I declare...BANKRUPTCY!!!

[Minflick]

Hah hah hah! I used to have a mom-van. I could fit a queen mattress in it, but not the box springs. That thing was huge, though, and I could get a LOT of stuff in it. 6 bales of hay. 5 goats. 7 children, or 3 plus luggage. Now it's UHaul all the way...

[XCashier]

Reminds me of Irv having to play Tetris with the customers' furniture. Glad you aren't the type to do that to them.

Oh no. When we first moved out here and had to buy all new furniture, we rented a U-Haul truck and went to the furniture stores with it. The employees were very happy not to have to try to wrestle a queen-size bed into a Chevy Metro!

[Food Lady]

Almost bought a display bookcase for $10, but there was no way it would fit in my car and no way to take it apart to make it fit.

Reminds me of Irv having to play Tetris with the customers' furniture. Glad you aren't the type to do that to them.

[XCashier]

I always wondered what store was being called the "Clearance Swamp" here! I almost never shopped at Shopko because their prices were too high. When you can get a nearly-identical (or better) item for half the price at Walmart, Ross or Target, why spend more?

The clearance sales just dragged on. By the time they got down to a decent discount, very little was left. I did luck out and got a pair of boots and a pair of sneakers at great prices (and my shoe size is really difficult to find!) Almost bought a display bookcase for $10, but there was no way it would fit in my car and no way to take it apart to make it fit.

Sorry to hear the former employees are getting stiffed on their pay. I hope Senator Baldwin can help them.

[Nunavut Pants]

That's a depressingly common thing here in Silicon Valley. It's a known and accepted part of the whole "start-up" culture--if your idea or product or whatever doesn't pan out, your employer may run out of money. Usually they're also in debt to the point where selling all of the office furniture and equipment won't cover more than a small fraction of the debt. So you don't get paid for your last one or two (sometimes more!) pay periods, let alone get severance.

I think the presumption is that the pay before that is good enough, and the possibility of the company/product is good enough, that you're willing to take that sort of risk.

Not me. I've only ever worked for large companies and government agencies...

[Arcus]

After riding one company to it's end, I can say there is a chance they will never get what is owed to them. I am still owed 2 paychecks from the company I worked for and they have said there is no way I will ever get my money. They told me to my face that the company is shut down, the bank account is closed, the former owner is broke and everything he owned was taken already.

They told us we could try to sue him, but we would be so far down the list that he would be dead before he pays off everyone before us.

[Food Lady]

I got severance when I left Payless and it was only one store that was closing. The Swamp is/was a mess.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Former clearance swamp employees are still being stiffed on severance pay, and now a U.S Senator is demanding answers.

Very happy to see she's doing this. Also the guy in the black shirt is a former co-worker of mine.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Apropos of nothing, today is the last day of operations for the remaining clearance swamp stores.

The mess behind the now-shuttered store I used to work at has been cleaned up, and I believe the optical is now in the process of being moved to a new space.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Probably looking for people to work a few weeks to sell all the remaining merchandise and tear down all the fixtures. I imagine the liquidation announcement prompted many employees to GTFO right away.

I saw postings on Indeed advertising "friends and family seasonal opportunities" for my store before it closed. The job description was verbatim from their Christmas postings last year.

Liquidation is supposed to be finished next month.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Saw this on Reddit. Relevant to this thread.

[Arcus]

All the ones that closed around here look the same as that. I'm betting they just don't care because there is nothing left for the cities to try and get to pay for it all.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The swamp has been closed for two weeks now. Optical is still operating out of the building.

I drove past there yesterday, and the side of the store, where trucks used to drive through and make deliveries, is completely filled with trash. Haphazardly-piled trash. Cardboard bales, plastic bales, discarded fixtures and probably other kinds of garbage, all shoved into a pile spilling out into the driveway. Bet the disposal company's bill is yet another one the company wasn't paying.

So I imagine all that stuff will become the city's problem once it starts blowing out into the neighborhood. Or somebody sets it on fire.

[Nunavut Pants]

My experience with that store is quite old now, but I remember that everything I bought from there fell apart in pretty short order. That's why I stopped going; I figured out that I was paying more from having to buy cheap products multiple times.

[KuariKaydrith]

The two Payless stores in my city are closed up and as many of their fixtures as possible were sold. I'm a bit sad because I got most of my shoes from there, and now I have to find another place to get them that won't break the bank :/