{"id":2256,"date":"2016-04-27T08:06:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/carls-junior-blockbuster-employees-transition-after-closures\/"},"modified":"2016-04-27T08:06:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:06:44","slug":"carls-junior-blockbuster-employees-transition-after-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/carls-junior-blockbuster-employees-transition-after-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl’s Junior, Blockbuster employees transition after closures"},"content":{"rendered":"

KENAI \u2014<\/strong> It was business as usual at the Carl\u2019s Jr. in Kenai for the last few weeks before it closed \u2014 except no meat was coming in on the delivery trucks.<\/p>\n

Employees were still taken by surprise when they were informed the store would be closing. The company had not communicated with employees before abruptly informing them that the store would close, and no reason has been given since for the decision.<\/p>\n

Operations continued for a few more shifts as supplies dwindled. Workers got creative as they ran out of ingredients, said Michelle Miller, a former employee. Customers, especially regulars, started noticing and expressed frustration for the employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers were really kind of upset, because this was kind of a gathering place for people,\u201d Miller said. \u201cA lot of people came in and had breakfast there. A lot of customers expressed frustration with the company. They asked us like, \u2018What are you gonna do? Do you have plans?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Managers at the store told the employees that they would get good recommendations if they stayed throughout the last few shifts. Some stayed and some chose to leave and look for other jobs, said Sammy Doughty, a former manager. Another former manager, who transferred to a different branch in Fairbanks, offered to take some employees with him, she said.<\/p>\n

She said she wished the company had been up front with the employees before shutting the store down.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us would have stayed till the day we closed,\u201d Doughty said. \u201cBut at least give us fair warning. Some of them had kids. To be suddenly out of work, that\u2019s not right. That\u2019s not how you treat employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative from Carl\u2019s Jr.\u2019s corporate office did not return multiple requests for comment on the store closure.<\/p>\n

Doughty has since found work at the Chevron station in Soldotna, which she said she enjoys. Job-hunting is hard on the Kenai Peninsula, where there are fewer businesses that may be hiring than in a larger city like Anchorage, and those who are hiring may make fewer accommodations for employees needing to address personal health and different schedules, she said.<\/p>\n

Miller had another job at Walmart while she worked at Carl\u2019s Jr., and had that position to fall back on when the business closed. She said she stays in touch with several other employees and sees them at work occasionally, catching up on how they are managing.<\/p>\n

Lisa Hinchman, a Kenai Central High School student, said she didn\u2019t want to go through the hassle of applying for new jobs when Carl\u2019s Jr. closed. She said she would rather focus on graduation, just a few months away, and then apply for jobs when she graduates.<\/p>\n

She said she enjoyed the fast-paced environment of working at Carl\u2019s Jr. and the variety of tasks she carried out during each shift. One downside was balancing a late shift with schoolwork, she said.<\/p>\n

The employees at Carl\u2019s Jr. were close and stay in touch, she said. For her part, she\u2019s taking a laid-back approach to it and adapting to the reality of change, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might as well start taking adulthood\u2019s punches,\u201d Hinchman said.<\/p>\n

Rachel O\u2019Brien, the regional manager at the Peninsula Job Center in Kenai, said the center worked with several employees who were laid off after Carl\u2019s Jr. closed. It\u2019s hard on families to have to rely on unemployment after the loss of a job, and when there is little warning, they may not have time to apply for the benefits and thus may experience a lapse in income while waiting for the benefits to come through, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing more devastating to a home than yesterday making $50,000 and today (to say) \u2018I am dependent on unemployment insurance,\u2019\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

When notified in advance, Job Center staff will organize what are called rapid response worker meetings to help identify training that might make someone out of work more marketable, or show them how to apply for unemployment, ideally before they are laid off, O\u2019Brien said. Addressing layoffs in advances helps \u201ckeep employees grounded,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In the past with large layoffs the Job Center has even organized job fairs, which was successful when the Lowe\u2019s closed down about three years ago, she said.<\/p>\n

Across the parking lot from where the old Carl\u2019s Jr. store stands empty, another empty store has a smoother transition story to tell. Just a few weeks before Carl\u2019s Jr. shut its doors, managers at Blockbuster announced the Kenai location would be closing and the store would host a closeout sale for a month. <\/p>\n

Customers flooded the store and bought out DVDs before many of the employees transferred to the company\u2019s Soldotna location, working shifts in both places before going to Soldotna full-time, said Kevin Daymude, the general manager for all the Blockbuster stores in Alaska.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a hard store for me to close,\u201d Daymude said. \u201cThe store was just a nice store. Nice and clean, great location.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it was not doing as well as the Soldotna store, so the company decided to close it. Most of the stock was sold before the store closed its doors, Daymude said.<\/p>\n

The transition has gone well, he said. Employees are learning the layout of the Soldotna store and were able to get acquainted with the store before moving over there by working one shift at Soldotna and then one at Kenai, he said.<\/p>\n

Justin Trickel, one of the employees who transitioned to the Soldotna store, said he felt it went well and he\u2019s getting through the learning curve of working there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe setup is different, and where movies are categorized is a little different between what Kenai was and what Soldotna is,\u201d Trickel said. \u201cGetting used to all that is a little rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the customers have not said anything about the Kenai store closing, Trickel said. He said he is happy to be working there.<\/p>\n

Daymude said the number of stores closing in Kenai may be an indicator of the city\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many stores closing in Kenai,\u201d Daymude said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of concerning. We love it down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Kelly Sullivan contributed reporting. Reach her at kelly.sullivan@peninsulaclarion.com. Reach Elizabeth Earl at elizabeth.earl@peninsulaclarion.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KENAI \u2014 It was business<\/a> as usual at the Carl\u2019s Jr. in Kenai for the last few weeks before it closed \u2014 except no meat was coming in on the delivery trucks. Employees were still taken by surprise when they were informed the store would be closing. The company had not communicated with employees before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":2257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/434"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}