Friday, January 09, 2009

Olympic Fail


From Reuters:
Home Depot ends Olympics sponsorship program
Thu Jan 8, 2009 3:03pm EST
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc is ending a sponsorship program under which it paid full-time wages and benefits for part-time work to athletes training for the Olympic Games.

The company currently employs 98 people in the Olympic Jobs Opportunities Program, in which it had been a sponsor since 1992.

After March 2, those athletes will no longer receive full-time benefits. They can remain in their part-time jobs, apply for full-time positions, or discontinue their employment at Home Depot.

"We feel the time has come to look at new ways to enhance our brand and provide exciting, new programs that appeal to our customers and associates," spokeswoman company Jean Niemi said on Thursday.
Anybody who spins this badly deserves to to screw themselves. On second thought I'll just take a closer look at those rings.

13 comments:

w said...

Let me be first to salute these fine women.

Now I'll read the post!

w said...

Once upon a time I had some avocados...

H Simpson said...

Just stopped in a HD after dinner with the wife.

What a ghost town. I mean scary quiet. They were even short of personnel.

The LL Bean outlet store had 5 times the traffic with 1/15th the floor space.

Rob Dawg said...

The ripple effects of HD folding are incredible. They've gutted the competition nationwide. There's no restarting local/regional businesses in this credit environment.

Lou Minatti said...

The ripple effects of HD folding are incredible. They've gutted the competition nationwide.

Rob, maybe it's different in your neck of the woods, but around here there's a Lowe's within 2 minutes of every Home Depot.

Pleather Murse said...

HD going under? Is this for real? I thought they were doing okay. Though their bilingual signage is a pet peeve of mine.

w said...

I have often wondered at the hubris of the modern capitalist model which leads companies to identify a business that is making money and set up shop across the street with almost the same business. What leads a company leader to see a nice coffee shop and think "I bet if I opened another one right next door I could destroy their profitability and make a ton of money for us."

If the old HD in Oxnard is any indicator of what is to come we can expect nothing but brownfields blighting the once vibrant orange temples of the fliptards and their home equity acolytes.

I prefer Whitecap anyway.

Rob Dawg said...

Mrs. Dawg and I were trying to remember when the Oxnard HD closed when we drove past the other day. The decay there was incredible.

Akira said...

Other than this one, I'm not all that impressed with your hot ass selections.
I could do way better than that, but I generally get banned by Google in the process.

Kasey S said...

I still prefer HD over Lowes and Menards any day. Lowes is pricy compared to HD and for a casual fixer-upper guy like myself, HD satisfies my needs.

That being said, I agree with their decision to discontinue their sponsorship. A) the economy sucks B) sale suck C) HD being involved in the olympics brings sucky results. This move won't hurt them.

Akira said...

Just thinking that maybe the fact that I've never been married or spawned nightmares might be a huge asset these days.
I can't figure out why people get wrapped up in such Gaza-esque scenarios.
I'm going to a very nice spa and eating caviar to support the BS economy.

Akira said...

And I couldn't give a rat's ass if Hilter shows up on my OS.
Just kill him. EOS.

Property Flopper said...

Nice rings.