dysonman1
Well-known member
11 years ago this coming June, I was asked by tacony's vice president as well as the marketing director, to give up my vacuum store that I had successfully run for 21 years. I had a customer every ten minutes or so. They wanted me to bring my vast collection of vacuums to the factory in St. James, where they were converting the tornado shelter (about 2500 square feet) into a museum with themed vignette rooms. You can't have a museum without a collection. And you can't have a collection without a collector. I also brought my vast collection of paper (instruction books, brochures, repair manuals, ads, etc.). Period carpet was placed in the vignette rooms as well as period wall paper, etc. Shelves were made for the vacuums to be display in their 'decade' rooms.
So what does one do with a successful store? And a home that still had ten years of mortgage left? I called a good friend and former VCCC member and asked him if he wanted to buy a successful store. I needed to make sure the store continued with the same quality services, and I knew it would continue to be a money maker in the hands of the right person. He moved from Boston and bought my store for the amount of money in inventory and fixtures I had in it. Basically, for a song. He has made it even more successful today by adding central vacuums.
The first problem with tacony is they never gave me a raise in ten years. I was to run the museum, give tours, restore and display additional vintage cleaner as well as run the Factory Outlet Store (that's how they were going to make the money to pay me - this was not discussed at the time I was asked to work for them). I was paid well enough, as I had told them how much I made a year running my vacuum shop. But after ten years and thousands of vacuums sold, and many many thousands of tours of the museum, I still did not have a raise.
Because I collect vacuums, I paid a great deal of attention to the factory as I made friends with the employees and had to walk through the factory multiple times per day. I noticed the tremendous amount of rejected parts, brush rolls that were not balanced, motors that sparked up start up, etc. All chinese parts. The failure rate was high. I was friends with, and went to dinner once a week with, the ladies who ran Quality Control. We ate on Thursdays at the mexican restaurant across the street from the factory because it was half priced margaretta night on Thursdays. After a few, they always started to talk. That's when I began to notice things. About that time, they had problems with Radiance motors failing right on the assembly line. One caught on fire on the assembly line, and they threw it down the concrete steps with employees running after it with fire extinguishers. I was right there and saw it come down the steps. A good friend was working on the line at that time and took pictures on his phone of the flaming machine.
They hired a new HR director who did NOT like old vacuums, did not like vacuum collectors, thought the museum was stupid, and put an end to the annual collectors convention (she did it in writing which I had to sign "the company does not wish to be associated with those kind of people". "those people" are you all - vacuum collectors. They limited the tour time to two hours, so people who were collectors couldn't come and stay all day trying out the different machines.
Then, they decided to cut my pay. My pay, remember, had not increased in ten years. That was the last straw. I did the book work for the Factory Outlet Store, I knew how many vacuums I sold, and I knew how much money I brought in. Since I also was in charge of employee sales (they sold to the employees for the company's cost with no profit), I knew how much everything cost. I knew how much a hepa filter cost as well as what they sold it for (you wouldn't believe the markup).
Cutting my pay, refusing to allow collectors into the museum for more than a few hours, no conventions, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I was most fortunate to meet a woman who bought a Spiffy Maid broom vac from me - she owned a building 8 miles from the factory in the next large town over from tacony. The retail space was 3500 square feet, more than enough for a vacuum store as well as a Museum (the old vacuums were always mine). I quit on April 19 and told tacony to shove it. They chained the doors, keeping me from my collection for a week. Long story, but my boss almost lost her job letting me in on a Saturday morning to get my vacuums.
The actual reason for the Museum wasn't to show it off to the public. That's not why they conned me out of my store. It was to have a place for the engineering department to study the old machines, to be inspired by them when inventing new ones. The engineers are too hard headed to think they didn't already "know it all" and wanted nothing to do with the vintage models. Only once did an engineer take an interest in any of the machines (it was the air-way upright and he did design a modern prototype). So now I was stuck, my successful store had been sold, and I was just an employee of an uncaring company who used me as a trained monkey.
Now, I'm happy again. My vacuum shop is lucky enough to be located a few hundred feet from the entrance to WalMart on a very busy street. I'm the only vacuum shop for 100 miles around. And I don't carry Simplicity or Riccar. I carry Aerus Electrolux and trade in every Riccar and Simplicity I can. I already know most of my customers, either from giving them a tour of the museum or having sold them a machine. Tacony also donated thousands of vacuums to charitable organizations (the VFW hall every year had a benefit and tacony would always donate vacuums). They donated to every fundraiser, benefit, etc. And I had to hand out the donated machine as well as take a picture of the people who picked up the donation and I had to write a press release about the donation which the company put in newspapers across the county. So I spend most of my days selling bags and belts or doing repairs on these many thousands of machines I had a hand in placing with their current owners.
