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Customer Care At US Bank

In the week since her story made international news, Emily James, the banker fired from a U.S. Bank call center in Portland for a Christmas Eve act of kindness, has been “overwhelmed and emotional” from the outpouring she’s received.

On the day before Christmas, James had gotten permission from her manager to leave the call center and drive to a nearby gas station, where a bank customer was stranded. He couldn’t access the money from his paycheck at the bank, so James gave him $20 of her own money to buy gas, then went back to work.

The bank fired her a week later on New Year’s Eve, James said, calling her helpful hand an “unauthorized interaction with a customer.”

Then last week her account to The Oregonian/OregonLive went viral. She’s had several job interviews, including with other local banks, but hasn’t yet started another job. Several companies reached out over social media, wanting to hire her.

The bank, one of the largest in the USA, was founded in Portland, Oregon in 1891;  and is now headquartered in Minneapolis.

Today, U.S. Bank is the fifth-largest bank in the country, with 74,000 employees and $467 billion in assets as of December 31, 2018.

Well, they couldn't buy the kind of publicity they're receiving now.

 

Big Labor Butts Into The Grocery Checkout

Filed in July, Initiative Petition 41 is backed by the Oregon AFL-CIO, a coalition of labor groups representing about 300,000 Oregon workers.

“We have been consistently concerned about the impacts of technology and automation on the livelihoods of working people, especially when they have no voice in how technology is used in their workplaces,” Graham Trainor, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “You can see the expansion of self-checkout machines in stores across the country and in Oregon.”

He said jobs are lost as a result.

The AFL-CIO contends self-checkout kiosks make customers feel socially isolated, particularly elderly people, and that the kiosks let stores rely more on part-time workers and leave workers “feeling devalued.” They also say self-checkout stands make it easier for minors to buy alcohol and for people to steal from stores.

But these days, there are cameras everywhere, and most self-checkout kiosks are monitored by floor employees as well, so Big Labor's arguments are just silly. The kiosks I've used flag alcohol purchases, which must be approved by a floor employee before you can proceed with checkout. So Big Labor's argument in that regard is fallacious as well as silly.

What are their next targets - ATMs and machines that sell postage stamps?

 

 

Whatta Surprise! Our Best Buds Are In Idaho.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Marijuana sales in Oregon along the Idaho state line are 420% the statewide average, according to a state report. Idaho residents are purchasing recreational marijuana in Oregon because it is illegal in Idaho, the report released Friday by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis said.

The report found about 75% of Oregon sales and about 35% of Washington state sales in counties along the Idaho border were caused by the border effect.

There's a pot shop a couple of blocks from my house. Used to be a small grocery store, which was nice. Now it's a pot shop. They seem to get a fair amount of business, but they did have to put up signs advising their clients not to smoke dope in their parking lot.

Apparently, that's still illegal.

 

Publicity Hound

LOS ANGELES—United States District Court Judge James V. Selna ordered today that Stormy Daniels’ ex-attorney Michael Avenatti remain in federal custody for possible violation of his conditions of pretrial release and be transported “forthwith” to New York, where he will stand trial next week.

The judge found there was probable cause Avenatti had committed crimes in violation of the terms of his bond and ordered the embattled celebrity attorney detained without bond. Avenatti will continue to be held in an Orange County jail pending transfer to New York and will remain in custody “for the foreseeable future,” according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

This could seriously impede his ability to "practice" law as he's accustomed to doing.

On the other hand, jailhouse lawyers are likely in high demand.

 

Happy Holidays From Premier Surfaces

The company, which for some 20 years has been one of those which specialized in custom granite and marble countertops, celebrated the holiday break by emailing their nearly 1000 employees with a special message: We're shutting down; don't come back. They blindsided everybody, and the execs are nowhere to be found.

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Nearly 1,000 employees in metro Atlanta and nationwide suddenly lost their jobs during the holiday break.

Workers said that Premier Surfaces in Alpharetta notified them in an email that, after nearly 20 years, the business was shutting down effective immediately. They claim the company is not offering any severance pay, back pay, or even COBRA medical coverage.

