Comments on: Borders Non-Blogging Contract

By: slim

slim — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:38:00 +0000

Have you come accross a copy of the non blogging contract yet. They have a link posted on bookmark if bookmark is available to you.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:15:42 +0000

I worked At A restuarant that had a strict no blogging policy. Our contract said we would not hAve a blog/website/myspace etc at all and doing so is grounds for termination.
I told the hiring manager there was no way I’d remove my websites and she said “off the record” to just not write anywhere on the website that I work at this establishment and that should keep me safe. Still, technically I was violating the contract all along.

By: jacki

jacki — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:22:40 +0000

Ok-i work at Borders, and have for 15 years! i got an “illness” and they SCREWED ME! My full time status was taken away (and given to someone who lasted a few MONTHS) as was my insurance, and i HAVE a brain tumor! i cannot get insurance now with anyone and frankly i don’t care who knows! i was YANKED! i have applied for another “postion” in the company/MY STORE-i had been the special orders clerk, and a damn fine one, and was told “you are not serious enough”-ok, i guess 15 years makes me a “cut-up”? Folks, i need this tumor gone! i can’t get insurance anywhere. i’m near 60 years old! i had done the “postion” i appled for a number of years ago, but the NEW REGIME has hamstrung me-i’m not YOUNG, CUTE, and a NON READER! Hello! How can you work in a bookstore and NOT READ? Why is YOUTH the be all end all? Ok-many of you young kids do read, and YES, i did “sign” the NO BORDERS BLOG PIECE OF CRAP! LIKE THE “NON-SERIOUS” PERSON I AM! OK LOYALTY DOES NOT BODE WELL UNDER MARSHALL (OR SHOULD I SAY STALIN OR A NEAR PERFECT HITLER?) Our store is now hiring new folks while cutting available staff hours to NIL! People who READ (OH GOD!) to people who are YOUNG CUTE AND IDIOTS! (like NO READING REQUIRED! SHALL WE BE STUPID? LETS” DANCE!) Seniority has gone out the door to STUPID! You want a viatribe? i work in a store that has NOTHING, ya wanna know how poor it is-i BUY THE BANDAIDS for the customers-oh, excuse me-”GUESTS”, i get the soap for the employees to wash their hands and i buy the “disinfectant gel” to clean their hands! Borders has BAILED big time! They hate us-the employees, the “wheels” got a raise and bonues this year, but we did not! How can they live with themselves? It’s like beating a dead dog! We are threatened with our jobs DAILY if we don’t sell “makes”, sign up BORDERS REWARDS and frankly someone is gonna PAY FOR MY TUMOR! i have lost TEETH to this company, no one returns my emails on insurance and this all is a JOKE! If i write a book-which is happening soon, the nation will KNOW what a wretched company this is to work for now! Age discrimintion is a biggie, seniority is PRIME, and threatening staff is OUTTA LINE! Maybe an expose is what we need! i am so tired of garbage- i have been there, TRIED and gotten NO WHERE! HOW CAN THIS BE TRUE-hell, it is!
Ok, like the company now, on Wallstreet, syas we are bankrupt-who, pray, did this MARSHALL! Selling books about cancer and war are NOT GOOD! Would it hurt to say…HELLO, what do you folks read, NOT what i can get “free money” for…your thousands of employees read (ok MOST) and maybe HALF of us can sell books because we enjoy READING! WE do have BRAINS! Trust us!
i work in a store that is URBAN-we do not have “high faluntin” ideas here-no one wants a DOWNER, we want GOOD-more “bang fer the buck” ya dig? EVERY STORE IS DIFFERENT! The neighborhood is DIFFERENT! WE aren’t WEALTHY, we areL LATINO, we are BLACK, we want what suits us-not some white lady whinin’ about CANCER! Be timely, know yer demographics HELLO! And quit shaftin’ yer employees! Go with your strengths! KNOW EACH store or MOVE THE HELL ON! Go live in yer fancy house and NOT CLEAN YOUR CIGAR STAINED TEETH because yer staff are idiots-ok, I NOTICED! Your &500.+ suit but bad teeth-CLEAN “EM! Ok guys i am angry and mad and I HATE the way you treat loyal staff-folks who give way over the top-regular folks, not MANAGEMENT, because frankly THEY ARE A JOKE! YOU ARE PROMOTING LAME PEOPLE! This company is doomed to fail, because ya want a tax right -off or something? Geez, ya blow! Ya hate us-the folks who work for you! We slave daily and ya couldn’t care less if we lived or died! You stink! i hate all of you because the place i strated at 15 years ago is GONE! You hate us, you hate the “guests” and don’t give a shit! jacki-15 year employee #81 and HANG ME BECAUSE I WILL SEE YOU IN HELL!

