Best Buy starts descent

The turnstile at which Circuit City handed in its ticket on a journey to extinction was, msot agree, the point at which is dumped all its loyal, knowledgeable staff and hired a bunch of cheaper people. The stores died a little inside that day, and managers who couldn't care less bred an atmosphere of defeat which hurried the chain's demise.

Capitalists never being the sort of learn from even the most recent of histories, Best Buy have decided to get rid of 1,000 of its most experienced staff and cut wages of 8,000 others. By up to fifty per cent.

The justification is "getting more people out on the shop floor" - although who Best Buy really thinks wants to be served by a demotivated and humiliated senior person busted down to sho floor level isn't entirely clear. But imagine the fun of shopping in the Magnolia Home Theater parts of the store, when the guy serving you is thinking "the amount of cash you've just spent there is equal to the pay cut I've just had forced on me." It'll be so much fun, right?