Best Buy

[Kung Fu Steve]

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

They are laying off 4,000 corporate employees. One of them happens to be a student of mine who makes well into the six figures there. Interesting to see their strategies. Their stocks dipped so they decided to cut a ton of employees to raise the stock price back up!

I think what they are doing is good. They are learning just like all the other big corporations how to be more efficient. Obviously I am on a much smaller scale but I am always after my employees: "What are you doing to make money?" ; "how is what you're doing right now keeping our doors open?" I think that when you can fire 4,000 employees, something is wrong there.

What exactly were those 4,000 people doing to make the company more profitable, or just simply make money? I'm no expert about the corporate world but when I worked for the RadioShack corporation it was a lot of dumb meetings, middle management flying around the country for other meetings that really could have been taken care of over an e-mail or phone. Lots of time-wasting man hours.

I haven't been so cruel yet to ask him "what the hell did you do there that would merit making over 100k a year??"

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

It is the cancer of busyness vs productivity. The country is about to get very productive as opposed to busy. Not that I'm an expert in either -- I fight the battle daily to be productive over busy. And then sometimes, I do nothing because I can.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

The country is about to get very productive as opposed to busy.

You sure said it!

 

[hakrjak]

I'd estimate that 50% people inside any fortune 500 could be eliminated with minimal impact to day to day operations. Makes you wonder how companies can become so bloated with nobody ever noticing huh? They just keep hiring and hiring, as opposed to trying to get more out of their existing employees, I think.

- Hakrjak

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

How many of them surf the web for 4-6 hours of their 8 hour work day? plus take an hour lunch. Exactly how much work could any of those people possibly do?

Pushing papers at a desk all day doesn't seem to be a suitable way to help build the business. They complain that they are down from their projected 11.5 billion revenue to 11.09 billion ... seriously? boo freaking who. Like you saying hakr 50% could and maybe should be cut!

 

[Cat Man Du]

Are you Tired?

For a couple years I've been blaming it on lack of sleep, not enough sunshine, too much pressure from my job, earwax build-up, poor blood, or anything else I could think of. But now I found out the real reason: I'm tired because I'm overworked. Here's why: The population of this country is 273 million.


140 million are retired.

That leaves 133 million to do the work.

There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work.

Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government, leaving 19 million to do the work.

2.8 million are in the armed forces preoccupied with killing Saddam Hussein. Which leaves 16.2 million to do the work.

Take from that total the 14,800,000 people who work for state and city governments, and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.

At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals, leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.

Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.

That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me. And there you are sitting, at your computer, reading jokes.

Nice, real nice.

 

[WestCoast]

Speed + to hakrjak

As an employer who runs a tight ship, it is just INSANE the amount of time that is wasted at work, and we keep on top that!

Absolutely crazy. We won't hire until we're bursting at the seems, and even then, ugh, it's like pulling teeth to convince me that adding people is somehow a solution.

You can always work harder, smarter or more efficiently. Adding JOBS, as everyone says, is 21st century Snake Oil, we need new businesses, new ideas, not more cubicles filled with people posting on twitter how much they hate their job....

 

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[tbsells]

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

" I think that when you can fire 4,000 employees, something is wrong there.

What exactly were those 4,000 people doing to make the company more profitable, or just simply make money? "

I agree. This has been happening alot lately. I think Bank of America announced 51,000 layoffs. Companies all over the country have been laying off 5,000 to 10,000 people and staying in business. Makes you wonder what all those people were doing. Apparently they won't be missed that much. It boggles my mind-the thought of paying 1000's of people for apparently non essential services.

It also makes you think the unemployment problems in parts of this country will be very long lasting.