Barnes and Noble Booksellers has recently implemented a program of pushing the B&N Mastercard on every customer, including the tracking of sign-ups for every employee, with performance evaluation and continued employment strictly tied to how many customers an employee can pressure into sign-up. [This is now in addition to their 20 year drive to pressure every customer into purchasing a Member Card]. This deliberately creates a hostile workplace environment where every employee (but cashiers in particular) is regularly harassed to meet a perpetual quota that will never cease and never desist. In turn, this forces the employees (and again, cashiers in particular) to harass each and every customer, many who are already weary of being pressured at every transaction to purchase a member card, and who are now being subjected to lengthy sales-pitches to pressure them to sign-up for the Mastercard. This is in flagrant contradiction of Barnes and Noble's stated core principles of "fast cashiering" and excellent customer service. Customers are losing patience at being consistently pressured by employees who are themselves being harassed to pressure every customer, and the loss of customer loyalty and employee morale is harming the company.

We demand that the Barnes and Noble Corporation cease this Mastercard drive and tone down its Member Card drive, removing all corporate policy that ties employee evaluation and continued employment to sales quotas for either card. Barnes and Noble needs to refocus on giving good customer service coupled with excellent quality merchandise selection rather than harmful gimmicks that harass customers and hurt employee morale. Barnes and Noble, stop the card drives and stop tying employee performance to sign-ups for these cards, and in turn cease pressuring every customer at every sales point to sign up for the Mastercard and/or the Member Card.