Originally Posted By: rat
Originally Posted By: TooManyWheels
Originally Posted By: MONKEYMAN
.. the three counter people were the ones that worked there when I graduated in 1978! They all had gray/white hair.
Wow, working together 31 years. They probably either finished each other's sentences, or didn't have to talk at all to know the others' thoughts...
I started working in a parts store right out of high school. I am still amazed at how many of the guys had been working there for so many years. I worked my way up through the ranks, but in the late 90's things seemed to change and good workers for good pay were phased out for warm bodies and minimum pay.
EXACT same thing happened here at the in state chain I worked at. Just a little sooner( 89 ). We had great employees with the company who had been there forever. Huge customer base. Then the company decided to go to a centralized phone parts dept to make things "more efficient and reduce overhead".
Instead of knowledgable parts guys who took pride in their job and who were paid a fair wage they went to those same warm bodies for minimum wage.
The repair shops were outraged they couldn't call us at the individual stores anymore and in the 1st month half of them switched to other companies. Those of us behind the counter were reduced to stock boys who pulled orders sent down from Telemarketing. What was really sad was the majority of us in the stores knew more than the guys they picked or hired to work the phones. We also knew the individual customer and what they liked and didn't like. We spent a LOT of time returning orders and redoing them correctly to fit the customer's preferrences. They also told us no more pay raises and they let like half of the store employees go at each place.
I had worked all the way up to head counterman( trained the new guys and opened/closed the store on Sunday ), and was soon to be promoted to an Asst Manager, but I was so disgusted by the new company philosophy I packed up and left about 6 months later. I stuck it out through some god awful managers over the years but it just was too much. They showed they didn't care about the employees or the customers so it was a sign it was time to go. I went to a Ford dealer and worked parts and service after leaving that parts chain.
That chain is a ghost town now. Most of the stores are still there( how I will never know??? - 3 that I know of have shut down though )but maybe 1-2 employees in the store and almost never any customers.
