There's Your Problem Right There

I was just in Sears, where I haven't been in quite a while. The last time was, I believe, before December 2006. I can't exactly remember why I was in Sears then, but I know I visited right before I went to Australia, and that was December 2006. So it's been a few years. I know that the company is facing financial problems and management problems, and I think I may have found the root cause.
   Their clerks are clueless.
   This is not to say they were impolite, quite the contrary, the three I talked to were very pleasant, and even eagerly helpful. They just didn't know what was in the store. I went in looking for one esoteric, rare thing - a deep root feeder for trees - and one ridiculously easy thing - an air compressor. I talked to three people because the first guy didn't know home and garden, and the home and garden guy didn't know hardware, not even enough to know an air compressor isn't hardware. So I bounced around from clerk 1 to clerk 2 to clerk 3, only to find - eventually - that neither of the things I wanted was in the store right then. I'm still not sure what clerk 1 did besides direct people to the other clerks.
   Time was you went into Sears and dreaded asking a question because the clerks would quiz you about things you weren't prepared to answer. 'I'm looking for a deep root feeder.' 'Oh yeah? What kind of tree? How tall? What kind of soil do you have? What's your water pressure like? Is the tree on the North or South side of the house?'
   But I gotta tell you, getting the third degree from guys who knew waaaaay too much about deep root feeders was one thousand times better than Blank Stare Larry, who had never heard of a deep root feeder in his online chat room, much less seen one in person.
   Is this a problem with Sears' hiring practices, with its training, or with the quality of people available to work? I'm thinking it's a combination of all three, but mostly probably the hourly rate, which has to be supremely crap-tacular. You get what you pay for after all, and if you're not paying much you'll get exactly that.
   Another part of the problem might be that people these days don't know how to do anything. By the time I was fifteen I'd changed tires, framed storage sheds, used a chainsaw (probably a little too much), rigged a rope bridge, replaced an exhaust system, changed oil, hammered shingles, run a roto-tiller, chopped down trees, etc. etc. etc. I think Blank Stare Larry couldn't recognize a deep root feeder because he had no idea that such a thing was possible, let alone that people had been doing it since the 50's.
   This has to change. People need to know stuff and they need to know how to do stuff. I guess it's up to me...