SPAR dumped me

yanknreb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When the SPAR system took over MFI on April 30,
> all of my former permanent shops were removed
> (with no notice) and were assigned to other SPAR
> reps. BUT, there were low-balled shops at the
> nearest department store to my home automatically
> assigned to me, with packages already in the mail
> and on the way, without my agreement to do the
> shops.
>
> I called the SPAR DM and said I had not agreed to
> do these shops, and I was told they would be
> removed from my account. Several days later, they
> were still there, so I wrote to SPAR and asked
> them to remove all assignments "for now" and asked
> why shops were automatically assigned, but no
> emails alerting me to that fact, or phone calls,
> were given. This is the response I received...
>
> "I have removed all work from your page. I will
> remove you from SPARs system as we do not call in
> advance to ask, we assign to your area. As for the
> message board we do not send out email messages
> alerting you to read the message board. Thank
> You"
>
> GEE.... thanks. 13 years of doing work for MFI
> directly down the drain, as I'm sure they will now
> block me from all future shops with SPAR.

I know the guidelines say, "Add a positive contribution to the community." but I prefer honesty. The purple hole has to earn "positive". It sounds like the successors have the same attitude I experienced.

Lucky you! If they will not let you work for them. In my experience NOT merchandising for the Purple hole is NOT a great loss. They lied to me twice. After the first experience I asked when was the last time anyone "maintained" the display. I told them I hope they are not surprised when I told that I did not believe them. I was trying to brush them off. I told them I learned their definition of "EASY" and I will not do another "Easy" merchandising shop for them.

It sounded like the scheduler was desperate. The scheduler pleaded with me, telling me it would not be like last time. What does the scheduler know? The Scheduler did not visit the location. I told the scheduler I would not do the assignment if the time is capped or if they would not pay if the assignment was not finished. I would not be responsible if items were not shipped and if holes were left in the display unless they sent an e-mail telling me to disregard the planogram and fill the holes. You can not stock them if the company did not ship the items.

I told them what I wanted for five hours of work, which is what it took to do their "two hour" capped job the last time. I asked for enough to cover the loss that I took the previous experience. They agreed (after speaking with a supervisor and calling me back) to pay the amount I asked for.

They still insisted the display was recently serviced. I added money to make sure they would reject my proposal. I hit every point they lied about the previous time so they knew I knew they were liars. I thought they would turn me down when I told them what I wanted. Apparently the company wanted that store serviced desperately like they would lose the client if they did not get it done.

This location I serviced went out of business when the chain closed many of their stores. I only performed that assignment that one more time and found the same mess that they said was recently serviced. They had other locations they wanted me to do but I refused them. I do not know if SPAR has the same integrity or lack of integrity, but it sounds like they are still abusing the people they hire to work for them. Again, LUCKY YOU, you do not have to take their nickels, dimes and lies.

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I too was doing several jobs in a small rural area. Good luck spar-on filling these reset and inventories. still NO response today after multiple attempts. For you that are doing spar shops, you apparently were already affiliated with spar? Thanks for the name tag spar!
Jp99,

It could be a blessing, I was MFI then moved to SPAR and assigned two stores, we will just refer to them as Tall-Bart.
Well yesterday I was there from 10 am to 6pm. First was Balloons, I got these down pretty good so 1 hour is the norm. Then a vacuum reset, pull old displays put up new, multiple trips to the crusher and claims cage took 3 hours. Then look for the man of steel pallet train, found it needs to be set by today but Mgr say's nope not till Friday. Have to see how SPAR reacts to that. Ran out to the car for quick bite then back to store for a 100 item grocery price audit 2.75 hours.
I don't even know what I make anymore.
Does SPAR required merchandisers to submit an invoice or does the District Manager take care of that? Where is the agreed upon pay posted?
If you think that you have been classified incorrectly IC vs Reg. Employee, I advsie you file with your local Labor Board. As long as you have good records (and it sounds as if most of you do) you may be entitled to compensation for wrongful dismissal/breach of contract etc....and if you meet the criteria of being a reg. w-2 employee, these comapaines will get LARGE FINES!! for not paying workmans comp, payroll taxes etc....
I say we IC's show these vultures a lesson!! I am...
SPAR is French. Not that that is an excuse. They are new to the U.S. I believe.
Take a look at Mosaic. I was also dropped unceremoniously from the aforementioned. Joined the Mosaic team which even pays mileage and time between stores. But no ICs. PT. So expectations are higher.
I'm glad I found this message board, because I have been very frustrated. All of my former Market Force/CFA jobs were wiped out too when the switch to SPAR occurred, with no advance notice. Not only unprofessional, but extremely uncourteous to just take away assignments with no explaination. It's not like I was doing a bad job or had any incomplete assignments - to the contrary, I always did my best, did it on time, and maintained a good relationship with clients. I contacted the DM, she told me that they assign tasks based on your geographical area, she asked me what areas was willing to travel to. I replied with the city names. Shortly thereafter, I received an email listing available stores for a certain project. I replied that I was interested in one. She replied, "Yours U will be able to see the job on your job board the fri prior to the job ty !". Well, I checked the message board regularly before that Friday, then repeatedly that Friday and Saturday and Sunday and the day of the job. Nothing. I figured she pulled it from me and assigned it to someone who had already been a SPAR employee. I felt like, and still do, that there was zero interest at all in keeping the MFI/CFA people. Eventually I emailed the DM again and asked her why I had no work. She answered that the job was postponed by the client. Really? Why weren't the merchandisers notified? There were 40 or 50 stores listed on that one email, to receive that project - and no one was apprised of the delay? Sounds like a lie or a really badly run organization. Or a bad DM. She gave me the same line again about how they assign work, asked what towns I wanted to work in and after I listed the towns (again) she replied that she would be sending out work the next day. Really? Nothing, and I am not suprised. I'm pretty disgusted. I'm still holding onto the belief that this is a bad DM, that one day she will leave and someone more competent will replace her, and that I will see some work from this company. The thing is, I did enjoy the jobs I selected with MFI/CFA. I work for other organizations as well, and understand that not every company gives its people the ability to select jobs, but can't fatham how I (and others) could just be drop kicked like we were. For the time being, I'm leaving my profile with SPAR up and will see what happens, if anything. Good luck to the rest of you!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2013 01:34PM by joanglennon.
I quit working for this company. I would email them and it would be DAYS before I would hear anything back or the manager would they would respond with "yes, please". I know they never even read the entire email, who knows what they would have been answering "yes, please" to. I figured out with the amount of time driving and receiving none of the "access pay" talked about for out of the way locations, I might be making 4-5 dollars and something per store with the fee for WC taken off. In fact I did receive a check for 4.62 one time.They could never schedule visits so you wouldn't have to keep running back, which in the age of 3.60 gallon gas is ridiculous. And, I know some jobs are to be done in certain weeks, but my assignments were either quarterly or monthly, so you would think one week in that quarter would coincide with the monthly work. I'm sticking with companies where I am an employee, not a IC. I can say though that I worked alot for Marketforce and they seemed to at least return emails and worked with you to get paid at least semi fairly. I was hesistant to quit, but now I feel that a weight has been taken off me.
I guess it depends on who you have as a DM. I've never had the issues with not getting timely answers to my emails, my DM and her assistant usually respond to text messages within a relatively quick timeframe. I've been treated with professionalism and respect even when asking what in retrospect were rather stupid questions (at least now that I know the answers to them and some time has passed since).
I have had nothing but a positive experience with Spar. I have made a couple of mistakes and they were corrected with no problem. Any time I needed help the company was always willing to listen and help.
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