Canary In A Coal Mine

I had received a gift card this past Christmas for Circuit City. Being gadget boy, the store had always been on my list of stops whenever I was on the hunt for some new toy. If it was battery operated, or had wiring connectors, or contained a circuit board of any kind, then Circuit city would probably be where I got it.



It was a good start, but my relationship with the store slowly soured over the years. This was mostly due to too many encounters with too-young, clueless employees, chatting in groups of four, that you would have to interrupt to ask a question. Or maybe it was the obnoxiously loud music blaring across the store from the CD section, or maybe it was the 15% restocking fee for returning purchases that didn't work, or maybe it was the computer I bought there that locked up on me three weeks after purchasing it (refunded after much ado), or maybe it was the second computer I bought there that froze up 7 months after purchase (no refund). Or maybe it was the lone cashier, hidden at the customer service counter, single-handedly fielding phone calls, returns, and purchases.

I'm not sure when the camel's back broke, but at some point I became pretty averse to ever going in there again. Maybe it's just that I'd reached critical mass with my gadgets and simply don't need anything else at the moment. Whatever it is, I was in no way planning to go in there again any time soon. Then rumors about a potential bankruptcy at the massive electronics chain began to peeter among the news media. I began to realize the rumors were true, and I'd better spend that gift card before it's too late.

So I began making a few occasional forced stops in there, over the course of a couple weeks, but found nothing I wanted or needed that I couldn't find at say, Wal-Mart, for a cheaper price, or Best Buy for the same price with slightly better attitudes. But one thing I did notice during these darkening days at Circuit City, was that the service had changed----Big Time.

The employees were now falling over themselves to help the customers. Without exaggeration, while I was browsing the camera section, in less than 5 minutes no less than 4 employees and a service manager approached me to see if I needed any help. I had to drive them off so I could browse in peace. And what was with the greeter at the door? That was never there before...

It was a nice change, but way too little, way too late. Where was that kind of service a year ago when it would have mattered? Then a couple more weeks go by, and sure enough, I saw the news story last Friday. All 527 Circuit City stores are closing. 34,000 young employees forced to scatter out among a dwindling service sector.

Dang. I now had only a few days to spend that gift card...

So I made one last trip into the store. Most of the bigger stuff, the Plasma TV's, the sattelite radios, the more popular cameras were all gone. Still plenty of CDs and videos, but a lot of the shelves were looking pretty bare. Things were mostly just 10% off, but the store was mobbed with people scooping up everything and waiting in long lines for the (now two) cashiers at the customer service counter. The whole scene was surreal. It still hadn't sunk in that a long time giant like Circuit City was really going under...

The pundits say Circuit City's demise was almost entirely management related. Instead of focusing on competing with the likes of Best Buy, or aligning with up-and-coming sellers like Apple, or improving and innovating their services, they instead cut back on products, blew all their money in a failed run with CarMax- a national used car dealer chain...and finally, when money got really tight, they compounded their problems by cutting their best employees in favor of hiring cheap newbies, which is where I come in with this story.

Soooo. I ended up getting a tripod for my camera, (which I ended up putting to use taking pictures of the doomed electronics dealer). As I was walking out the greeter at the door grinned and wished me a good night; I grinned back, and said "See-ya."

It's the last time I, or soon anyone, will ever shop at Circuit City...