ripoff merchants, seconded only by Best Buy in the US.

They tried to 'save money' by firing the 'most expensive' salesmen, the ones who got paid the most because of all the commissions on the sales they made. And then they were surprised when the remaining sales force, the ones who hadn't been motivated enough to make lots of sales in the first place, drew the conclusion that a good way to be fired was to work hard and make sales... with the results that CC's sales fell through the floor.

What complete and utter morons.

Circuit City are still around? I remember going to one of those once. Overpriced and poor selection so I'm not surprised. (Not that BestBuy is any better but generally they have more stuff and don't get me started about Fry's).

When Circuit City was getting into SERIOUS trouble with its policy of commission for sales and decided to take away commission, it also decided to FIRE everyone who'd been making a fair amount of money on commission.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, the BEST salesmen are the ones making the MOST commission, right? Why the hell was anyone in management impressed with the idea of keeping their worst salesmen and firing their best? Why the hell trim off the meat and leave the fat? They should have fired everyone who HADN'T been making a fair bit of commission.

Feh. I have no use for companies that treat their employees so badly.

And I would be amazed if they make it into 1st quarter of next year without going completely out of business. With the holiday shopping season already a big question mark for relatively successful stores I doubt they will make it. The only ones coming out of the end of year in good shape will be the big banks and money people on wall street getting bailed out. the rest of the country is in the toilet, no matter who wins the election. All you have to do is look at the leading economic indicator of how many people are losing jobs and joining the unemployment queue.

So , it is a standard given when all US based companies and corporations commence the death spiral dive , the first thing the ailing top echelon management steal is the staff pension funds drawing off upwards of eighty percent as their own salaries and bonuses (how the corporate thieves of ENRON stole the pension funds to feather their own nest eggs and deliberately paid off the unlamented crooked Arthur Andersen auditors is a classic standard textbook sample of how it is normally done , it is also helps to have a bribe-a-president as a friend too ).

Those that left the firm early would have come out ahead , those that remain look out , altough since the Democrats are by nature a combination of tax increase , reduce national debt(it stops stagflation) and spend to fix the problems that the Republicans always leave behind(Bill Clinton had to fix Bushwacker snr S&L thrift thievery , Obama gets to fix the Bushwacker jnr's entire Financial sector meltdown of circa 50 trillion dollars worst case scenario cost and approximately about as much to fix the entire countries rotten infrastructure as well on top). The republicans on the other hand basically hate all laws and regulations but are forever demanding tax cuts , borrow monies and stick that bill on the Democrats to repay , whilst they line their pockets repairs and infrastructure upgrades are deemed to be unessential items , and corporate thievery is a national sport to them , so they allow corrupt US businessmen to steal the staff pension funds without penalty.

The new election will place the democrats in full control of both houses absolutely(reason why all the greedy piggy republicans with lipstick are so upset , is they lose absolute control of the free money press) so a whole new swathe of banking, audit accounting accountability rules , pollution control and consumer regulations will undoubtedly eliminate the current Bush every man for himself and the last workers standing get the empty piggy bank will die on January 21st , 2009 .

I would not be surprised that the CC senior echelon have not only lined their back pockets from the available cash from it's pension fund , but also use the Wall Street melt down to explain why it has declined a twice the rate Wall Street funny wallpaper monies have declined.

As for honest corporate accounting firms , suggest you google two words together "KPMG" and "fines" and see how many google/yahoo hits you see .

The comments about the best salesmen making more sales are not necessarily supported by real life circumstances. In many stores that use the commission model as soon as you walk through the door you are pounced on by a member of staff who says something along the lines of, "My name is so and so, if you need anything let me know". There seems to be some unwritten rule that this marks you as that persons target. They then wonder off and keep an eye out for you being approached by other staff, so as to fend them off, or picking something up. In these off the shelf stores the goods will be sold with or without salesmen and there is little real salesmanship involved.

The premise that CC should have fired the staff with low commission earnings is financially unfounded.

The high commission earners should, however, have been kept on because earning more due to their predatory nature would make them happier.