lessons to learn from borders

saw this on mrbrown.com and i thought that it was quite apt to my industry as well. this letter is an open letter to the CEO of Borders, before the company computers were turned off for good. this letter is an empty cry to all those sitting in upper management level, policy makers, and also company leaders: can you see what we are facing on the ground? and honestly, do you even care?

all i hope is that i do not have to write this in another 4 years time.

Today is my last day with the company. After 23 years I thought I would be sad but am in fact relieved. The Borders most of us loved closed down years ago and it was a slow death by a thousand cuts each time another great GM, DM or RD was forced out.

I am the last GM from Dion country in Florida. We were a tight group and were consistently the highest performing district in the company, developing many processes and procedures that were rolled out to the entire company. Sure we did question the status quo with questions like (7 years ago) "whats our plan to deal with digital music?" and were seriously told not to worry about it, it would never effect us. Some of us were let go for not being better lemmings… some of us stuck around in the hope that it would get better, some of us left with their actual dignity.

As each of our stores closed down this month we kept our staffs motivated with our own limited money. We bought pizza, had parties, bought fresh sharpies to follow your ridiculous procedure. Even though we would all soon be unemployed with no severance and living in a state with the highest unemployment rate and worst benefits. Our staff trusted us and did their best and deserved better than what the company was giving so yeah, we took up the slack that's what proper leaders do.

Every new regional VP insisted the economy was no excuse. We in the store were obviously failures in the company's eyes. In our eyes our leaders were failures. A cacophony of yes men that woudn't take a stand and fight for the things that could have saved us and were too proud to listen to anyone in the field.

You had great success with your plans this year: outsource customer care, pull bargain from the vestibules during the holiday season, not purchase school reading titles, cut hours and increase workload, roll out more functionality in atlas that barely functioned to begin with, discount excessively to buy loyalty, create an environment that managed to an audit at the expense of all else, and under-develop a web presence that demotivated the staff and frustrated the customers.

Yes, you and your team should be proud of all you have accomplished. Only a few more stores to go and you will reach your goal of total annihilation. For that and all you have done to degrade, torment, abuse and demoralize us please by all means keep my 23 years of severance and add it to your bonus. You deserve it. Be sure to keep two gold pieces for your ferry ride to hell.

Renee
Tampa, Florida

heartfelt

saw this on a t-shirt today:

"i love the fucking army.
and the army loves fucking me."

♥

value system

sometimes i wonder what matters at the end of the day.

we can be as big as our dreams, but sometimes our best just ain't good enough: then what do we do?

do we deny everything and run away? or do we dream bigger and fulfill our destinies? or do we just settle for second best and contend ourselves with the remaining spoils of war?

as we age, the phenomenon of life makes us realise that we are no longer as invincible as we thought we were, not the white horses we were supposed to be, not the chosen one certainly.

nope. you can jolly well get that sort of thoughts right out of your mind right now this minute, young man. this is life and life is unfair so just accept the rules; the sooner you reach a compromise, the better life is. no two ways about it.

on the road again

after 20 odd hours of traveling, i find myself in yet another oh-so-familiar foreign hotel room. a place to rest my weary head and to stretch my cramped-in-cattle-class legs.

but well at least this hotel's nice. at the rate i'm (or rather, the taxpayers) paying, it had better be nice. no complains really.

even managed to catch the not-yet-released norwegian wood on the plane. singaporeair charges a lot, but at least they know what they are charging for.

there are restaurants here which open 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. amazing. i had myself the largest philly steak sandwich in one of those joints just now. as the restaurant was already full when i got there, i had no choice but to sit at the bar counter where the starkness of my aloneness stared back at me from the many bottles of alcohol lined up like prisoners on death row.

phrawrrrr!!!

i swear i am going mad from all that work.