Bittersweet Day at Rent-A-Center

Wow, this was one of my most strenuous days at Rent-A-Center.  Our schedule was light, we’ve had a great week on sales, everyone’s been paying their bills, but today was the day.  By all accounts today was a day where we could coast and take a breather.  I’ve had my resignation letter typed up for a few days as I anticipated my move to Jack’s Wholesale Windows (need a window replaced?), but I’ve kept putting it in my desk drawer for the next day.  It’s been exciting, the possibilities that await me, but as it’s become time to move forward, that’s meant leaving behind something great.  When I took over the store it was under-performing and a less than average Rent-A-Center.  Over the last three years we’ve had excellent growth, received numerous awards and recognition, closed down a competitor (we’re close to shutting down another!), promoted five people into management (big in rent-to-own), won the respect of our customer base, and changed from “the store to steal from” to “the store to rent from.”  I’ve had a LOT of fun doing it!  I’ve sat in my office several times this week with the door closed spending a few solitary moments wondering if leaving all of this is the right thing to do.  It’s taken a lot to build my store.  I’ve had several coworkers comment that I shouldn’t be calling it “my store” or “my merchandise” or “my guys,” but these employees weren’t there when we stripped out the bad customers and replaced them with good customers.  They weren’t there to win customers from competitors one by one.  They weren’t there for the long nights and early mornings as we worked to clean up the store one piece of inventory at a time and sift through countless boxes of paperwork as a result of mergers.  These were the employees that didn’t appreciate the work of the employees that went before them.  These were also the employees that couldn’t hack rent-to-own.  It’s a grueling job.  I’ve met many wonderful people, both customers and coworkers (bosses too!), who pushed me and the business forward.  All of this makes it so tough to leave.  So I do see them as “my employees,” “my customers,” and “my store.”  My wife has said that if I didn’t love my job so much it would be a lot easier to leave Rent-A-Center.  So turning in my resignation today was one of the toughest things I’ve done at Rent-A-Center in the last four years.  Thanks to Rent-A-Center for giving me the opportunity to succeed.  We did it!

~ by rekrapsirhc on June 28, 2008.