Ranting About LNT
Backstory: a few weeks ago, Linens n' Things (where I work) was bought out by a liquidation company and will now be closed down--not just mine, but all of them. Liquidators by trade buy dying companies, take them over, sell everything they have for as much as they can get, then fire the employees and leave them to fend for themselves.
When the liquidators took over, they cancelled all of our clearance--which was half of our stock--without telling us, leaving hundreds of thousands of incorrect prices everywhere. Among the sea of people that swarm the store every day, as a cashier, I have to argue with people about the prices being wrong because, as LNT no longer exists, our prices, our clearance, our coupons, and our advertisements are all null and void. It is what it rings up as, period, no further discounts, even if it's broken, and you can't return it. I spend six to eight hours a day explaining this to people.
Now, for my rant. This is going to be a long one, so get some popcorn and a comfy chair. >>
I took a break from catching up in my keyboarding class to look up some of the news on the LNT closing, so as to be better informed when (stupid) people ask me about how the business is doing, what's going to happen, etc. And I've decided both the press coverage and the yahoos they're talking to are underinformed and extremely biased.
It makes me angry to read articles where people cry and wave their useless coupons at reporters, saying snidely "They just sent these out and they won't take them!" and "They're not even honoring their own prices!", as if we're the badguys. Never mind that we tried to stop the papers from printing those goddamn coupons the second we knew we were bought out, because we knew they wouldn't let us take them. Yes, that's right, THEY won't let us take them. They won't let us do returns, they won't let us discount damaged items, they won't let us accept gift certificates. They are also cancelling all gift cards and the employee discount on October 31st. And no, they never told us, and they never told our customers.
I just learned six different liquidation companies came together during the LNT auction and paid almosts 500 million dollars for the right to shut LNT down. They didn't just buy the merchandise, they did it with the intent of closing all of our stores, something we saw coming. But between day after day of people asking me about coupons, yelling at me over prices that we can no longer honor because we don't own our own company, and saying with big smiles on their faces "I'm sorry this place is closing" or even better, stating the obvious in the condescending statement "I'm sorry you're losing your job"...
This whole thing makes me furious. I AM losing my job, our economy is crap, and after the Christmas season, finding a job is going to be next to impossible thanks to the hiring freeze in Fort Worth. By buying us out, they're going to put almost 12 thousand people in the US and Canada out of work, and I have to spend every day knowing I'm going to lose my only source of income. I have to work three times as hard for the same sub-minimum wage, servicing spoiled yuppie assholes and snobby rich bitches, having them smile arrogantly down at me, or throw things at me and scream like children because they have to pay two dollars extra, due to a clearance tag one of our exhausted employees couldn't find to tear off. I'm tired of being shrieked at and questioned and laughed at, and I'm tired of looking in the news and seeing these 100K+ a year assholes bitching about a couple bucks off that they can't have, in exchange for the jobs every one of us is going to lose. And though we're all unemployed come January, we still have to work harder than anybody else in the retail industry until then, with no severence pay.
And it galls the hell out of me every time some diamond-encrusted old hag looks at me and asks "But where are they going to send you?"...that I have to smile and inform them I have to seek "other employment" that likely does not exist.
On top of all of this, we're being demonized for something we can't even control, and not even the people responsible--the liquidators who bought the company--will stand up for us. I know life isn't fair, but this is less than not fair. This is insane.