Friday, January 04, 2013
This is what failing looks like
So I've been with The Hut for two months now, and have been through at least 5 of the 7 stages of grief. I'm not quite sure if I've reached "acceptance" yet. One thing is clear: The Hut is dying. It's a Chicken-Or-Egg kind of situation, here, but in the end it doesn't matter: their failings will bring them down and they're failing because they're falling down.
An example: To my never-ending frustration, our online resources suck. I am stationed at a kiosk at least 40 miles away from the nearest location. I see my boss maybe twice a month if I'm lucky. For those fiercely independent types, this is great. For the newbies and less-than-confident types, this is Pure Hell. And because I'm so isolated, I'm forced to rely on online resources for answers and instructions. Given the fact that a great deal of the company's business relies on stores that are far flung and not in constant contact with upper management, one would think the company would have invested a great deal in the technology used to communicate to their stores. One would also think that since The Hut is known for selling ELECTRONICS, that their proprietary systems would be top-of-the-line, well-planned systems using the newest technologies. One would be wrong. Let's start with the computer I use. It can be argued that it's not necessary to equip my POS (Point of Sale, Piece of Shit, same thing) with the latest and greatest quad-core 3 gazillion-hertz processors and 86 terabyte hard drives. This is true. We're mostly just using proprietary websites to upgrade phones, scanning UPC codes, calculating balances and taking payments, not rendering fully animated imaginary alien worlds filled with artificial intelligence. But it would be nice to have a machine that didn't slow noticeably when more than 2 tabs of Internet Explorer are open. And just try to run a search to find out how to complete a required task! The results list will have two or three things that may be related to your goal, but there is a 89% chance that those results were written more than 4 years ago and have not been updated to reflect all the changes that have taken place since then. And the proprietary software we use for inventory tracking... my head hurts just thinking about it. It was written and designed by some basement-dwelling UberGeek who thinks "User Friendly" is code for "Simpletons Only" and felt the need to overcomplicate things on purpose to prove what a coding GOD he is. Seriously--it's inventory, there is a very limited number of things you can do with it. Why it has to be so goddamned complicated just to count what you have or send an item to another store, I'll never know.
There was an article on my local news channel's web site about 3 companies that "experts" say are in danger of going out of business, and The Hut was on the list. "Good Riddance" was the general attitude of the masses who commented on the article. I agree: the company has a horrible reputation. Which is probably why they've gone to great lengths to hide their name from our presence within Major Retailer. But the reputation is deserved--I went into our local Hut Store to look for some gadgetry for Christmas gifts, and was fiercely disappointed in the selection and condition of the store... just a mess, unorganized, stocked with mostly crap nobody wants or needs. The Hut needs to get a grip and decide what they really want to sell: consumer electronics, mobile phones and accessories or specialized electronic equipment. If you want to sell consumer electronics, you're going to need stores bigger than 900 square feet. And there's no money in specialty items these days most of that crap is sold online. It was announced back in October (literally days before I started) that The Hut was giving Major Retailer until April to renegotiate their contract--basically, The Hut wants to be able to sell pre-paid phones and all the phone accessories, too. I don't think Major Retailer will go for that--those items don't require a specially-trained staff member to sell them, and so they're easy money makers. But The Hut can't make enough money in just contract phones, the margins are razor thin. So I think the relationship will end, and I think it'll happen before April. So the question is, will I be offered a buyout (as my co-worker implied), or will the whole company collapse and go out of business instead? In any case, I've been searching for a job every day anyway. I've had a couple of nibbles, but nothing that paid more than I'm making now, so it doesn't make sense to flee the ship just yet. I am secretly hoping that a business loan will finally come through right about the time a buyout happens and all the planets will finally fucking align in my favor.
One can dream, right?
An example: To my never-ending frustration, our online resources suck. I am stationed at a kiosk at least 40 miles away from the nearest location. I see my boss maybe twice a month if I'm lucky. For those fiercely independent types, this is great. For the newbies and less-than-confident types, this is Pure Hell. And because I'm so isolated, I'm forced to rely on online resources for answers and instructions. Given the fact that a great deal of the company's business relies on stores that are far flung and not in constant contact with upper management, one would think the company would have invested a great deal in the technology used to communicate to their stores. One would also think that since The Hut is known for selling ELECTRONICS, that their proprietary systems would be top-of-the-line, well-planned systems using the newest technologies. One would be wrong. Let's start with the computer I use. It can be argued that it's not necessary to equip my POS (Point of Sale, Piece of Shit, same thing) with the latest and greatest quad-core 3 gazillion-hertz processors and 86 terabyte hard drives. This is true. We're mostly just using proprietary websites to upgrade phones, scanning UPC codes, calculating balances and taking payments, not rendering fully animated imaginary alien worlds filled with artificial intelligence. But it would be nice to have a machine that didn't slow noticeably when more than 2 tabs of Internet Explorer are open. And just try to run a search to find out how to complete a required task! The results list will have two or three things that may be related to your goal, but there is a 89% chance that those results were written more than 4 years ago and have not been updated to reflect all the changes that have taken place since then. And the proprietary software we use for inventory tracking... my head hurts just thinking about it. It was written and designed by some basement-dwelling UberGeek who thinks "User Friendly" is code for "Simpletons Only" and felt the need to overcomplicate things on purpose to prove what a coding GOD he is. Seriously--it's inventory, there is a very limited number of things you can do with it. Why it has to be so goddamned complicated just to count what you have or send an item to another store, I'll never know.
There was an article on my local news channel's web site about 3 companies that "experts" say are in danger of going out of business, and The Hut was on the list. "Good Riddance" was the general attitude of the masses who commented on the article. I agree: the company has a horrible reputation. Which is probably why they've gone to great lengths to hide their name from our presence within Major Retailer. But the reputation is deserved--I went into our local Hut Store to look for some gadgetry for Christmas gifts, and was fiercely disappointed in the selection and condition of the store... just a mess, unorganized, stocked with mostly crap nobody wants or needs. The Hut needs to get a grip and decide what they really want to sell: consumer electronics, mobile phones and accessories or specialized electronic equipment. If you want to sell consumer electronics, you're going to need stores bigger than 900 square feet. And there's no money in specialty items these days most of that crap is sold online. It was announced back in October (literally days before I started) that The Hut was giving Major Retailer until April to renegotiate their contract--basically, The Hut wants to be able to sell pre-paid phones and all the phone accessories, too. I don't think Major Retailer will go for that--those items don't require a specially-trained staff member to sell them, and so they're easy money makers. But The Hut can't make enough money in just contract phones, the margins are razor thin. So I think the relationship will end, and I think it'll happen before April. So the question is, will I be offered a buyout (as my co-worker implied), or will the whole company collapse and go out of business instead? In any case, I've been searching for a job every day anyway. I've had a couple of nibbles, but nothing that paid more than I'm making now, so it doesn't make sense to flee the ship just yet. I am secretly hoping that a business loan will finally come through right about the time a buyout happens and all the planets will finally fucking align in my favor.
One can dream, right?
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