🔖 Deals Cash-starved Sears is putting everything on sale

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

I work full time from home now. Most days its ok, but on days like today where I just feel utterly wiped, I just stare at my screen or out the window. If you have ANY slack in motivation, the day can quickly go to shit.

I ban myself from going upstairs and turning on the tv until at at least 4....so at least I have SOME discipline.

If I don't actually focus on work, it is much easier to get distracted at home and end up doing home projects.

 

[EmersonHart13]

My coworkers tell me they have the TV on "in the background" yeah right

 

[Mook]

I'll sometimes leave netflix on in the background if I'm upstairs on the laptop just so there is SOME noise but I try and refrain.

I'm likely gonna throw in the towel in another 30-45. I dunno what the deal is today, but I'm fading fast.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

My coworkers tell me they have the TV on "in the background" yeah right

I will. Much like I have my radio on here at work. Just background noise more than anything.

 

[blakbearddelite]

Yes, there are times when I have Seinfeld or The Office playing in the other room. Unless I'm working on something that requires 100% of my attention, I almost always have something on.

 

[EmersonHart13]

No can do. I'll give up work and start watching, music is different.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

Rumor has it, another large employee purge is next Thursday (the 17th).

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Good luck man, we're pulling for you one way or another.

 

[torquelover]

What big box stores are doing okay nowadays? I drove past a mall the other day that had all anchor stores closed or closing. Sears, Younkers, Macey's. Then the next town over the same deal, but they demoed the big boxes and made what's left of the mall into an x-shaped strip mall.

Only big boxes I've seen open new stores lately is Harbor Freight, Hobby Lobby, and Menards.

 

[Yaj Yak]

What big box stores are doing okay nowadays? I drove past a mall the other day that had all anchor stores closed or closing. Sears, Younkers, Macey's. Then the next town over the same deal, but they demoed the big boxes and made what's left of the mall into an x-shaped strip mall.

Only big boxes I've seen open new stores lately is Harbor Freight, Hobby Lobby, and Menards.

i dunno where you're at but the malls "up here" are fucking slammed whenever i drive by, and it boggles my mind... gurnee mills, hawthorn/whatever vernon hills is called & woodfield.

 

[Spivitz]

Ya Brotha, [MENTION=7801]cmntmxr57[/MENTION]

Good luck Man

 

[Gone_2022]

If they are offering severance packages to people I would take that depending on the offer. Get paid while looking for a new role, without worrying if you will be randomly be canned at a moments notice.

 

[blakbearddelite]

One guy I worked with years ago was let go due to restructuring. He got about six months severance, but found a job in a week. He basically just pocketed 5.5 months salary.

 

[Yaj Yak]

Rumor has it, another large employee purge is next Thursday (the 17th).

 

[Gone_2022]

Yup ^^.

When the company I work for was going through hard times a few years back, they offered voluntary severance packages. Some I’ve heard were quite nice. And it also did not bar you from returning to the company.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

I had that discussion yesterday with the director in my department. Is it simply wiser now to get let go, and then take the severance while the money is still there...

It would be nice if I had something else in the works, but... I'd volunteer... Yea, give me my money.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

The crappy part about working a job with insane hours like that is it makes it really hard to do a real job search if not almost impossible.

 

[Gone_2022]

Yea you def don’t want to be one of the last ones there. Because at that point all you are getting is a pat on the back.

 

[boostedguy05]

that, and everyone else that left before you cleaned up house on "all the open jobs out there"

 

[CMNTMXR57]

I'm trying. But no one is calling back.

 

[torquelover]

i dunno where you're at but the malls "up here" are fucking slammed whenever i drive by, and it boggles my mind... gurnee mills, hawthorn/whatever vernon hills is called & woodfield.

It was somewhere in Iowa. Malls by me are slammed too. I try to avoid them.

 

[EmersonHart13]

New York (CNN Business)Sears may have life after bankruptcy.

The company has accepted a bid from chairman and former CEO Eddie Lampert that could keep as many as 425 stores operating, according to a source familiar with the process.

Lampert was CEO of Sears Holdings until its October 15 bankruptcy filing, and his $5 billion bid — made through his hedge fund — was the only proposal to keep stores open. Lampert's bid also included jobs for 50,000 Sears employees.

The final decision doesn't rest with Sears or its attorneys, but with Judge Robert Drain, who is likely to rule on the auction results once different parties have an opportunity to file objections with the court.

Sears must notify the bankruptcy court of the winning bidder in a filing later Wednesday. Sears and their attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bids were submitted Monday. The source said Lampert improved the terms of his bid during two days of negotiation that ended Wednesday before being tapped as the winning bidder, according to the source, although the source could not say what changes were made.

It's no surprise that Lampert's bid won. Sears has said that staying in the business is the best outcome. Competing bids aimed to close stores and liquidate inventory. A committee representing many of its creditors has argued in favor of shutting down the company.

Lampert insists that the bankruptcy process can help Sears shed liabilities and get smaller. A new Sears can be profitable and competitive, he has said.

But Sears' creditors, including landlords and vendors, have called such a plan "nothing more than wishful thinking" in court filings.

As part of his bid, Lampert offered to forgive $1.3 billion he loaned to Sears. But attorneys for the other creditors argue that the judge should not accept debt forgiveness as part of Lampert's bid, because Lampert loaned Sears the money when he was chairman and CEO. The creditors' attorneys question whether the terms of those loans unduly benefited Lampert and his hedge fund rather than Sears.

Lampert and his hedge fund argue the loans were proper and made to keep Sears alive. But if the judge accepts the creditors' arguments, it could kill Lampert's chance of buying the company's assets.

Even if Lampert is able to go ahead with his plan to save Sears, it will be a much smaller retailer, with no stores in a wide swath of Middle America. Most of the stores will be on the West Coast, Northeast and Middle Atlantic, Florida and Texas.

The chain had nearly 700 stores and 68,000 workers at the time of the bankruptcy filing, although many stores have closed and many employees have already left the company.

Emerging from bankruptcy doesn't necessarily guarantee success. A number of retailers have made it through bankruptcy, only to go out of businesses after filing for bankruptcy again in relatively short order. RadioShack recently suffered this exact fate.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/business/sears-eddie-lampert-bid/index.html

 

[blakbearddelite]

I don't understand why they're trying so hard to keep the doors open. I'd love to see the pitch they're giving to investors to make them think it is a good use of $5B.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

It's little to do with actually running a retail business despite the smoke screen reported above and elsewhere. It's really allowing him to take the company and assets to himself and then liquidate them getting a return. It also buys us employees more time...

All part of a "controlled liquidation" which I believe I've posted here long before.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

Just applied to a job with GM... At the Arlington plant. Home of the K2's and soon to be T2's.