Netshops and unemployment benefits

Are you getting your unemployment benefits yet? If you're still unemployed due to the layoff, you should be by now - unless you had a huge vacation balance and got a larger severance package than I've heard of.

Someone emailed me about a discussion they had with a representative from the Nebraska Workforce Development office. I'm going to post the email because it goes into detail about the situation. (All names have been removed to protect the innocent.)

Apparently, severance pay for a number of Netshops employees was not reported accurately (whether by the individuals or by Netshops is unclear). This has resulted in some former Netshops employees being overpaid unemployment benefits. The adjudicator said that Netshops has been a nightmare to work with during this. The end result of this is that there are people who have been receiving benefits when they, apparently, were not entitled, and will have to pay whatever they have received back to the state.

The initial misunderstanding seems to have come from confusion regarding vacation pay and sick pay. The state differentiates between the two, and Netshops does not, so Workforce was unsure how to pay out benefits. Then, with the severance, the former employees were asked if they received anything, but Netshops was to provide the amount, and this wasn't done in a timely manner, according to workforce.
Workforce stated that they contacted Netshops numerous times in an attempt to clarify, but Netshops did not get back in a reasonable amount of time.

I certainly don't think that Netshops was intentionally trying to screw us over, but their slow response time to Workforce's inquiries amounts to the same thing, at least for some of those involved in the last round of layoffs.

Not sure, if you can use this in the blog or not, but my attempts to get any sort of accurate information from Workforce has been slowed by weeks by Netshops lack of timely response.

Is anyone else having this problem? Have any of you out there heard of similar issues with Workforce? Please let us know!! (As always, I won't post your info or your emails unless it's ok with you.)

Netshops not on Omaha's Best Places to Work list for 2007

Congrats Doug! You've taken a company that was on the list 2 years running and dropped them from the list. Is that the 'scalability' you were hoping to achieve with this recent round of layoffs? The 'efficiencies gained'? Who needs another award to clutter the office?

Back to the subject at hand. Netshops isn't on the list. I wonder why? Couldn't have anything to do with the recent layoffs, the increased work load on the remaining employees, the news that the Thralow reps weren't going to be allowed to stay in Duluth (like they were told when the purchase initially went through), the corporate churn - laying off employees just to hire more to replace them (in an attempt to appear more profitable in the short term), or changing people's jobs without regard to what their future goals are, either on a personal or professional basis.

I bet that last one is what really hurt Netshops in the voting. Yes, change is inevitable, but people also like some job security and knowledge that they are growing with the company. Moving someone from a position where they're the person resolving issues with vendors and talking about issues with store management to a phone rep position isnt going to win you points. Demoting an employee after they've busted their ass for you all holiday season (or longer in many cases) isn't much of a 'reward'.

Best Places to Work in Omaha 2007

Winning companies with 50-250 employees:
1. Lutz & Company, PC
2. Home Instead Senior Care
3. Olsson Associates
4. SilverStone Group
5. MSI Systems Integrators

Winning companies with 250+ employees:
1. Quality Living, Inc.
2. PayPal, an eBay company
3. Farm Credit Services of America
4. Marriott Global Reservation Sales and Customer Care
5. FirstComp

Quality Living Inc - a rehab based business - has been #1 three years running now, so it is possible to earn a spot on the list multiple times. I guess the difference between a company like Quality Living Inc and Netshops boils down to consistency.

Netshops meetings

I remember sitting in meetings like these.

Resources for employees laid off by Netshops

Here are a few resources:

Fired-layed off-downsized employees handbook

Gifts for laid off employees

Oh look. Dilios has been updating Netshops' Wiki entry... I wonder how long it will be before it gets changed back to accurately reflecting the 'multiple rounds of layoffs' Netshops has gone through...

Corporate accounting scandals

Why would ^ that be here....