Company executives have all but vanished while still owing money to employees and to customers. Now, workers are asking if the company broke the law.

On Jan. 3, which was the last day of the employees’ holiday break, the company sent them an email saying the company was shutting down effective immediately and that they should not return to work. Their health insurance coverage was canceled and they would have no access to COBRA.

An installer, Ricky Thomas, said no one can reach anyone with the company - even to retrieve certain personnel documents to help employees apply for new jobs, and to help them expedite state unemployment claims.

And customers who paid thousands of dollars in deposits toward work that was never completed seem to have been left high and dry as well.

The now-former employees are pushing for investigations by state and federal agencies into whether or not the company violated U.S. labor laws -- specifically the federal “WARN Act,” which requires a company, in most cases, to notify employees 60-days ahead of mass layoffs.

The penalties can include up to 60 days of severance pay for each employee.

Presumably, the stiffed customers are likewise examining options for recovery of their funds.

But first, the perpetrators have to be found.

 

Portland City Council Srikes Again

In November 2018, the city of Portland voted to pass a ballot initiative called the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) that is basically Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s failed “Green New Deal” in a smaller, more localized package. In a few months, the city will begin finally investing the money they received.

It's a gross receipts tax on businesses, which are now essentially taxed twice one on stuff that they sell (gross receipts) and again on profits. No matter; the businesses won't pay it - their customers will. But it's a model for the nation, which is what counts as far as the erstwhile mayor of Portland is concerned:

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the tax and the use of subsequent funds, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler believes that the PCEF should inspire other large cities and perhaps even the entire United States. “It’s a model for the rest of the nation,” he said with pride. “A beacon and a testament to our community’s belief in doing things a different way.”

And the stupider, the better.

I stopped buying things in Portland years ago because of the mind-numbingly stupid policies the politicians foist on consumers. Things are less expensive in Washington County.

 

WantAJob?

Oddly enough, despite the low overall unemployment rate, there are plenty of jobs available - they're just not in places where you'd like to live. Imagine that!

 

Bricks And Mortar

Those places aren't doing all that well, these days.

According to a new report by Coresight Research, 9,302 stores shut down or were going to shut down in 2019, a 59% increase from the previous year. Leading the way were Payless ShoeSource (2,100), Ascena Retail (781), Gymboree (740), Fred’s (564), and Sears (210). A dozen or so well-known brands had shuttered doors in the last year, including Gamestop, Foot Locker, Victoria’s Secret, Office Depot, and Abercrombie & Fitch.

4,500 new locations opened in 2019. One-third of these new locations were dollar stores.

Yes, we've had a few of these crop up within a few miles of our place in recent years. Sort of like toadstools. Another one has opened next to the local Safeway grocery store, and it seems to be pretty busy. People naturally want their dollars to stretch further, and obviously these places are accommodating that desire.

 

 

Why The Price Of Hamburger Keeps Increasing

"This giveaway is fraudulent. Please do not click on it or provide any personal information. Our digital team is aware of this issue and is investigating."

Grocery stores now have "digital teams"?

 

Print Media Decline Continues

Locally, the latest casualty is Portland Tribune, which has announced that it's cutting back its print edition to once a week, beginning next month. Beginning January 1, it's also paywalling its site.

In a letter to readers, Pamplin Media Group President Mark Garber said reducing the number of publication days "will save us money, it's not so much a retreat, but a shift in how we can best cover local news."

The print edition will - for now - continue to be free of charge at outlets in the city of Portland; suburban editions will cost $1 per copy. In essence, they want suburbanites to pay a buck to peruse printed ads, as those now constitute roughly half of the "newspaper's" content. It's unclear as to how they've come to think that this approach will keep them in business:

Advertising revenue for U.S. newspapers peaked in 2000 at $49.4 billion, according to the Pew Research Center. Since then it's fallen 70 percent to an estimated $14.3 billion.

Garber claims that Tribune publications continue to receive strong advertising support from local businesses. Alrighty, then.