Home Depot stocked shelves with empty boxes in its early days
> Home Depot had ... associates who are knowledgeable about the products, says Langone. "These people learned their business and, to this day, the heart and soul of the Home Depot are these 400,000 people that work in the stores," Langone says.<p>That is not at all my experience. They frequently don't even know inventory or where to find products in the store, and even less often do they know much about the products. Generally they are unmotivated, even relative to retail sales employees.<p>EDIT: I want to be clear that I'm not at all criticizing the employees. It's obviously a systemic problem; they are poorly paid, and my impression is they are poorly trained and poorly treated, all for minimum age. I'm criticizing management for creating this system and for making the BS claim in the quote, and CNBC for letting it pass unchallenged.