I have read thru (so far) 8 pages of this thread. and it brings out a ton of different thoughts and feelings that have developed over 40-some years of life, starting out from being dragged to Sears by my parents from the time I could walk (I don't remember anything from my youngest days in a stroller LOL) for everything from tools to lawn mowers to clothes and paint, car parts, and even food... remember when they had restaurants within the stores and candy counters, too?
Then a couple years after high school (late 80s) I got a job in the Auto center and spent 13 years working for Sears between 2 different locations (I got married and moved)
heck I even met the woman that turned out to be my wife for the past 20+ years (and counting) in that little restaurant within the store, she also worked there (albeit in another department) and like me was "on break"...
I don't shop there anymore either but for different reason. Between my wife and I we put up a combined 25 years working there.... the refusal of Sears to allow either of us full time employment even back then (meaning 2 jobs was absolutely required to get by) the cutting of benefits throughout our employment, low wages (even for 80s standards) and their way of scheduling the hours we did get, to maximize "coverage" for their store without regard to convenience and/or "costs of having that job" for their employees...
like in my wife's case... when our son came she was bringing home $100/week.... she had to work 5 days, anywhere from 3 to 6 hours per day, about 25 hours a week. You had to have been there since the 70s to have hope of being a full timer even back then... my wife started in 84 and I started there in 87
We both went to her boss and asked if she could have those 20-some hours a week in 3, 8 hour days so that we could spend less on babysitting and gas so she COULD be there, and was told "no, sorry... store needs come 1st". Her check was $100, we spent $60 on a babysitter (if she could have done the 20-some hours in 3 days worked that would have been like $35) and $20 on gas so that meant she worked 25 hours for a net payday of $20.... not worth having the job.
and in my case I got fired (only place in my life that ever happened) because I wanted to take a couple of used tires for my own personal use... tires that they never sold to anyone anyone anyways, and in fact PAID a firm for each semi load that was hauled away... yet if a customer wanted their own used tires back they had to give them back... I took them outside and wound up leaving them behind and still got fired, screw them while others did the same and more, with quite the blind eye....rules only applied to a select few
have not spent a dime there since late in 2001.... I cancelled my Sears card and when asked "why" I told them it was because if this was how they treated employees who'd given them so much for so many years, I could get anything I needed in life elsewhere. (the actual statement I made at the time was way more colorful)
but also I could see the demise coming way back then. By that, I mean the difference in the quality of stuff they sold when I started definitely declined over the years I worked there... something I saw 1st hand, daily, as I passed thru the stockrooms. and yes even though I worked there and (at the time) got a pretty deep discount on tools I needed for my job (beyond the regular 10% employee discount) I got tired of having to go back to th sales floor to exchange busted sockets and 1/2" "impact" universals that would break all too often while I was doing an alignment on YOUR car... and yes it definitely became a much more frequent occurrence later in my days of working there than it had been years earlier. We always had a Mac and a Snap on truck come by and it was there and then that I discovered 1st hand that "there is a difference" was much more than just a marketing slogan for Snap on. As the years went by I found myself dumping my Crapsman for Snap on much more often
Yes it was easier for me than most to go exchange a busted tool (I just had to walk from the auto shop to the tool department) it was happening all too often. I remember a time in the 80s when a lot of the box/open end/combination wrenches sold as Craftsman were made in Japan. and I didn't buy any though my Dad did to replace an errant one here and there that went missing at home.... after my firing I'd just throw busted Craftsman in the trash and replace it at garage sales and flea markets with more Craftsman... just don't buy it at the store any more. Craftsman has been great for "home use" but day to day making my living with, some of it just has never held up "for me". brand new sockets that would slip and round where a Snap on would grip and turn, that sort of thing.
I have still walked thru and browsed over the years since my employment came to an end... and have to say this for Sears "quality" as a whole (not just tools)
Somewhere on GJ there was a graph showing how fast inflation doubled prices... (I think it was in a thread that had to do with the cost of building a garage now vs 5 years)
take that graph and turn it upside down, and that's basically how their quality has gone
and the years shown at a given inflation point pretty much matches the rate of downturn in quality.
I remember when Kmart (before they and Sears were one) and other retailers were thought to have "cheap ****" as compared to what Sears sold... back in the 70s when I was a kid. but nowadays, even that "cheap ****" from those days, is better than mainstream products available today, at higher cost than then.
I remember even in the last 5 maybe 10 years of the old Sears Catalog where they'd list 2 versions of a product and in the description of each they'd tell whether the product was USA or "Imported" I think that was even 20 years ago. You had so much more choice back then of what you could buy than now a days. and hold both in your hands and the difference was obvious. Take something new today vs something from 30-40 years ago and its the same thing. the older stuff being well made and the newer stuff being worthless ****
Id rather buy a 30 yo power tool from a garage sale than most anything built today. Cheaper for me to buy and will still be working when that product that my neighbor bought brand new last week, is in the landfill.
also back then when a switch on Dad's drill went bad (from being dropped too many times or what ever) I could go to Sears and order that switch and fix it. Now a days if that switch is even available, they charge $50 for it when a whole nother drill is what, $55? but now a days things are made so that if a simple component breaks you gotta destroy the rest of it to get at that simple component... used to be, a switch for that $55 drill might be like $5.00
Lastly... for the 1st time since 2001, instead of throwing away broken Craftsman tools that I had "accumulated", I went to my local store to try and get some old tools warrantied. Things like extensions that the sockets fell off of, wallowed sockets, worn out screwdrivers, etc. most of what I took in was US made but OLD and well worn, that I'd gotten a whole lotta use out of. some was stuff my Dad had bought in the 60s and 70s. Mostly all they had to offer to replace them with was China made and just looking at it you could tell a difference... and unlike back then over 1/2 of what I brought in had to be ordered. Their claim was that it would be shipped directly to my home. Well that was like last April and there are things I still have not seen show up here... that is no way to retain or regain an old customer...they just do not give a **** any more
