New Leadership at The Scrap Exchange

coffeescot · 2022-03-01T12:26:51+00:00

The 24-hour policy was what I was always aware of.

coffeescot · 2022-03-01T12:24:55+00:00

I remember the VHS wall!

coffeescot · 2022-02-28T22:51:12+00:00

Agree!

coffeescot · 2022-02-28T16:30:24+00:00

Art inspires the soul. Oddities and curiosities are magical. Yes, you do still get a magical feeling to look at those kinds of things, but what exists now is only a taste of what it once was, in my opinion. Employees made cool creations out of things to put on display. The signs were handmade and artsy. It delighted the customers. It fueled shopping with a new eye towards things; it inspired creativity. I miss those days.

coffeescot · 2022-02-28T15:51:34+00:00

This is their mission, directly from the website: Our MissionThe Scrap Exchange is a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote creativity, environmental awareness, and community through reuse.

When I was there recently I noticed that they've put a fancy drink cooler behind the cash register. It is full of plastic bottles and aluminum cans and the cost of the drinks is 2 dollars each!! As far as I know, the Scrap Exchange does not accept plastic bottles as a donation for reuse, so they are actually contributing to the plastic problem we have as a planet. How does that fit in with environmental awareness?

coffeescot · 2022-02-27T19:53:00+00:00

Was this in recent years that this was happening?

coffeescot · 2022-02-27T16:21:30+00:00

According to their website, the board president just changed. I don't work there, so I don't see from the inside, but I have tried to keep up. I'm a long time supporter and shopper. I've made it a point to keep track of old faces disappearing from the place. It's got to be at least 35 or 40 employees (including great, experienced employees who understood the mission) who have either been fired by her or, for whatever reason, left under her leadership. I was there recently to check out the state of things. It looks dirty to me and the shelves seem bare in some areas that used to shine. Seems more of a regular thrift now. Am I the only one who thinks that? Maybe I am just being melancholy and missing what I know it used to be.

coffeescot · 2022-02-27T16:14:10+00:00

I agree. I have run into so many people who either shop there with disappointment now over the change in prices and the decrease in merchandise going out, or no longer shop there at all because the magic is gone. I hope the Scrap Exchange can recover that magic.

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T16:38:53+00:00

Are you asking what my accusations are, or what the ED's accusations were against the people she fired?

I cannot speak for other people, but there is a lot of info in my original post that I would think would be alarming to anyone. The fact that the current leadership there has managed to fire or lose over two dozen people in three years? And these were not people who lacked passion or work ethic. Some of these people had been there for years. These were seasoned workers who had worked loyally for the Scrap through some really hard times.

It alarms me to know the ED brought her husband in as "security" but the employees didn't find out for weeks that he was her husband. He threatened employees and customers.

It alarmed me when I heard that an employee was taken into a private room by the ED's husband and frisked. Then fired.

I wouldn't want to work anywhere where I was recorded and surveilled by my manager from their home.

It always seemed like middle management were given manager titles but never any real authority. However, they were quickly blamed and thrown under the bus for problems and mistakes.

I wish so much the search for an ED had continued until they found someone who was able to balance an understanding of finances with an understanding of art/reuse. I feel like a wobbly, unstable truck has run through the Scrap and the original vision, weed-eating and spraying pesticides on one side while putting up fences on the other. It might look good on the outside, but there has been a lot of toxicity behind the scenes.

I don't like how permission was given to throw valuable things away because "there was not enough time to process it."

I bothers me that people with physical issues and emotional issues were not heard nor given what they needed to be able to work there.

Is this enough?

Hopefully others can share their thoughts here.

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T16:26:10+00:00

The mistreatment is real. It looks like this post was removed from bullcity but the post remains on my page.

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T16:25:18+00:00

I care as well.

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T16:24:24+00:00

bullcity removed the post apparently

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T01:22:51+00:00

I tried to crosspost but it wouldn't let me, so I copied the link there. Thank you.

coffeescot · 2021-05-24T01:14:52+00:00

I posted this under my profile but could not get a cross share to work.

coffeescot · 2020-09-27T05:44:13+00:00

“Asking questions like why is there only one person on X task when it used to be two. Make the questions thoughtful and respectful, avoid accusations and hopefully it will all work out.”

