Earnings Slips Again, But the Money is Free Flowing

Well, here we are at the end of another quarter and yet another big disappoint from Staples.

Is anybody surprised that the company continues to miss the sales estimates quarter after quarter?

I certainly am not the least bit surprised.

Of course, as they have done for past quarters, they blame the weather.

How long are they going to continue to blame something that never changes?

Seriously, it is time to admit the truth.

YOUR SALES SUCK AND NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT!!

Do I make myself clear on that one?

What really irritates me on this is that other companies use the same lame excuse as well.

Certainly, places like Home Depot and Lowe's can blame the weather in places where a lot of building takes place. It is understandable in that regards.

Target and Sears can’t really blame the weather either as they also continue to have suffering sales.

So what is really wrong here?

The answer is that Staples is clueless about their future.

When I read the transcript to their last earnings report, they stated that they didn’t have the information about the back-to-school season yet.

Ok, if this is not the most obvious lie in the world than I don’t know what is. They claim that they won’t know the plans until early July. To make matters worse, they say that no company is ready for back-to-school this soon.

Excuse me.

I remember back in the Woolworth days, we started getting all the back-to-school merchandise in before the old school year was over. In fact, we even started having some of the flyers start trickling in as well for the season.

In fact, when I worked for Staples, the same thing was happening there as well. To say that they don’t know is either providing that Chairman/CEO Ronald Sargent is either an idiot or just blind to see what his company is really doing. Of course he must take his lead from Obama as he is clueless as well on what is going on in the world around him.

Now on another front, Staples is handing out bonuses to their executives for “trying to turn around the company”.

Of course, this is dumb as well as sales continue to drop and slump to lower levels every quarter.

As an example of the payouts, pinhead Sargent got a $300,000 bonus for a total compensation of $10.8 million, a 40% increase over the past year. This is at a time when the employees get fewer and fewer, while the fat cats at the top get more than plenty to live on.

So overall, Staples continues to slip all around, while freely handing out its profits to the top brass.

This all leads me to think that this company is definitely on the road to failure.

What will they blame next quarter, Godzilla, anyone?

An Open Letter to Tanya Lee H.

Writer’s note: I am writing this week’s post to all my blogs as I feel that it is important not only to me, but also to those who have those long unanswered questions about me. Some of the information presented here may be offensive to some people. Reader discretion is advised.

Dear Tanya Lee H.:

In 11 days on May 25, 2014, you will be getting married in some place called Diamond Bar, California.

The bad news is that it is not to me.

The worse news is that I feel that it is a HUGE mistake.

Of course, you could say that I am jealous that it is not me that you are marrying.

However, after stalking your future husband’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, it appears that this guy is nothing but a self-centered jerk. I am basing this solely on what I have read and seen online of this guy. I feel that this wedding is more of a matter of social convenience rather than the true love that we (yes, us) could and should have had.

Let me now rewind the story back a few years ago when we first met.

I had been working with your brother Rob for a few years when you started working as a cashier at Staples. During your employment with Staples, we talked all the time when we weren’t busy.

We learned a lot about each other. So much so that I felt like we belonged together. I thought that possibly that you felt the same way.

But something bothered me.

There were some things that you said to me that disturbed me. While I don’t want to mention them here, I internally questioned your social stability.

After having been through other toxic relationships in the past, I was personally scared of what life would be like if we were alone together on a date or something like that. I really wanted to be with you, but felt that working together would violate company policy and I think you felt the same way.

Then the day came.

You decided to quit the company. I dreaded this day ever since I learned it was going to happen. I was bothered that I was losing my best friend and confidant.

It was on that last night together that you hugged me and gave me your telephone number.

This was actually 2 firsts. Nobody had ever hugged me before. Don’t laugh – it is true. The funny thing was I finally felt loved for the first time in my life.

The second first was that Tanya gave me her telephone number. Again nobody has ever given me their number before much less a female.

However, and it was a big however, was she said to me “call me if you want”. These words became etched in my head like as if she really was interested, but may not be interested.

