Zales Fires Top Earning Saleswoman Because She Needs Surgery
A saleswoman for Zales who had earned 5 diamonds and almost a dozen commendations over the past 4 1/2 years—she's the area's first employee to earn a million dollars in sales in one year—was terminated last month, one week after she requested time off to have surgery for a life-threatening aortic aneurysm.
"I told my manager I can't get upset because it could explode any minute," she said. "I typed up a letter asking for time off and guidance from human resources."
One week later, on March 14, she was asked to attend a meeting with a new regional manager.
"He said, 'You're terminated,'" Camilleri recalled. "I tried to keep myself very calm because I knew something could happen to me. I said, 'You're joking - you've never been in my store.' He said, 'It's the best thing.'"
Even worse, Zales dragged its feet on providing the paperwork needed for Rose Camilleri to start her COBRA coverage, forcing her to postpone the surgery. When her son emailed asking them to speed things up, they responded, "Well, if the surgery was rescheduled, then it's probably not a life-or-death situation."
Update: twophrasebark emailed us a link to the Zales online Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which we really wish the regional manager had bothered to read:
Take a Common Sense Test
A good test for judging the employee's conduct under
Zale's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics is:
If you would be embarrassed for your supervisor or co-workers to read about your conduct on the front page of tomorrow morning's newspaper or if the conduct is potentially harmful to the company…
Don't Do It
"Star saleswoman, facing health crisis, axed" [recordonline.com] (Thanks to Trish!)
(Photo: NickStarr)
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Comments:
wow, that's ASS.
Ohhh ho ho! I can't wait to hear how much worse this can get. It's already shaping up to be terrible for Zales. Unless there is information being omitted.
Yea, that's kind of how it goes in retail. I've heard similar stories from A LOT of companies.
I strongly suggest that anyone who feels as deeply offended by this as I do should print this story out, and tape it up on, or near your local Zales. Don't just shake your fist at your monitor, do something.
WoW, way to go Zales for not keeping her claim and almost killing her.
I overall hate the diamond industry...somehow paying 5 cents a day to people who dig them up and then increase its price by thousands is not very romantic to me...seeing stories like this makes me hope for the Apocalypse (and soon) considering we have sunk so low as a race.
I'll gladly protest my local Zales this weekend if it will help put pressure on these [epithet] bloodsuckers.
Screw Zales. I'm going to Jared's.
Glad I got my diamond engagement ring from Adiamor rather than Zales or a similar retail ripoff artist. They can keep their overpriced crap.
This is so reprehensible. It is so sad a company would do this to a employee who, based on her condemnations from the company, went above and beyond making money for them. Too bad their contact page doesn't list an executive e-mail address. I would love to give them a piece of my mind. Zales = Fail.
way to toss the golden goose
@Sheila Cook: Executive Offices:
901 W. Walnut Hill Lane
Irving, TX 75038-1003
972-580-4000
Investor Relations:
901 W. Walnut Hill Lane
MS 6B-0
Irving, TX 75038-1003
972-580-5047
E-mail: ir@zalecorp.com
That's all I got. Can anyone dig up names?
I agree 100%. There's a Zales on my way home from work and I will do just that.
Good call to action.
I wonder how corporate would feel about a regional manager firing someone who made that much in sales for the company?
And how, in this day and age, do companies think they can get away with this sort of shit? For whatever more it might have cost their company to insure her, they're now going to lose more due to bad publicity. Never mind the sales that she's not going to be making for them. I hope she gets better and goes to work for the competition.
Isn't this against the FMLA? And also any "temporary disability" acts?
Chairman John B. (Jack) Lowe Jr.
Age 69
CEO and Director Neal Goldberg
Age 49, $572,788 salary, $1,378,125 bonus
President Theophlius (Theo) Killion
Age 57, $289,808 salary, $581,000 bonus
SVP, Interim CFO, and Controller Cynthia T. Gordon
Age 44
SVP and CIO Mark A. Stone
Age 50
EVP and Chief Stores Officer William Acevedo
Age 42
EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer Mary P. Kwan
Age 55
EVP and Chief Marketing and E-Commerce Officer Steven (Steve) Larkin
Age 50, $298,818 salary
EVP and Chief Sourcing and Supply Chain Officer Gilbert P. (Gil) Hollander
Age 55, $410,869 salary
SVP Human Resources Mary Ann Doran
Age 53
SVP Shared Services, Loss Prevention, and Security Stephen C. Massanelli
Age 52
SVP Supply Chain Susann C. Mayo
Age 56
SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Hilary Molay
Age 54
SVP Real Estate David Rhodes
Age 55
VP Quality Assurance Eric Christopher
VP and Treasurer David H. Sternblitz
VP; Divisional Merchandise Manager, Diamond Fashion and Anniversary Bands Alexandra P. Sweeney
Manager Investor Relations Rhett Butler
This is one of those things that's almost too absurd to believe. How could they possibly think this is going to end well? Unless there is a piece of this story missing about how the lady stole tons of jewelery, Zales is completely, COMPLETELY Fu@&ed!
