What "Ops Mgr" neglected to mention, was that the employees were offered jobs 2 months later, doing the same work for much less money. Can you blame those that went back for being unmotivated? Fortunately I got a job somewhere else. It doesn't pay much more than I would have gotten at Circuit, but I wasn't bringing them 11 years experience either.
Management was too ignorant to realize that those "overpaid" people were the ONLY reason that customers shopped at Circuit City. It wasn't the store design or the (lack of) effort of managers.
I used to say when I was there, "The only difference between us and them, is us" Obviously, I have been proved correct.

Yes, Best Buy did file for bankruptcy, or was it actually Sound of Music? It took a tornado to save Dick's butt that time. Nothing like an insurance check, and a big tornado sale to help the cast flow. Got rid of all the bad inventory. Then they bought all the IBM computers when Shaak Electronics went under. (87) and added that to the yearly sale! Next thing you know Best Buy has computers, and the rest is history! Congrats to Dick! Not sure CC will be as lucky as to have the right things happen at the right time. Sometimes it's up to more than just us mortals.

These are just the phases a CE retailer goes through en-route to bankruptcy. We've seen it before - Pacific Sales, Incredible Universe, Ultimate, CompUSA/Good Guys, Tweeter, etc. Some come out of it for a while and then go under, some never come out of it.

Sad thing is typically there are a large group of talented people at each company that are trying very hard to make it work, but either the direction set by management is wrong or it's just the industry shifting. Hard to say what Circuit's problem is from the outside but probably a bit of both.

Phases are common - cut commissions, change your marketing strategy, blame it on store design. Then hack away at costs, ultimately cutting out any form of support that equals "customer service", then go bankrupt.

Meanwhile, the in-home TV service business is booming in this economy. Who knows how long it'll be before Circuit decides that providing repair service is a luxury they can't afford, if anyone out there knows a good Circuit TV tech who's interested in a job with a future in sunny SoCal send them to resumes@teexp.com! There's a $300 bounty for whoever refers the right person!

ya know Ive worked for the company for 5 years now.. letting all the "overpaid" people go didn't hurt us. it didn't help us, but it didn't hurt us. Phil apologized for that, and all of those people were offered their jobs back to them 2 months later. The company is hurting dramatically, but i wouldn't say we are out of business or going anywhere. bankruptcy is likely. but that doesn't mean closing all the doors. just the non profitable stores, and some stores that the land is worth a good amount of $. Best buy filed for bankruptcy in the early 90's. does anybody seem to remember this? they were almost gone completely. and turned everything around.. there is still hope for CCITY..

there going bye bye. i do have to thank them though,
after I was let go for some BS reason, I got another
job that pays me 4x as much, doing 1/8th of the work :)

and whats sad is, i was a supervisor, pay sucked...