By: MAGNUS

MAGNUS — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:56:27 +0000

There’s an awful lot of seeing the past through rose-colored glasses here. Everything said above about the New Borders is true. But, the Old Borders was a place where GMs and supervisors had absolute discretion to do and say as they pleased with employees they did not like. So out of control that only after continuous complaints would they — not reprimand or fire — but transfer a manager TO ANOTHER STORE. Wrong sex, wrong sexuality, wrong politics, wrong religion and it was a place as irrational and hostile and self-destructive as it is now. Remember, the company went through numerous reorganizations and a revolving door of presidents — none of which did anything to deal with problems that are structural to the book business (which has its own biases). Many of you are finding out what it was like for those of us in the only true minority at Borders. People knew how hard I worked and knew how I was being treated and looked the other way. I stood up for myself and I stood without sympathy from the caring crowd. Spare me your self pity. The corporate culture at Borders has always been harsh and mean spirited. Borders now has contempt for all its employees. The chickens have come home to roost for the enlightened ones. More to the point, this is a company that is in permanent decline and has been for over a decade. And simply won’t admit it. If not for the financial collapse, the stores would have closed a year ago. When the economy recovers, Borders will be sold or dismantled. Those are the choices. And who the hell would want Borders?

By: Sunflower Scoop

Sunflower Scoop — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:51:44 +0000

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By: dantheman

dantheman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:28:48 +0000

Look anytime they force me to sign something they hardly look at your signature. I put Micky Mouse…classic. Don’t sign your name. I remember when I read what that DM Juilo sent to his GM”S on this site..I can see Border’s flipping out. They should have fired that guy. Don’t sign anything or let’s sign fake names. Or let them fire me, I would probably make more unemployed anyways.

By: brian smarts

brian smarts — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:34:04 +0000

I can’t remember if I even signed one of those. At my store they ran up to you on the floor “Here sign this?” So here we are helping customers and stressed out so we would sign.
They are insane. They are treating their employee’s like criminals. Look you want to pay your employee’s a wage that even in the 70’s they could not live off..they are not paying a wage even someone in college can survive..then you will get what you paid for.
They are crazy. I never understand how certain employee’s can side with the managers. Yuck.

By: Paul Riddell

Paul Riddell — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:11:16 +0000

Well, whaddayaknow: Borders stole every last one of the morale building exercises used when Jerry Junkins ran Texas Instruments. (For those of you not familiar with Mr. Junkins’s story, he pulled the same exact series of stunts through the late Eighties and early Nineties, and died before he could drive the company into bankruptcy. The fact that Southern Methodist University named its technology school after Junkins makes locals in the Dallas area wonder when SMU is going to open the Madalyn Murray O’Hair Institute for Biblical Studies or the Jeffrey Dahmer Culinary School.) While I doubt that Borders will see a new incarnation of TI’s “Mad Shitter”, I am waiting for its employees to look at these new tattletale managers and start muttering “Let’s frag the lieutenant”.

By: Lk smith

Lk smith — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:19:24 +0000

Borders has been for some time a really, really terrible place to work. Having worked for borders during the great times when we actually were a serious bookstore for serious readers (and spenders) and the just insane, surreal, bizarre times like now where we are on credit hold with major publishers, employees are intimidated, sections are being moved around for no reason, etc, etc. Things are just ridiculously bad there. Note to Ron Marshall (CEO) just saying Borders is a serious bookstore doesn’t mean Borders is a serious bookstore. That ship sailed long ago and you my man have now sunk it.

By: bordersemployee

bordersemployee — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:10:02 +0000

Yes, I have signed the no-blogging contract. It says essentially what Susie above has mentioned. What she doesn’t say is that management makes every effort to give you the impression that what you’re signing prohibits any blogging about Borders AT ALL.

So why doesn’t the contract say that? I don’t know, but I imagine there is a limit to how much they can infringe on your first amendment rights.

And whoever posted that they are not attempting to enforce the contract is wrong. People have been fired over things they have written.

The contract came about BTW because somebody over on the Live Journal Iworkatborders blog posted an email sent from a district manager named Julio to his GMs (the email was a disgrace and very embarrassing to Borders). That, obviously, was an internal email, and I don’t know whether those are considered privileged information under the law.