Companies that use the "economy is bad" excuse to justify EVERYTHING

[Kyree]

Take that economy out back and shoot it, if it's ailing so bad!

Rapscallion

Don't give us any ideas

Okay, so, I know that the economy is bad. But doesn't it seem to you guys that our companies are making it sound worse then it is? It sounds like they're more taking advantage of the fact they can do all of these things and have a "real reason" to do them, not because they have to, to stay in business.

Smaller companies, I'm sure are really having a bad time right now. But it's the bigger ones I'm looking at. Take my company for instance. My grocery store has been cutting hours to the legal minimum(Union job.15 hours a week for part time, 26 hours for my position). Hell, our new store manager is trying to be sneaky and cut everyone under their legal limits, hoping not to get caught. We've gone from being open 24 hours a day, to closing at midnight, and now 11pm.

Cutting hours left and right because..the economy is bad.
Cutting operating hours because...the economy is bad.
Not allowed to have more hours to cover while people are on vacation...economy.
No promotions? Economy.
No raises? Economy.
Hiring freeze? Economy.
One manager dying and an assistant manager being fired just being replaced by part timers because we don't have the payroll to promote someone? Economy of course!

And then...suddenly. Oh look the president of our company just went and bought 26 new stores! Oh yeah, our company is REALLY hurting, huh?

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

See this? This is one of the reasons Circuit City is in the state that it is. Their corporate bigwigs pulled this exact stunt two years ago.

And I was quick to point this out to my manager when we were discussing this the other day.

[Mike Taylor]

Interesting that the economy is bad enough that things are be taken away from the peons, but corporate (many of whom can't even begin to justify themselves) never seem to lose anything...

While I can't get into specifics, there's been some major belt tightening at the corporate level for my employers.

[draftermatt]

The company I work for has been at half capacity for almost a year, no one has gotten a raise since early 2007 because of that.

We're finally starting to see business pick up, so now the owner wants us to sign up every project we can because "we're heading into a depression". Thing is, in 2-3 months we're going to be crazy busy. But we also know that some jobs are going to slide. So if we keep picking up work we're going to run into a wall where we have to give work back. Doesn't matter to him.

Bet I still don't get a raise this year either.

[Crosshair]

See this? This is one of the reasons Circuit City is in the state that it is. Their corporate bigwigs pulled this exact stunt two years ago.

Check out the "Retail" comic. They are doing it too. Stewart is caving to cut some of the regular staff and is being his typical short-sighted self.

[MadMike]

Check out the "Retail" comic. They are doing it too. Stewart is caving to cut some of the regular staff and is being his typical short-sighted self.

And he's about to get his ass kicked by Lunker.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I can't wait to see how that turns out.

BTW, for some odd reason I haven't been able to get the Retail comic to load in Firefox. It loads just fine in Internet Explorer though.