Unemployed, underemployed or anxiously employed? Take a look at UnitedProfessionals.org

Oh, by the way, the job fair next week at the Holiday Inn Central - it is mostly for journalisim/news media professionals. The next job fair for the rest of us unemployed (or underemployed or anxiously employed - like most of Netshops workforce right now) is April 10th. Circle the date. Like I mentioned - some of you owe me drinks and I don't drink cheap liquor.

Response to Dilios's comments

I was going to respond as a comment, but thought that there was enough in the response that was better in the main section of the blog, instead of being buried in the comments.

Dilios: I never tried to come off as 'objective' - not sure where you got that idea. I've got an issue with the way Netshops does business. I have issues with the way they treat their customers and the way they treat their employees. Shocking? Probably not. Would I have a different perspective if I'd survived this round of layoffs? Maybe. Maybe not. I know I'd have been asking - as I did after the last round of layoffs - if this was the end of the reorgs and job cuts. I wouldn't expect to get a response. I didn't last time - why would this time be any different?

Back then, I was simply a concerned Netshopper. This time, I've been laid off by Netshops. Drastically different situations, different response.

I eagerly await the results of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce's 'Best Places to Work' survey this year. Is Netshops on the list? Maybe they should open the survey up to employees laid off both from Omaha and those being let go from Duluth? How would they fair then? Makes you go Hmmm....

If I was 'layed-off' and not really fired??? Maybe you missed the entry about how prior to being laid off, I was an 'above average' employee - according to each review I'd gotten. (Yes, before you ask, I had more than one. I had to ask, prod and pry my managers to get them completed, but I got them. That's more than I can say for some folks employed by Netshops.)

Who said I was trying to 'stop' anything? If someone looking at Netshops as a potential employer sees this blog and reconsiders their application, or if one potential affilliate pulls their ads OR if one investor decides not to go forward with Netshops, then I've accomplished something. Can you say the same thing about your daily activites? How will your opinion change when you're let go without notice or reason? (Don't think it can't happen - anyone there is fair game.)

Yes, layoffs hapen. Generally they are a sign of a company that is either struggling to stay afloat or a company that's trying to look more profitable than they really are.

Look at it this way - let's say 1st quarter 2007 profits were down. Sequoia (or any other investors for that matter) isn't happy. Call center supervisors were being paid somewhere around $30,000 per year. Let's use that as our median salary - some folks laid off made more, some probably made less. $30k/12 (months) = $2500/month, yes? Ok. 1.5 months into the year, they've paid out approx $3750 per employee. 60+ employees were laid off. Those 60 employees would have cost Doug & Co $1,800,000 in salary. Since they were laid off and some received severance pay,we'll say 60 x $3750 = approx $225,000 in salary paid out. That's a savings of $1,575,000 - quick and easy profit. Who's going to make up the difference & do the added work of those 60+ employees? You are Dilios. You and those employees still there, getting a good laugh at this blog. Although, none of you are any more productive than those who were laid off, since you're spending HOURS each day reading this, rather than doing your job....

Ironic, isn't it?

Blogging and your rights

A couple of people have emailed me with concerns about what Netshops will do with their comments on this blog.

The statements made on this blog are covered under free speech protection. Defimation/libel requires a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone's reputation, and published "with fault," meaning as a result of negligence or malice. Libel is a written defamation; slander is a spoken defamation.

Apparently Doug isn't happy about this blog. Sorry. I'm not happy about being out of work. Cause & effect.

Question and answer time kids. Just let me get my sweater from the closet...
What are the elements of a defamation claim?
The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are:
a publication to one other than the person defamed;
a false statement of fact;
that is understood as
a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.
If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.

Is truth a defense to defamation claims?
Yes. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim. But keep in mind that the truth may be difficult and expensive to prove.