They might as well just start writing the zeros on the check now.
wow, this is just terrible. I almost went shopping at Zales once, but now, will never.
I really hope I never get an aortic aneurysm. I'm so high-strung all the time, it'd just go POOF!
Yea, I HAD a friend who owned an Apple store (long before iPod came around) who fired his best sales person because, get this... she made too much money! I kid you not. His thinking was, he was the only retailer in town and by firing her, he'd get to keep all of her clients anyway and not have to keep paying her commission. Instead, the woman got a deal with an out-of-town Apple store and served her clients from her home! HA! HA! HA! Zales and Monster sux!
If this woman works 200 days a year, she's bringing in $5000/day. I work in sales management, and if a top performer leaves the company, it will take YEARS, if ever, to get back the investment.
You can always tell the quality of management by how they treat the sales people. If the company is smart, they treat their sales people like royalty. If they treat them like shit, good sales people will leave and the company will suffer. Look at Circuit City as an example.
Step 1: Get surgery
Step 2: Get better
Step 3: Get lawyer
Step 4: Profit!
@What The Geek: Yeah, I plan to do so this weekend. Good call. Companies shouldn't do things like this and expect that consumers won't care or notice how they take care of their employees.
@exploded: Of course, that's AIG's excuse for paying all those bonuses out of the bailout money: We gotta keep them or they will leave!
For those of us in Canada, we should be boycotting Peoples and Mappins.
@diasdiem: many many MANY companies are run by people accustomed to doing business in a pre-internet world. In other words, they don't realize just how important word of mouth has become.
20 years ago, this story would have gotten a tremendous amount of local interest, but it likely wouldn't have made national headlines. Her tale may have been told on the local 6 O'clock news, or in the local paper, but it never would have gone beyond that. As such, corporate would have been able to brush it under the rug and walk away.
With the internet comes a new, speedy way for info to spread nationally, or even internationally for that matter. There's no brushing it under the rug - it's there in black and white for all to see, and a lot of higher ups in a lot of companies don't know how to deal with that. In short, old world business doesn't work in the new world.
As I said above, if it makes you mad, print this story out, and hang it up by your local zales.
This is horrible. I love my Zale's sales rep. I have bought my engagement ring, my and my wife's wedding bands, and innmerable small mommentos and holiday gifts. I have probably given them well over $15,000 worth of my money in the past few years.
My sales rep is very kind and bends over backwards for me. She visited, personally, 5 different stores to find the perfect diamond to set in my fiance's engagment ring, and then gave us an excellent deal on it to boot. She knows me, she knows my now wife, she knows and loves our daughter. It will be rather heartbreaking to stop in and tell her how sorry I am that I can no longer shop there.
That said, this woman should fight this. It is attrocious and Zale's has no ground to stand on.
@diasdiem:
Circuit City thought they could and look how it turned out for them. With more and more Americans pinching pennies we won't put up with companies that pull these stunts.
as if I didn't have enough reason not to buy diamonds.
This makes me even happier that I prefer books to overpriced, shiny rocks. I hate this corporate, back-stabbing crap.
@vastrightwing: they fired* me from Apple because I was taking too many sick days (about 5 in a month when I was very ill), which "proved that I didn't want to be there."
* = quit or we'll fire you
@What The Geek: I was considering printing copies for the employees there. After all they're the ones most affected by this.
The commendations and commissions paid clearly document her performance, and the timing makes it clear this was based on her health. Zales has violated the law, and any competent lawyer will get her a million dollar settlement before going to trial.
The real trick will be making sure that the career the managers involved comes to a screeching halt.
I'm NOT blaming the OP whatsoever.
However when I have needed time off for surgery/illness, I've learned not to tell them what I have. It's none of their business. If they want a doctor's note that I can not work, then that note will say "The_IT_Crone is unable to work Date X to Date Y."
If I ever bought jewelery like this, I'd stop by a Zales and tell them that this case lost my business.
Anyone who likes diamonds is tacky and unoriginal, imo.
Is it too late to nominate Zales for the Worst Company in America?
In retail many companies consider you to be expendable, no matter how good of an employee you are.
@exploded: I'm not sure if Circuit City is a good example. They didn't so much treat them like shit as they more or less showed them the door.
"treating like shit" to me is like terrible HR policies, cutting perks/bennies, or denying bonus/raises for bad reasons. Saying "take this huge pay cut, or leave", goes way beyond, as Circuit City had already eliminated those positions internally anyway.
@vastrightwing:
short, short, short sightedness. especially the inability to anticipate the immediate gain versus greater loss in the long run over bad publicity
I'm going to email this to my mom. She shops there frequently. I'm sure she'd like to know about this.
...Isn't this illegal...?
I hope & pray this woman will be able to get her surgery soon (if not already) then work on taking Zales to the cleaners!
You can count me as a person that will never, ever shop in Zales again. I've already passed this story on to every friend and family member in my address book (~130).
I hope Zales takes it in the back door over this.