To say I was confused by this would be an understatement. I was actually set back as if she was pushing me away while at the same time wanting me.

Then the worse thing happened. I lost her phone number. Make that I misplaced it and it got cleanly washed away.

So I could not call her. The phone number was not in the book and I had no way of reaching her. All of a sudden my life turned to crap.

For weeks, I was hoping that you would return back to Staples so that we could talk about getting together.

But it didn’t happen.

Disappointment was mounting.

Then one Tuesday, while at the mall, I saw you at the late Waldenbooks store sitting on one of the benches looking at a book with a female friend. I tried hard not to be seen by you as I did not want to embarrass you or your friend.

Luckily, I was able to leave the store without being seen.

About a half-hour later, my luck ran out. I was at Best Buy with my mother shopping and you were alone and noticed me. I remember I was looking at “The Mummy” DVDs and you focused your radar on me.

This is where everything went wrong. You asked me why I didn’t call you. I tried to be diplomatic in my conversation with you especially since I had my mother with me and she did not know about you. I tried to tell you that I wanted to talk later someplace alone. It appeared that you wanted none of that.

Then you stormed off out of the store.

At this point, I had a choice. I could leave my mother in the store alone (mistake) or I could chase after you and talk to you right then and there (possibly a bigger mistake). I decided to choose the former.

Sadly, at this point, I never saw you ever again. Over the next couple of weeks, I continued to spindle downward with no bottom in site.

Then it happened.

I was driving home one night from work and I was listening to the radio. This song came on the radio that struck me like lightning.

The song was “So Yesterday” by a girl named Hilary Duff. Suddenly, this song related to what happened between me and Tanya. This song wedged in my head so much that I could not shake it. The more I heard it over the next couple of days, the more I related to it.

At this point, I decided to learn more about this Hilary Duff girl. I found out that she was the star of a popular Disney Channel show “Lizzie McGuire”. I decided to watch an episode just to get a feeling for what this girl was really like.

Then it happened.

I was hooked on Hilary. Like a druggie, I could not get enough Duff. I bought CDs, DVDs, magazines, books and anything else with her in it.

I was obsessed. It became so bad that I asked Best Buy if I could have a large poster of her when they were finished using it. I did the same at f.y.e. with a poster they had as well. I also asked there if I could have the “Lizzie McGuire Movie” video display when they were done with it. They allowed me to have it.

At this point, it seemed that I was completely obsessed with Hilary, even going to the point of carrying the lyrics of “So Yesterday” in my pocket and reading them when I was depressed.

I was also joining as many online groups as I could from Yahoo to feed my desire for pictures, comments or anything else related to Hilary.

It would be obvious at this point I was not only obsessed, but crazy about her. Some online groups shunned people like me for being “too old” for being a fan. I told them that real fans came in all ages. Certainly, I was not alone in my beliefs.

Then the big one happened.

Lizzie McGuire was done, but my obsession was not.

I had to find a new outlet for social relief.

So I started watching other Disney shows at the time such as “Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, “Hannah Montana” and “Wizards of Waverly Place” among others. I quickly became obsessed with these shows as well.

I would buy as many of the teen magazines as I possibly could every month even though I was really too old for them. It became apparent that I needed an intervention.

Before that would happen, I started watching shows on Nickelodeon as the shows on Disney Channel became stale. Once again, my obsession with kid and teen shows grew.

At this point, much of my thoughts had turned away from Tanya. However, one day while on the old MySpace, I decided to friend her out of the blue. It appeared she either rejected me or ignored me. At this point, I also noticed that she was living somewhere in the Midwest. This bothered me as it seemed she wanted nothing to with me at all anymore.

So with no future with Tanya and no intervention, I was further encouraged with my admiration for people like Hilary over the remainder of time that I remained employed at Staples.

After leaving Staples, I decided that I was finally going to join the new social media revolution. I signed up for Facebook and Twitter. Quickly some of my old work colleagues friended me on Facebook and soon I would be using Twitter extensively as well.