Can my opinion be defamatory?
No — but merely labeling a statement as your "opinion" does not make it so. Courts look at whether a reasonable reader or listener could understand the statement as asserting a statement of verifiable fact. (A verifiable fact is one capable of being proven true or false.) This is determined in light of the context of the statement. A few courts have said that statements made in the context of an Internet bulletin board or chat room are highly likely to be opinions or hyperbole, but they do look at the remark in context to see if it's likely to be seen as a true, even if controversial, opinion ("I really hate George Lucas' new movie") rather than an assertion of fact dressed up as an opinion ("It's my opinion that Trinity is the hacker who broke into the IRS database").

What is a statement of verifiable fact?
A statement of verifiable fact is a statement that conveys a provably false factual assertion, such as someone has committed murder or has cheated on his spouse. To illustrate this point, consider the following excerpt from a court (Vogel v. Felice) considering the alleged defamatory statement that plaintiffs were the top-ranking 'Dumb Asses' on defendant's list of "Top Ten Dumb Asses":

A statement that the plaintiff is a "Dumb Ass," even first among "Dumb Asses," communicates no factual proposition susceptible of proof or refutation. It is true that "dumb" by itself can convey the relatively concrete meaning "lacking in intelligence." Even so, depending on context, it may convey a lack less of objectively assayable mental function than of such imponderable and debatable virtues as judgment or wisdom. Here defendant did not use "dumb" in isolation, but as part of the idiomatic phrase, "dumb ass." When applied to a whole human being, the term "ass" is a general expression of contempt essentially devoid of factual content. Adding the word "dumb" merely converts "contemptible person" to "contemptible fool." Plaintiffs were justifiably insulted by this epithet, but they failed entirely to show how it could be found to convey a provable factual proposition. ... If the meaning conveyed cannot by its nature be proved false, it cannot support a libel claim.

This California case also rejected a claim that the defendant linked the plaintiffs' names to certain web addresses with objectionable addresses (i.e. www.satan.com), noting "merely linking a plaintiff's name to the word "satan" conveys nothing more than the author's opinion that there is something devilish or evil about the plaintiff."

Is there a difference between reporting on public and private figures?
Yes. A private figure claiming defamation — your neighbor, your roommate, the guy who walks his dog by your favorite coffee shop — only has to prove you acted negligently, which is to say that a "reasonable person" would not have published the defamatory statement.

A public figure must show "actual malice" — that you published with either knowledge of falsity or in reckless disregard for the truth. This is a difficult standard for a plaintiff to meet.

Who is a public figure?
A public figure is someone who has actively sought, in a given matter of public interest, to influence the resolution of the matter. In addition to the obvious public figures — a government employee, a senator, a presidential candidate — someone may be a limited-purpose public figure. A limited-purpose public figure is one who (a) voluntarily participates in a discussion about a public controversy, and (b) has access to the media to get his or her own view across. One can also be an involuntary limited-purpose public figure — for example, an air traffic controller on duty at time of fatal crash was held to be an involuntary, limited-purpose public figure, due to his role in a major public occurrence.

Examples of public figures:
A former city attorney and an attorney for a corporation organized to recall members of city counsel
A psychologist who conducted "nude marathon" group therapy
A land developer seeking public approval for housing near a toxic chemical plant
Members of an activist group who spoke with reporters at public events

Have I been laid off? Yes = truth = protected free speech. Also, since Doug is going to be a speaker at the upcoming Internet Retailers conference (How many people from Netshops are going to that conference?) and he's been the figure head in every article I've ever read about the company, I'd have a strong case that he is setting himself out as a public figure, much like (while not on the same level) Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Willie Thiesen or Bill Gates.

Also consider my terms of use/privacy policy and my important legal disclaimer. Doug and Netshops are welcome to use this blog to take me to court, but they'd need to be ok with paying that million dollars to use it. What, didn't they bother to read the whole terms of use statement? Guess they know how customers feel when they find out about 50% restocking fees on items purchased at Netshops stores...

Netshops assigned parking spots are coming soon!

Who gets the parking spot this week?