"There's a reason your grandmother had an Electrolux" has sold a ton of them for me already and I've traded in more than 75 Riccar and Simplicity vacuums in the 10 months we've been open. I refuse to work on TandemAir models. I hate them with a passion. All has turned out good, I enjoy my new store and come to work in the morning with a song in my heart. I live my life with "no regrets" (that's tattooed on my arm) but I wish I had known then what I know now - NEVER WORK FOR ANY CORPORATION. They don't care about anyone. If I had known then what I know now, I would still have made the move - as I never would have met my husband if I had not moved here. Six years together, four years married. In the end, It was worth it. But what hell I had to live through working for tacony.
So what does one do with a successful store? And a home that still had ten years of mortgage left? I called a good friend and former VCCC member and asked him if he wanted to buy a successful store. I needed to make sure the store continued with the same quality services, and I knew it would continue to be a money maker in the hands of the right person. He moved from Boston and bought my store for the amount of money in inventory and fixtures I had in it. Basically, for a song. He has made it even more successful today by adding central vacuums.
The first problem with tacony is they never gave me a raise in ten years. I was to run the museum, give tours, restore and display additional vintage cleaner as well as run the Factory Outlet Store (that's how they were going to make the money to pay me - this was not discussed at the time I was asked to work for them). I was paid well enough, as I had told them how much I made a year running my vacuum shop. But after ten years and thousands of vacuums sold, and many many thousands of tours of the museum, I still did not have a raise.
Because I collect vacuums, I paid a great deal of attention to the factory as I made friends with the employees and had to walk through the factory multiple times per day. I noticed the tremendous amount of rejected parts, brush rolls that were not balanced, motors that sparked up start up, etc. All chinese parts. The failure rate was high. I was friends with, and went to dinner once a week with, the ladies who ran Quality Control. We ate on Thursdays at the mexican restaurant across the street from the factory because it was half priced margaretta night on Thursdays. After a few, they always started to talk. That's when I began to notice things. About that time, they had problems with Radiance motors failing right on the assembly line. One caught on fire on the assembly line, and they threw it down the concrete steps with employees running after it with fire extinguishers. I was right there and saw it come down the steps. A good friend was working on the line at that time and took pictures on his phone of the flaming machine.
They hired a new HR director who did NOT like old vacuums, did not like vacuum collectors, thought the museum was stupid, and put an end to the annual collectors convention (she did it in writing which I had to sign "the company does not wish to be associated with those kind of people". "those people" are you all - vacuum collectors. They limited the tour time to two hours, so people who were collectors couldn't come and stay all day trying out the different machines.
Then, they decided to cut my pay. My pay, remember, had not increased in ten years. That was the last straw. I did the book work for the Factory Outlet Store, I knew how many vacuums I sold, and I knew how much money I brought in. Since I also was in charge of employee sales (they sold to the employees for the company's cost with no profit), I knew how much everything cost. I knew how much a hepa filter cost as well as what they sold it for (you wouldn't believe the markup).
Cutting my pay, refusing to allow collectors into the museum for more than a few hours, no conventions, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I was most fortunate to meet a woman who bought a Spiffy Maid broom vac from me - she owned a building 8 miles from the factory in the next large town over from tacony. The retail space was 3500 square feet, more than enough for a vacuum store as well as a Museum (the old vacuums were always mine). I quit on April 19 and told tacony to shove it. They chained the doors, keeping me from my collection for a week. Long story, but my boss almost lost her job letting me in on a Saturday morning to get my vacuums.
The actual reason for the Museum wasn't to show it off to the public. That's not why they conned me out of my store. It was to have a place for the engineering department to study the old machines, to be inspired by them when inventing new ones. The engineers are too hard headed to think they didn't already "know it all" and wanted nothing to do with the vintage models. Only once did an engineer take an interest in any of the machines (it was the air-way upright and he did design a modern prototype). So now I was stuck, my successful store had been sold, and I was just an employee of an uncaring company who used me as a trained monkey.
Now, I'm happy again. My vacuum shop is lucky enough to be located a few hundred feet from the entrance to WalMart on a very busy street. I'm the only vacuum shop for 100 miles around. And I don't carry Simplicity or Riccar. I carry Aerus Electrolux and trade in every Riccar and Simplicity I can. I already know most of my customers, either from giving them a tour of the museum or having sold them a machine. Tacony also donated thousands of vacuums to charitable organizations (the VFW hall every year had a benefit and tacony would always donate vacuums). They donated to every fundraiser, benefit, etc. And I had to hand out the donated machine as well as take a picture of the people who picked up the donation and I had to write a press release about the donation which the company put in newspapers across the county. So I spend most of my days selling bags and belts or doing repairs on these many thousands of machines I had a hand in placing with their current owners.
"There's a reason your grandmother had an Electrolux" has sold a ton of them for me already and I've traded in more than 75 Riccar and Simplicity vacuums in the 10 months we've been open. I refuse to work on TandemAir models. I hate them with a passion. All has turned out good, I enjoy my new store and come to work in the morning with a song in my heart. I live my life with "no regrets" (that's tattooed on my arm) but I wish I had known then what I know now - NEVER WORK FOR ANY CORPORATION. They don't care about anyone. If I had known then what I know now, I would still have made the move - as I never would have met my husband if I had not moved here. Six years together, four years married. In the end, It was worth it. But what hell I had to live through working for tacony.
