HMV set to go into administration

[Decider-VT]

Maybe, but he's not the boss of me!

Haha! Luckily I've been far too outspoken about the wrongs at work in the past to ever be in the position to be anybody's boss at HMV. More likely to be the other way around, especially with my astonishingly low record of upsells at the counter. I wouldn't last for more than two weeks at GAME before getting a telling off!

[slicer1000]

OpCapita like most private equity firms are just asset strippers they suck as much money out of the company while they can then push it back into insolvency. Just like Comet game will end the same way eventually. The truth game buying stores will helps no one but OpCapita at the end.

[Lyris]

If HMV closes it's going to be a real pisser, the UK's only remaining dedicated "software" (if that's the right word) entertainment store.

If their business was clearly in trouble a few months ago, then what was that "staff can't show 'extreme' body art" thing about?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a433187/hmv-staff-banned-from-displaying-extreme-body-art.html

Is that seriously what their suits were spending time doing when their business was in trouble? Concocting new ways to piss off their customers and employees?

[noobish hat]

Err, I don't see any problem with that whatsoever. It's basically the same as every other retail company policy on personal appearance.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah not really seeing it as much of a problem either. If you get a spiderweb tattooed all over your face, you're going to know it will limit some of your employment options.

[FelixofMars]

Exactly, while I think removing all option of personal appearance is bad and that a place like HMV needs to remember its customers are not stuck in the 1940's like them. But you can also go too far and there does need to be some rules. People do want to generally do what the **** they like and say we should find it acceptable.

[teddymeow]

How am I supposed to cancel website pre-orders?

Zavvi have steel book Looper now but I don't want to order it if I've still got an order pending with HMV.

[FelixofMars]

I assume they will just void the orders and have a new login for whatever form the new site takes.

[Decider-VT]

Err, I don't see any problem with that whatsoever. It's basically the same as every other retail company policy on personal appearance.

Not really, in this case. People are often hired for their knowledge and enthusiasm as much as their perceived competence. People's "alternative" appearance has been judged to be of a fringe benefit to the company in the past. (After my original interview in 2001, my manager at the time told everybody that we were "finally getting a goth".) One of the foundations of almost every customer service initiative we've had over the last few years is "be yourself. Don't feel like you have to be a robot." The directions to cover up piercings, tattoos and so forth ran into direct opposition to this and came from a new managing director to boot, which only bred immediate resentment. The new appearance policy is one that has effectively been forced onto staff retroactively and is the latest in a long line of demeaning initiatives that crack down on the people working in the shops. Not that it matters much now anyway, as it was only actively enforced in our store for the first few weeks before store management lost interest and stopped caring about it.

[noobish hat]

Can't say I've noticed it as a theme for HMV. CEX, definitely. Along with ignoring customers in favour of having conversations between staff members, massive queues, obnoxiously loud **** music (preferably from Kerrang or some crap), and of course, putting platinum discs in black label cases.

I don't know why they'd want that for HMV anyway. Surely their entire revenue stream comes from the **** munchers on the street who STILL, inexplicably, do not have the internet. This would mostly be old people who want to buy DVDs for ?17.99 for some reason. They don't strike me as the type of people who'd be more inclined to shop there more often if the person serving them had a nipple piercing on show, or a colossal tattoo of a naked bitch riding a giant skull or whatever. I'm no people person though.

[EvilBoris]

Surely their entire revenue stream comes from the **** munchers on the street

You mean the general public?

[FelixofMars]

A pretty accurate description then

[Decider-VT]

Can't say I've noticed it as a theme for HMV. CEX, definitely. Along with ignoring customers in favour of having conversations between staff members, massive queues, obnoxiously loud **** music (preferably from Kerrang or some crap), and of course, putting platinum discs in black label cases.

I don't know why they'd want that for HMV anyway. Surely their entire revenue stream comes from the **** munchers on the street who STILL, inexplicably, do not have the internet. This would mostly be old people who want to buy DVDs for ?17.99 for some reason. They don't strike me as the type of people who'd be more inclined to shop there more often if the person serving them had a nipple piercing on show, or a colossal tattoo of a naked bitch riding a giant skull or whatever. I'm no people person though.

Eh, we're mostly nice people. When I say that we're encouraged to be ourselves, it means that quite often we'll just chat about games with customers in quite an informal way and without a hard sales pitch. About five years ago we had gotten to the ridiculous situation where we were being pressured to offer all of these incentives at the till and use these corny scripted lines when dealing with customers, which very few people did. After a while upper management seemed to realise that it was a bit silly and dropped it all and we were specifically told to relax and act naturally, which we were all doing anyway. If anything, I was asked to drop my formality a lot but that was really just shyness.

We still have quite a wide range of customers, instead of this perception that they're predominantly middle-aged or old people that are behind the times. Only a few months ago we had this great French girl that came in and chatted about Pok?mon and anim? for an hour each time, and a few weeks ago another guy came in on his lunch break from a restaurant and went back late because we were talking about the Cell processor for ages. Some people just like to come in and talk to us. We get a lot of kids that talk endlessly because their parents just don't understand their enthusiasms and they're happy to find someone who'll listen to what they're going on about, although I won't pretend to even know where to begin with Skylanders.

As for things like tattoos and piercings... well, they're part of the territory when you're hiring someone who's obsessed with something like music, films or games. Most of the time they're more of a talking point with customers than something undesirable. (Especially the Amaterasu tattoo one of my friends has.) The only time they generally get negative attention is when the male customers get creepy over the women that work there.

[Colin]

You need to keep an eye on these heavily tattooed types, they're all dodgy as hell.

[Decider-VT]

"Degenerate drug-taking students" and "toe-rags", according to LBC this week.

Nailed me on the degenerate student part, admittedly!