Old boss has been fired....(unfortunately, not Professor X)

[Dave1982]

Some of you may remember my old sales manager "Al" from my previous store.

Professor X used some shifty, probably unethical song and dance with the district manager to force him out of the store and into another store in the district for "unspecified reasons." But I'll bet you anything it was because Professor X wanted to replace all his managers and department heads with HIS people, and he used the slumping sales numbers as an excuse (never mind the fact that this was when the economy was really starting to go to hell). I mean, it's pretty obvious when the guy brought in to replace Al was someone that Professor X had hired and worked with during his Circuit Shitty days.

It was a real shame when Al left my old store because I liked him. He did a good job and actually cared about his associates. Sure, we butted heads a few times, but we liked and respected each other. His departure was a big part of why I chose to jump ship and get a transfer myself.

Anyway, I noticed on the schedule for this week that one of our full-timers was going to be spending 3 days helping out at Al's store. So I asked him to say hi to Al for me.

FT: Um.....Al is no more.....

Me: What?!

Now, I know I don't have the full story here, but from what my full-time colleague told me (which is only what he heard, so I really don't know the veracity of this), a customer came in looking to return something, and Al refused the return. I don't know the circumstances behind it, but I'm sure he had a good reason to refuse the return. Managers in this company have had the Hammer of Thor brought down on them for declining returns, even with cause, so Al must have had a damn good reason for doing that.

And he got fired for doing it.

Now, again, I know there has to be more to the story than that, and I will try to find out. But if he was fired for following policy........I don't even know what to say. I am very unhappy to hear this.

[Dave1982]

So apparently what happened was someone came in looking to return a computer and the service plan they bought with it on the 14th day after purchase (there's a 14 day return policy).

We're not entirely certain, but it seems that the customer had made the purchase at a different Staples than the one they were returning it at.

Normally, that sort of thing isn't a big deal, except where service plans are involved. If you accept a return on a service plan, YOUR STORE'S ESP goes down, even if you didn't sell it. It is literally the case that if Store 1 and Store 2 each sell $1000 in service plans in a given week, and all of the Store 1 customers return their plans at Store 2, then it will show that Store 1 has a net ESP of $1000 and Store 2 has $0, even though all the plans Store 1 sold were returned.

This, frankly, makes no sense, and is totally unfair. Making matters worse, when the district manager calls and takes your head off for a low number, claiming you had returns from other stores is an "excuse" and not a good reason. Since the store numbers are part of the receipt data, there's NO reason why the selling store shouldn't take the hit, regardless of where in the chain the return took place.

Then again, this is the same company that forces the stores to take a hit on shrink when the warehouse fucks up and doesn't send an item that's on the invoice.

So it seems my old boss refused to accept the service plan return (and the resultant hit to his ESP number) and told the customer they'd have to return it at the store they bought it from. They complained, and he was sacked.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. What a shitty thing to have happen.

[Dips]

I'd bet anything that people return things to different stores quite often because while they are willing to drive out of their way to buy from a store without sales tax but not so willing drive out of their way to return something to the same store. Which means the stores in the sales tax state are going to take the hit more often than stores in the non-sales tax state.

Why the fuck can't the idiots at corporate figure that out? And to fire somebody because their own blasted policy is stupid?

Shitty, indeed.