Talk:Earl Scheib/Archives/2014

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As a well paid ex-Scheib employee I know all the Whos and Hows....209.244.31.188

Uncle Earls' Boys

Anytime you put a necktie on a Hillbilly, he thinks he is God. 63.215.29.47 00:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure beats the hell out of Maaco.

Clean it up

Yes, I am a grammar nazi. This article is plagued with unnecessary Capitalization and apostrophes in the wron'g places. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 07:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I did a bit of grammatical clean up, but maybe not to your standards. Deceglie 16:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

As en ex employee of Scheib with 10 plus years experience and an intimate knowledge of Scheib’s business, I have a unique view of what Scheib is and what Scheib is doing wrong. I also know that the posters here are either drunk or getting drunk. Poster #1 - name a who and a how (strangely sounds like a book from his childhood - Horton Hears a Who and a How). Poster #2 it didn't quite work that way for Lewis Paine (google the name, hint: Lincoln's assassination), but yeah it does beat Maaco, in some twisted and illogical way. Poster #3 - Get a life and stop drinking.

Scheib has deservedly achieved this history: 1. Delisting from the AMEX to "Pink Sheets". 2. Dropping from 300+ shops to barely 100 in less than a decade. 3. Maintaining the same high-level operations management while dropping 200 plus shops. 4. Selling off prime real estate in major markets to pretend to show a profit. 5. Computerizing their shops after all their competition had already done so - and spending million(s) to do so compared to their competition, again this is the result of high level management that should have been dispatched years ago.

The problem with Scheib's drop from Grace was not crappy quality or crappy paint. Joe Public will paint his car somewhere, and is always looking for a deal. No one expects perfection for bargain prices, but they do expect value for their money. Scheib's failure is the wrong headed principle of sticking with ignorant operations management for far too long. It is the board-of-directors mentality of, "He has been there and done that, so why don't we stick with him? By-the-way what is being served at the board of directors dinner?" Sticking with the obvious problem that has caused the situation is indefensible. No serious public ally traded company would have ever allowed normal operations to be fouled for so long without making sure heads would roll. Except at Scheib there was an uncanny loyalty for one man only. The result was the termination and churning of valuable shop and multi-site management to hide the fact the VP of operations didn't have a clue as to how to fix the problem.

Jim Smith, VP operations for the company over saw the drop from 300+ shops nationwide to 100 under his watch. How many officers of any company can claim such a track record and still keep his/her job? It is sad, really. The percentage of operating labor and operating paint costs wildly spiraled upwards under Smith's watch, and profits during that time sagged to such a level, massive closings and sell off of real estate was the result. A company can't have higher expenses with fewer sales and expect to survive. Of course, the operations VP shouldn't get bonuses and pay raises while the same was occurring, but that was not exactly the case. Smith reaped a huge windfall as the operations VP. Regular pay raises and bonuses were the norm for him. Layoffs were the norm for those shop employees whose livelihoods were the shops they worked in for years when those shops closed. Too bad those shops were closed, but what is bad for employees is good for the VP of operations. The evidence is available for everyone to see, after all Scheib was publicly traded on AMEX. The Securities and Exchange Commission demands members of the NYSE and AMEX keep and maintain extensive accounting records, which are available to the public. If you don’t believe me, you can look up these facts.

And Scheib was traded on AMEX, until the board and financial wizards for the company determined that under Sarbanes-Oxley, they could not determine if what the shops claimed they deposited in the bank was actually in the company's bank accounts. Interesting, eh? Since a great many of the transactions at the shops are conducted with cash there is a great deal of theft and monkey business. As a public ally listed company that is an Enron no-no. So, it is obvious Smith couldn't keep track of the beans, couldn't keep production flowing efficiently and he was rewarded for doing so. What did the shareholders get? Delisting from AMEX and listing on "Pink Sheets". A bit of a drop in prestige to say the least, eh? All to cover the asses of management that didn't have, and couldn't grasp, a clue.

After there was no real growth and only serious losses, and as the company faced dwindling same-shop sales (and dwindling shops) it should have been obvious to the board-of-directors to change course and go with another operations leader (or leaders – competition has a way of turning things around). Any rational person would realize they must toss out the one common denominator - Jim Smith. But no.

