The two guys above were nothing but sleazy conmen.
To this day I still have a hard time believing "Fuck you Frank",
was written in black ink on the backroom wall of this store below.
Why didn't Albertson's Jonathon Scott close down this unprofitable store as it had been unprofitable
for many quarters before he went to A&P to make a million dollars to close down nearly a
couple thousand of A&P's unprofitable stores? A homeless man riding a city bus could have done that.
Question: What did Tom Raley and Joe Albertson have in common in addition to being employed by Safeway before opening their own stores?
Answer: Both of these men had only one daughter.
Question: Who did these two daughters marry?
Answer: They each married a guy who didn't know the grocery business and they used that marriage to push themselves into a long grocery store career.
OK, Charles Nordby has already shared in his Raley's Exposed book how James Teel was very inexperienced in the grocery business when he saved the Raley's company from going bankrupt and Teel had these big titled positions that he really didn't have a clue about. Now, I only have one Albertson's store to build my case that Jonathon Scott wasn't capable of solving the problems of a grocery store losing money and how Scott being at the top of Albertson's back in the 70s enabled him, in my opinion, to latch onto other supermarkets chains who were depending on his big marquee name and his expertise, that they thought he had, to assist them.
Albertson's store #109, and its inability to make a profit in 1974, because of internal THEFT, is the only store I have to show that Jonathon Scott and his big marquee name out of Albertson's main office in Boise, Idaho, really wasn't capable of performing any miracle that was required at the time to take a chain of stores like A&P that was losing money to make them profitable. I visited many A&P stores (during the time I worked for Meijer's in Michigan), while Scott was there running around with his head chopped off thinking he had the necessary skills and experience to save these thieve ridden older stores and some of the A&P stores were actually modern looking. Unless your expertise was stopping the losses due to theft and stopping the losses due to mismanagement, that could have quickly increase the profits to give you soon breathing room, you weren't going to accomplish anything no matter how many older A&P and mismanaged stores you closed.
In fact, I personally believe that had former Albertson's expert Scott renewed his five year contract with A&P, Scott might have closed all of the A&P stores. LOL. Hey, these guys only live up to their expertise when everything is running smoothly. Put them into an environment that actually requires a grocery mind with experience, they might as well just be standing next to a checkstand all day long bagging groceries and eagerly waiting to ask the store manager if it's ok for them to take a pee...think- The Shawshank Redemption movie.
Then this Scott guy continues to make huge salaries by dragging this illusion of himself (he created over the years), around with him to other supermarket chains in the industry like American Stores, etc...it just goes on and on with these guys. Eventually guys like Larry Johnston shows up in a grocery store chain to show the world that he can sink a food company faster than he can turn on a light bulb at General Electric.
In my opinion, James Teel and Jonathon Scott biggest talent in the grocery business, that positioned them to lucrative positions inside the grocery business, is basically because Teel knew Raley's daughter Joyce and Scott knew Albertson's daughter Barbara...
and Charles Nordby didn't know either of them but knew the grocery business inside and out.
I have often thought that before Jonathon Scott left Albertson's to drag his "inexperience" back East to earn a million dollars to close between 1500 and 2000 of A&P's unprofitable stores, he should have grabbed the back of Joe Albertson's pants and then grab the back of Warren McCain's pants and drag their overpaid asses a short distance down the street from the main office to where Albertson's #109 was located, to give me a heartfelt apology for my name and the words "fuck you," being placed on the marquee that was created for me in that store's back room.
Here is a question I ponder: If Scott's expertise in the grocery business was actually closing unprofitable stores like he did for A&P, why didn't he close down unprofitable Albertson's store #109 before he left to go to the A&P company? Store #109 was also unprofitable every quarter until the theft was eliminated and not eliminated by the phony Albertson's marquee names there at this time in Boise.
Had A&P hired the talented Charles Nordby instead of Scott, their profits would have shot through the sky and The Great Atlanta Tea Company would still have thousands of stores opened today and they would haved received something back in return for Charles Nordby's services.
Here's an interesting observation of something Charles Collings said to my brother Jack and I while we visited him at Raley's main office back in 1991. He told us that our dad was just a boozer...exactly the words he used. Now, Charles Collings told me in a letter that he recommended Charles Nordby to other companies. Oh did he? However, did Collings have such a disdain for Charles Nordby because of all that he uncovered at Raley's that reflected on him, that he would say things to those he was recommending Charles Nordby to by indicating he was an incredible security man (Raley's liked to refer to Nordby as just a security man), but also make the claim he was just a boozer and drinks a lot...as a way to sabotage any potential position he would get from other companies so he wouldn't have any successes in life after leaving Raley's as Collings so confidently stated in his letter to me?
Collings may have been the most dishonest person ever to be involved in the grocery business...nothing but a conman. The Sacramento's Chamber of Commerce named Collings 'SACRAMENTAN OF THE YEAR," shortly after the story of Charles Nordby and Raley's became public. Well, what do you expect from a City full of unethical people?