Then I decided one day to look up Tanya on Facebook and Twitter. I noticed on Facebook that she had since moved to Sherman Oaks California. On Twitter, she had an account, but she has never tweeted. I am only one of four of her followers. I wonder if she knows that I am following her there even though she has never tweeted anything. I also noticed that another one of her followers was a guy named Dave V.

So I decided to investigate him. What I saw I didn’t like. Then I did more and more reading about him, the less I liked.

This brings us up to the last couple of months. I decided to Google Tanya’s name and I found out that she was engaged to this Dave guy. Imagine the fact that I was completely heartbroken beyond belief.

So she moved 3,000 miles away to get away from me and then get engaged to someone else. It appeared that my chances with her were over.

However, I still needed an output for my emotions. So, a few months after starting my anti-Staples blog, I decided to start a new blog discussing virtually any other topic. Ironically, many of those postings have been about teen shows just to help me cope with my social loss. I know that many people have always been confused why I discuss these types of shows more than adult shows, but now I hopefully have cleared up the method behind my madness. It is just my way of producing my own intervention or something like it.

Overall, Tanya’s wedding will not have my blessing under any circumstances. I feel that I was shortchanged in this relationship as she refused to listen to me that I really wanted her, but I could not contact her because she was not found in the phonebook or any other method. I don’t feel that I was to be to blame for this relationship failure, but a huge misunderstanding between 2 people.

Lastly, I still have those posters of Hilary on my living room wall and the “Lizzie McGuire” is still in my bedroom filled with all those teen books and video tapes from back in the day.

Tanya, you may be so yesterday, but I still wish that you would be really part of my tomorrow.

I am hoping someday you will get to read this and know that I still really care about you despite being so far away. I wish I could right the wrongs of the past.

Sincerely,

Louis Brown

(your best friend from Staples)

End of Stores and Career

This week featured 2 interesting news stories.

The first one was the stepping down of Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel in the wake of the data breach during the holiday season last year. For someone who has been with the company for over 30 years, this departure seems rather odd.

According to reports, Steinhafel claims that he is personally responsible for what happened at the company.

Seriously.

The people who are really responsible for this nightmare are the people who ignored the fact that the breach even occurred and did nothing about it.

Not only should these people be fired, but should be held accountable for what happened.

Maybe the CEO resigned because there is a bigger problem that has yet to be uncovered and wants to run away fast before everything collapses around him and the company.

Certainly he may be playing damage control, but leaving suddenly just adds suspicion to any future damage that could happen.

I expect that we have not heard the end of the data breach and I still believe that there will be others that have yet revealed themselves.

The second story of the week was the closure of at least to 400 stores of Office Depot.

While it is not surprising of the store closures since the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax, it is surprising by the number of stores to be closed. What is interesting is that the companies seem to be doing better as one, the massive number of closings leads suspicion of the health of the company.

Let me point out that Office Depot said “at least” 400 stores in the next 2 years (150 this year alone), which means that this could be a low number possibly a severely low number. While the 2 companies probably want to close stores in areas where they compete against themselves, it seems that the company may also want to close low performing stores just like Staples and RadioShack have announced in the past months.

So this leads me to this question: why do these companies announce how many stores they plan on closing in their earnings report?

Is it because they want to impress/depress their shareholders into what their future is whether it is good or bad? Or is it that they want to warn other retailers of their failings?

Either way, I don’t know why companies can’t just quietly closing stores a few at a time without making such a big deal of it.

I remember back when Woolworth announced that it was closing half of their stores, we got endless phone calls from the media asking if our location was one to close. Our response was “no, but further details can be obtained by calling our home office”. It took about 3 days for the attention to go away, but our store’s future was still questioned until the company finally went out of business.

So while Staples, RadioShack, and Office Depot announce massive store closings, the real question on everybody’s mind is which ones will be affected and what the future of the employees at that location is.

I believe that Mr. Steinhafel will have plenty of company on the unemployment line very soon.

However, all of them will have to get behind me as I am still there.