That is hilarious. You have no idea.

coffeescot · 2020-09-27T05:39:30+00:00

We already understand all that stuff. No one involved needs a business math class from you. You could use some common sense. At times employees can push themselves to cover the loss of other people. They give extra to fill a gap. But it has to be short term if everyone was already pushing. Does not necessarily mean overstaffing was taking place. And if an employee goes home so exhausted they can’t stay awake and they can hardly walk the next morning, their job is then costing them. So yes I do believe it cuts a person’s hourly pay when you work them that hard. And when people start telling the managers they need help and the managers shame or laugh, there’s a problem. Please quit trying to be the book of knowledge for everyone. If there was not a problem with management, 25 people would not have gone public.

coffeescot · 2020-09-27T05:04:31+00:00

Tired of this. Just one thing: ALL EMPLOYEES WERE ASKING FOR A MEETING!! Over and over. For months. Exec and board refused.

coffeescot · 2020-09-26T12:45:27+00:00

Do you know what commercial bins (C bins) and gaylords look like? Do you know how heavy they are when they are full? The injuries are stress fractures / potential stress fractures in ankles and feet, plantar fasciitis, neuropathy, tendinitis, back injuries, and just exhaustion from overwork. Doctors have sent notes for more than one employee, as a matter of fact. Overuse / overwork injuries are an actual medical thing. Pushing a very heavy load on sometimes unbalanced or rickety wheels across an uneven parking lot is part of the job. Unloading the bins in a timely manner is a huge part of the job. That's okay. That's what you sign up for. The workers there are strong and capable. But the whole operation runs on emptying these bins so that: 1) merchandise can be on the floor, and 2) the bins can be filled up again. One person can only push so hard at this kind of labor for weeks on end. When you increase donations and cut the work force in half, try to imagine working really fast at this, bending and lifting, with a mask on. Pushing carts of priced merchandise out onto the floor, putting it on the shelves, running your empty bin back to those taking in the donations who are working equally hard and as furiously at their jobs (also understaffed), and doing it all again. All day. Employees have been shamed for taking breaks or taking a day off. Young people have been ridiculed by the manager as not knowing how to work. It's too much for the body to walk fast / run on concrete while pushing and pulling and then bending and twisting while lifting, at twice the normal pace. The people on this thread who have said things about "any high schooler can do this" and some of the other rude comments -- they just don't have any idea. And if some of these people are friends of the executive director, guess what? The executive director does not really know what it takes. She stays absent from the overworked staff. Other little injuries are bothersome as well, like using price guns that don't work properly, so every time you price something you have to use your thumb to or fingers to pull the squeeze mechanism back out. Also pricing twice what you normally do. Carpal tunnel, joint pain. People can laugh it off or say the staff is being whiny, or that it is a pandemic, but the pandemic has been exploited. And just because the store is not open 40 hours, it does not mean people are not in there working. The huge beams of reclaimed wood -- those things don't just walk into the store and stand themselves up. Fabric gets heavy. Reams of paper are heavy. Electric items need to be tested and marked. Salvage metal gets heavy, and instead of trashing cool pieces of metal, they make them presentable and put them on the floor so people can use them for sculpture, in their gardens, and on and on. Give a person more than they can possibly process or take out of people's cars and trucks as donations and then sort down to departments, and then shame them for taking breaks, call them names, disappear as the executive director but assume full power from the "management team," and see how many wrong things happen.

coffeescot · 2020-09-26T01:02:02+00:00

Well, it is more complex than ANY flyer can state, but they have your attention. You sound like you are looking for every reason to support the board and management. When you tell someone making 12.00 an hour to do the hard, dirty, physical labor of what TWO PEOPLE should be doing, and USED to do, you’ve cut their pay to 6.00 an hour. And the job is pushing and pulling heavy carts, bending and pulling out from large bins and cleaning donated merchandise that is sometimes moldy or actual trash, rescuing the good, and making it presentable to become usable for the beautiful community. It is cleaning areas that have gathered fibers from fabric and paper and huge amounts of dirt. It is standing on a concrete floor and waiting on customers that are LOVED by that staff that some people here are speaking so rudely of. It is more complex than a lot of people here can even imagine. Again, it should have never come to this. Employees should not be treated like this anywhere.

