So Go Ahead...

...and get fucked.

That's right. Go ahead and do it.

That comment was spawned by how depressed I've been since listening to this weekends episode of "This American Life". Seriously, if you're a fan and haven't heard it yet, don't listen unless you love to be miserable. But I'm going to go ahead and talk about it anyway because I can't stop thinking about it. Plus, let's be honest, a small part of me DOES love to be miserable. The episode was called "Scenes From a Recession" and included three acts. The first was about people who got fucked by buying condos from slumlords who took their money and ran, literally, out of the country after leaving them with dilapidated pieces of crap that were again, literally, sinking because they never bothered to lay concrete foundation. On top of that, they left these people with all the unpaid utility bills of other units in their buildings that had been foreclosed on. One lady had to pay a $3000 water bill to keep her condo that was sinking into the ground after the owner of the whole complex fled the country.

Next was the story of a local bank that went under two months ago and was gobbled up by the FDIC... a somewhat necessary thing to happen but the people worked there, again... got fucked. They'd been told they'd simply merge with another bank in the area and it wouldn't be a big deal. Then one Friday afternoon 80 FDIC agents slowly rolled into the place, proverbially and pyshically surrounding them and saying, "You're now owned by the US government and we're converting you to another bank. It has to be done by Tuesday so no one's going home. You will work round the clock till Tuesday morning." FUCK! It's Friday afternoon... you're putting your coat on to go home and spend the weekend with your family, and BAM! You're told you need to stay all weekend even though you may not have your job anymore on Tuesday. Dick move. One guy started crying when he was telling his story of that weekend because he missed his daughter's seventh birthday party.

Dudes... Fuck.

Then finally the one that was most depressing to me because it hit the closest to home was the stories of Circuit City workers who had basically been conned or forced by circumstance into riding the sinking ship into the sea. Holy shit... These guys got FUCKED. It makes me feel extremely lucky to work for the only electronics retailer that hasn't posted major losses yet and was listed by Forbes as the second least likely place to lay people off during the recession. It's not the greatest job in the world and it doesn't pay the best but at least I've got security and a good business model that doesn't force me to fend for my job by selling people shit they don't want or need. On top of that these people were taken for a ride all the way through the store's liquidation sale. All the employees interviewed said the mantra of customers had become, "... and that's why you're going out of business." Most of these guys are getting paid $8.50 to $9 an hour with no benefits and no severance pay, and nowhere else to go because no one is hiring, and they know their jobs are going to be gone in a couple months and all the while they have to deal with dickweeds shitting in their mouths going, "You can't sell me this HD TV for a hundred bucks? That's why you're going out of business! This is all YOUR fault asshole! Yes you! You punk ass twenty year old who's just here because he needs to pay his tuition and rent!" Okay. I made that one up, but I gaurantee that's how all these guys felt every time a customer asked about discounts. Although one employee did recount one experience where a customer lost his wallet somewhere, not necessarily in their store. The customer came back to check for it and it wasn't there so he told the kid at the door, "That's why you're going out of business!" The kid replied, "Yes sir. 30,000 people are losing their jobs because you lost your wallet." Fucking-a dude! At least someone stood up for himself, if only for a second. Like I said, I work for a place that isn't going under and I still deal with customers on a daily basis who say, "Why can't you guys give me a discount? Don't you know there's a recession going on?" or "That's ALL you can discount this for?" It's shitty. Some customers just have no concept of the fact that you have no control over these things and that you legitimately are doing your best to help. I can't imagine how these guys had to feel at the end of each day.

One poor kid kept talking about how he constantly had to say he was sorry and he was "doing his best" and the question at the end of the day was, "Why?" Why did anyone do their best or apologize to asshole customers when on the last day all the higher ups at the store said, "Ok kids... go ahead and GET FUCKED." After all the extended warrantys and extra computer peripherals and cables they had been forced to push onto customers or they'd be fired for all those years so the store could make more money whether the customer needed that shit or not, Circuit City simply said, "We'll take that cash, now go get fucked."


Have a nice day guys. The sun is shining!
Oh no wait... it's supposed to rain today. My bad.