The Blockbuster Problem: A Former Employee's Perspective

Up front, let me say that I was, not too long ago, a Blockbuster employee. I'm not proud of it. It is an embarrassing blight on my employment record. Shame, lethargy, irritation, depression; these are words which describe the seemingly endless months that I gathered my steely will about me and faced the doors of the blue and gold. In the end, I left dejected and unappreciated, feeling less important than the cooler which houses the Coca-Cola products sold nightly to the uneducated masses groping their way through the aisles, searching for the latest in Hollywood refuse. Unlike the Coke cooler, I felt empty at the end of the night, wandering and unable to fulfill my purpose in life. I left for hilarious reasons, involving the district manager, several emails, and despicably bad grammar on his part. My departure was inevitable I suppose, for reasons that will be discussed later, but honestly, how often does one get the opportunity to leave a position based solely on grammatical differences? It is both the dumbest and most interesting conversation in which I had the unfortunate pleasure of being involved. I say conversation, but the reality is that it was largely one sided, that side being a balding fat man, red in the face and screaming about how offended he was by my simple corrections. My side was quiet, smug, and fascinated. Ten minutes later, I found myself walking to the car, leaving behind the dingy, dusty DVD racks and the ramshackle candy bins behind me forever. I do not regret my decision.

I tell you this for one reason; I am not what could be referred to as disgruntled. I am very much apathetic to the general direction of Blockbuster and its investors, which obviously led to my performance as a Manager on Duty to be less than stellar. I was not a model employee by any means, mostly because in the grand scheme of things, my sales quotas seemed to me to be as important as dry sheet of toilet paper moments before it fulfills its destiny. I just didn't care. At all. Not many people did. Were I to wager a guess, not many people at the store level currently do. We were given no reason to care. So, I merely went to work, did the bare minimum, left feeling lonely and objectified. There was no difference between doing an excellent job and poor job. Not really. Sure, they have bonus system in place for meeting the quotas quarterly, but largely it didn't amount to much in the end. Essentially, you are told from the beginning, "You are expendable. No matter what." But all in all, I got five free movie rentals a week. That was enough to keep me happy most of the time.

I know what you're thinking: "Blockbuster employees have sales quotas? For DVD rentals?" That is a valid question. It deserves a legitimate answer. No, kind reader, sales quotas are not for rentals. Rentals aren't that important to the Gods of Blockbuster. They give them away for free. Quotas are for selling you, the humble customer, things that you do not want. Every time you are pestered about buying candy, about buying previously viewed movies, about joining the Blockbuster Total Access program, there is a trained monkey behind the scenes poking the employees with razors, threatening what little livelihood they scrape out of the Blockbuster existence with termination should they fail to achieve the goals set out by corporate. This happens daily. These poor souls behind the counter are forced to push and push and push you until you ultimately give in or leave in a huff. I can say from my experience there that the overall customer response to these practices is the latter. Now, people better than me have taken situations like this and turned them around. Some people have no problem bedeviling customers. Some are natural salesmen. My major problem with the entire sales pitch was that I was required to lie to customers about our policies and push a product that is problematic at best. I am referring, of course, to Total Access.

On the surface, Total Access appears to be an amazing deal. Rent movies online, bring them into the store and get new releases and old releases for free. My sales pitch was that if you could successfully rent twelve movies in a month, you would essentially get twenty four movies for $17.99. Given that twenty four rentals at in-store prices came to around $118, odds are definitely in the customer's favor. But, truthfully, the service doesn't run that smoothly. It works very well for some. Some people are taking the company to the cleaners. But others, not so much. And those that do have problems with their service are treated to absolutely no help from the store in which they signed up. Blockbuster employees have a phone number. That's it. They can do nothing for you if your movies aren't showing up, if you're being overcharged, if you're being sent the wrong movies, etc. They are helpless. The customer service line is frequently jammed with waiting periods of up to three hours. It's an absolutely nightmare from a customer service standpoint. In an effort to compete with Netflix, Blockbuster created a shoddy copy and is now suffering from the bloated influx of new members to which they cannot provide quality service. And yet, employees are forced to sign up new members daily, adding to the problem and creating more and more problems. Simple activities such as checking movies back in are being pushed to the side as customer complaints rise. These unchecked movies are frequently placed back on the shelves, creating an even larger customer service problem. Angry customers are now the norm, angry managers the result. It is truly a hostile environment. But these are merely symptoms of a much larger problem.

According to an article by Edward Jay Epstein for Slate Magazine, Blockbuster shot itself in the foot way back in 1998 by picking a fight with Warner Brother's home video. This was at the beginning of the digital age. DVDs soon began to replace VHS as the consumer's choice in home entertainment. Blockbuster, high on its horse and staring movie production companies' in the face, declared with fervor "The studios can't live without a video rental business-we [Blockbuster] are your profit.[1]" They roundly rejected the previous deal with Warner Bros., assuming they could command a higher price and a larger share of the revenue. Unfortunately for Blockbuster, the digital age was upon them. They were done in by the low prices of DVD retail and the emergence of their arch-nemesis: Netflix. Subscribers to the program cut deeply into Blockbuster profit margin, forcing them to scramble to keep up. Thus, Blockbuster Online was born. But in order to win back its' customers, the company needed to rely on its' strengths, namely the stores themselves. Blockbuster Total Access is the brainchild of a shortsighted higher-up without a strong grasp of reality. How is a company to make money if they give away their main product? This is a conundrum the upper levels are still wrestling. It is doubtful that they can sell enough candy and popcorn to make up for the loss. Unseating the entrenched competition is perhaps even more precarious. How will the company cope? By forcing unrealistic quotas and threatening firings all the way down the chain.

In the end, five movies a week were not quite enough to keep me from turning in my notice. Granted, I didn't enjoy the job, and as most people who work in retail will insist, the pay was miniscule for the work required. I also didn't have a great attitude. But one might wonder, if my attitude was a result of more serious problems within the company itself, reaching up the ladder to the top. If my conversations with other employees are any indication, Blockbuster is in dire need a self-evaluation.

[1] http://www.slate.com/id/2133995/