's just the job-hunting part he refuses to deal with... It's not as if his bosses at CompUSA are going to be shocked and offended if Rob is looking elsewhere (and if they are, they should get a grip, and maybe try not scheduling him for Thanksgiving day, hmmm?)

[archmage45.livejournal.com]

What about temp agencies? I've had a lot of luck with them, getting good hours (M-F 8-5) and decent pay ($14-$17 depending) and a lot of times it's temp to hire!

I don't think I know anyone who likes job hunting...

*HUGS*

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

That's horrible. I've read about malls opening at midnight for shopping hell day, which is even worse.
This job seems to be mostly trouble, not just for him having to work, but you and the girls having to work around it.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

Much sympathy, Peg.

Mike says to tell you that he knows how you're feeling: I work the whole Thanksgiving weekend, Thursday-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon, and am on call on Thursday and Saturday, making it impossible to have a proper Thanksgiving celebration.

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

My sister worked in the deli of a grocery store for years. Mid November through just after New Years was a killer -- in at 4am, home at 7pm, rinse and repeat.... Working retail in the US is the worst of the worst in my opinion, at least around holidays.

[sraun]

Ouch - yet another reason to not like CompUSA. It's going to be a long time before I walk through their doors again!

[windelina.livejournal.com]

To be "fair" - what did you expect from a retail job? They'll keep doing crazy stuff during the holidays simply to make their numbers. CompUSA especially because they are number three behind Best Buy and Circuit City. CompUSA opened at midnight on Thanksgiving, and then that got copied, so now the corporate bosses are trying to be the first by being open on Thanksgiving.

If we all don't shop on Thanksgiving, maybe they'll realize it's a bad idea. If they don't make money doing it, it won't happen.

My husband works for CompUSA too, but he's an ICC - on the corporate payscale side. And that means he doesn't have to deal with that sort of crap. Has Rob looked into a lateral move at the store? He hates job hunting, but that's more of a "promotion".

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I'm not surprised that they are open those kind of hours on that weekend, but that they are poorly staffed enough that any single employee has to work EVERY day of the holiday- that the crazy hours and holiday aren't split so no one person is shafted from every angle (i.e. get the holiday off but work at 5:30 on Friday; don't get the holiday off but get Friday and Saturday off so you could visit family on a different day of the holiday).

But being poorly staffed and each employee being over-extended seems to be a trend in EVERY field anymore. Recently I had to leave my kid (he's a teenager) home sick from school and I couldn't even get time off to run home and feed him lunch on those days because there wasn't anyone that would be able to pick up the slack just handle two of my appointments so I could leave for an hour.

[janetwain.livejournal.com]

They'd make more numbers year round if they treated their employees with respect and assumed they all had lives to go to. Then the sales-people would snap at customers because they've been on their feet for 18 of the last 24 hours, but would be happy to help. The customer would be happy and come back, rather than be irritated and go somewhere else next time.

[shakespearechic.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. 6.5 years of working at the movie theatre which is open 365/6 days a year, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and the rest. *hugs*

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

This is why Buy Nothing Day should always fall on Black Friday.

I refuse to shop on the day after Thanksgiving. To be fair, it's partially because I would rather be doing almost anything than shopping (especially when the crowds are so big that I'm afraid I'll lose myself). But it's mostly because of the stupidity that has changed a family holiday into an orgy of greed and gluttony, foir which I have no use. Bleah.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

That's just freaking ridiculous. And I don't think it's legal, in fact, to allow that little time between shifts, so that a person doesn't even have a chance to get 8 hours of sleep. It's been 20 years since I worked retail during a Christmas season, and never again. My seasonal job ever since then has been Christmas concerts and caroling gigs, and I much prefer that.

BTW, other people are hating on CompUSA, too, because they're bundling the PlayStation 3 with an HD TV. That's right, you have to pay $2300 for both, you can't just buy the PS 3, so if you're a kid who's been saving up your money (I heard this from Ben, of course) and had been paying attention to what the PlayStation folks said they would be recommending as a retail price, your plans are hosed. Charming people at CompUSA--NOT. (The situation is nearly as bad at places like WalMart, where they're bundling the PS 3 with 12 games, so that you have to pay for ALL of that stuff just to get the game system. Not quite as bad as requiring someone to put down an additional $2000, but still...)

Sony TV's and PS3

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

CompUSA IS running a promotion involving the bundling of a PS3 reservation with the purchase of a Sony big screen TV (40 inches or larger). This is a tying of two Sony products and was the brilliant idea of someone at Sony, not CompUSA. You can buy a PS3 without a TV, but you can't reserve one a week early otherwise. They are shipping short, so you might have to wait awhile without the TV, but it is not a necessity. Current e-bay bids for the PS3 indicate that if you don't want your PS3 immediately, the sale of your prebooked unit about pays for the TV. People can be idiots.

Rob

I've never seen any labor laws regarding short times between shifts. Many times I have closed late to open early with a 3 - 6 hour turnaround, usually adjacent to an inventory.

Re: Sony TV's and PS3

[janetwain.livejournal.com]

I think the only laws are around how many hours you work consecutively. The only thing I know about that is a guy I used to work with (we were assistant managers at different SAs) once ended up working 32 hours in a row, and the manager knew it was illegal, but did it anyway, because otherwise HE would have to come in and work. Assistant managers at convenience stores OFTEN work double-shifts.

I don't actually know what the cutoff is between legal and illegal shifts. What interns do in emergency rooms is just plain scary.

Re: Sony TV's and PS3, more information

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I spoke with my manager about the PS3 situation, and it is worse than I thought. Sony is having such troubles with the blu-ray drives that there are only 175,000 units shipping to the entire United States. Our store is only expecting 3 (total, 2 of one sku, 1 of the other) in the first shipment. We are not promising that even the TV buyers will get one before Christmas. It could be well into January before our prepaid commitments can be met. We are not taking prepay commitments from non-TV buyers until we will be assured of enough product to fill the prepays. We do not wish to disappoint our customers due to Sony's manufacturing difficulties. We wish we could do better, but the situation is not under our control.

Rob