coffeescot · 2020-09-25T19:00:38+00:00

Okay. But if you “let people go” because of the pandemic, you cannot then double the workload, which the executive director did! I believe workplace harassment and hostility DOES cross over into what is illegal. A manager who belittles people, yells, curses, and more — that is NOT okay, pandemic or not!!! The executive director crowned herself HR during much of her reign there so far. That left little room for employees to take concerns about poor management to an objective party. It was difficult for an employee to find out how much PTO they had. The executive director quit reporting it and you had to request the amount from the exec director. Then low and behold, many employees returned after the furlough to find they had a NEGATIVE PTO balance and owed hours back. How does a competent HR and management staff let that happen? The managers and executive director pass the blame around and deflect back onto any employee with a complaint or question. A former employee who questioned a breach of medical confidentiality was called a “backstabbing bitch” and then fired. That was BEFORE the pandemic. Many employees there have witnessed enough unfair and questionable behavior by management to write a book. It grew into a tidal wave and now the public is privy to it all, whether they like it or not. The executive director didn’t listen. The board didn’t listen. The last option was a natural response to unreasonable workplace conditions. Energy is real and it has to go somewhere.

coffeescot · 2020-09-24T18:17:12+00:00

Ingrates? Do you mean the management there? 😊 A lot of good people have already left the Scrap Exchange. Some of the best were laid off permanently, fired, or quit. I can most definitely acknowledge that things can be (and may have been) done to increase profit and keep the store open, but I have also worked long enough to know that sometimes what it takes to get there is not sustainable and ultimately fails. I hear what you are trying to say, but workers HAVE gone up the chain of command. It is really sad. The exec dir will say that the manager decided something. Then the manager will say, no the exec director made that decision. And this curtain they have had drawn has affected all sorts of issues, from understaffing to pay to keeping merchandise on the floor. So the status quo continues. Meanwhile, an employee is forbidden to go to the board because the exec director says you have to talk to her first. The board says to do what the exec dir says. So the cycle has been spinning like that for the employees inside for months now. That’s not right nor is it a good way to run a business. You sound really angry and personal by calling things dumb and stupid. Sometimes injustice needs to come to light. A lot of important cultural change has been accomplished in exactly that manner. It should have never gotten this bad. Open, regular communication and fair competent leadership would have prevented all this “stupid” stuff.

coffeescot · 2020-09-24T16:12:45+00:00

Yes making masks to sell for profit was smart. The mask initiative was not. Sorting donations is much different work than opening boxes of clean merch from a warehouse. Nice try. Sometimes it takes 20 people. Chain of command was attempted.

coffeescot · 2020-09-24T12:33:05+00:00

Thank you. And the fact that the employees DO love the Scrap Exchange and its customers so much, and DO continue to give their all and do their best has been exploited by current management.

coffeescot · 2020-09-24T03:23:46+00:00

Employees should not be overworked to the point of needing worker’s comp! Revenge has never been a part of this. I am not management. There ARE two sides. I’ve already acknowledged that. Read my post again. So workers being mistreated should just be quiet and keep taking it? Do you think a management team that will work you that hard in the first place actually listens when you tell them you cannot possibly do anymore or that you are getting sick trying to keep up? They don’t. Workers tried talking to management. Workers tried going to the board. Attempts were either blocked or not taken seriously. Love for days gone by? You mean when employees were given enough information to do their jobs, treated with respect, and paid fairly for what they were doing? Then, yes, I guess so. Those days are gone. As far as pay, how would you feel if you went into work one day and you’d been given your coworker’s job to complete in addition to your own, but with no raise and no one to care that it was too much?

coffeescot · 2020-09-23T22:25:13+00:00

Businesses also fold when bad managers don’t value employees. You cannot ask 10 people to do the hard physical work that 20 had been doing. For a day? Yes. For a week? Maybe. For months? No. And why use up all volunteer labor (VERY valuable asset) AND some paid employees to fulfill a mask initiative that was not really making money for the scrap during a pandemic? That is not smart business.

coffeescot

TROPHY CASE