There has to be either of 2 or more reasons for the continuation for the support of VP Smith. A do nothing attitude from a board of directors who were given huge salaries to show up for a few meetings and granted blocks of stock to ease the shame of representing a loser like Scheib, or there was a mind-set of go along to get along and benefit from huge salaries and grants of stock for attending a few meetings - the shareholders be damned.

Respectfully, Pedantic101 - Ex Scheib Employee with 10+ years under his/her belt. Ciao.

Ps Please direct specific questions to this discussion board and I will be happy to try to answer them if I can.

-Is that You Jim? or maybe Charlie! 209.244.31.190 20:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It's wonderful that you've got such an insider's view. However, without citations, it's nothing but OR. Also, please try to avoid the slander (i.e. "drunk" comments).PacificBoy 16:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ciao

Whats up with that ? I thought Sonny Bonno was dead. You could very well be a man I knew from Youngstown., or perhaps Michigan. But that Ciao bullshit reminds me of Charlie.....Smith was actually directed by the California office to sell off those shops. Although many times his conversations didnt make sense leading those who knew him to surmise that he took to many blows to the head while practicing Karate. Smiths bonnuses were not that big. Dont try to call him a sapp however, as this is not something you would say to his face....{{.Fred Zepplin, Covington Kentucky...}}209.244.31.187 02:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Citations

Added a sources tag. Despite the use by a couple of ex-employees of this talk page as their personal meeting place, all of what they've said about the company and much of the material still in the article is OR. Statements such as:

"Scheib's policy of one-day service and production line techniques flew directly into the face of state-of-the-art professional auto body standards and caused the company to become a national joke."

"Scheib has been plagued with a high employee turnover rate due to the demands of attempting to paint up to five cars a day."

"The company's main criteria in hiring and promoting management trainees is based on sales skills only. Knowledge of auto body repair or painting techniques is not required."

and especially

"Today, Scheib's paints are equal in quality to the best automotive paints."

really need to be removed if they're not going to be cited.PacificBoy 16:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

"Fast Track Management"?

Is there a shred of evidence for the existence of this program outside of this article? Google it and all you get are reprints of this page. AdRock (talk) 16:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe thats because not very many accurate journals print anything about a looser company like Scheib. I know for a fact that this program existed because I was there to see it happen. There are many "facts" that are not cited in wikipedia articles yet are allowed to stand because a majority of "editors" (wanna-be authors) are in agreement with these so called facts. Try reading Schiebs stock reports that applauded the last remaining shop in northern Ohio for a giant sales increase, while never mentioning that this increase was the direct result of four other shops in the area which had closed. While there may be no citations concerning the abuse of underpaid employees, terrible working conditions, substandard autobody practices-such as filling rust holes with bondo-these conditions did(and still do) exist. At schieb all one had to do was sell, the bottom line being the weekly gross sales, providing quality work was immaterial as long as the money went into the bank. This is what makes Schieb a national joke. Scheibs motto was "be on time, work hard and dont worry about how much you make", while his employees who made his fortune for him worked in dust filled atmospheres without respirators or proper ventilation all for barely more than minimum wage. Youve got alot of balls doubting this situation when you were not even there.Kaltenborn (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH: Your detailed account of the Scheib corporate-level woes rings very true, at least to my ear (and I worked for two decades in a field where a principal aspect of the gig was discerning sincerity on merely the representations of strangers [i.e., I was a newstalk radio host]. I fully realize that some folks think nothing of corrupting Wikipedia by grinding their own axes under the guise of an encyclopedia entry, but your account doesn't strike me like that one whit. And because I was intrigued by Scheib as a kid without ever then having seen one of his outlets in person (because its franchises weren't in St. Louis where I was raised, at least on my side of the metro area), for I had seen Johnny Carson as Art Fern make fun of them through the late 60s, I was fascinated to read your history of this company. And I think I learned a bit more about capitalism in the process. So thanks much, Sir/Madam "Kaltenborn"! [signed] FLORIDA BRYAN — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.99.22.25 (talk) 03:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Look Out

I put back some of the dynamics taken out. Kaltenborn was right. Meanfrank (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2010 (UTC)