Tower Records Employee Morale Declining Faster Than Prices

noah | December 11, 2006 9:13 am

We’ve been posting about deals at the going-out-of-business Tower Records a lot lately, but a blog post by Idolator commenter mackro made us realize that we should place a “buyer beware” warning over them. He found out that his copy of Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Barbablu contained an America Online CD, but trying to return the CD proved fruitless–probably because of the liquidator’s policies–and provoked an argument with a woman working the counter:

I was going to subsequently just state that I think their liquidators’ policy on not taking back defective CDs was wrongheaded, based on retail principle, whether going out of business or not. It’s not that I really needed the ten dollars, nor did I expect the employees to care what I have to say. But it’s just a bad business decision to upset wronged customers when in any business, even liquidation, as these stories can spread and cast back a bad reputation. Basic logic in Retail 101.

But I never got to state that. The girl got up and started on me… quite loudly, in front of everybody in the store.

“OK, sir, you are being VERY rude. YOU come in here and accuse us of a scheme to re-seal CDs and sell them back to customers and THEN you ask to quote us on this which is very FUCKED up. So you can just take your quotes and go to hell. And you can call your article ‘Asshole’!”

This entire half of the store pauses.

“Oh, and this is my last day, so that’s why I yelled at you.”

It’s a sucky situation on both sides–one person’s out of a job, while the other paid money for something that he could probably find outside any apartment building’s mailbox. Meanwhile, Tower Records’ former CFO was cleared to collect a hefty bonus after being paid more than $400,000 while her company marched along the path to Chapter 11. If only she could spare $10…

Superchunk – Slack Motherfucker [MP3, link expired] Asshole [mackrotonal]

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