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what it's like to work in walmart hell

beethoven

Well-known member
http://www.alternet.org/story/148640/what_it%27s_like_to_work_in_walmart_hell/

What It's Like to Work in Walmart Hell
By John Olympic, AlterNet
Posted on October 29, 2010, Printed on November 3, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/148640/

Thanks to recent teacher layoffs and the miserable job market, I've gone from substitute high-school teacher to Wal-Mart associate.

Teaching gave me weekends off for more pleasurable activities like annoying the roommate's cat or plucking my nipple hair. But this Sunday, I spent eight hours playing Avoid the Customer. It's a challenging game in which, at the end of the day, I reward myself by not committing suicide.

Why do I play this game? Sanity. Last week, for example, I walked behind a middle-aged mother who, after ordering her kid to drop a toy in the hardware section, told him, "Don't worry, they'll pick it up."

Customers may be the worst part of my job, but they're not the only part of this gig that sucks.

See, like millions of Americans, I'm underemployed. The government doesn't count people like me in its official unemployment numbers.

And those numbers are pretty grim; the national unemployment rate is at 9.6 percent, with 15 million Americans looking for work. I guess working at Walmart is better than nothing.

But working for low pay is about as rewarding as stabbing out your own eyeballs with a stale baguette. $14 billion in profits last year bumped Walmart back on top of the Fortune 500 list, and the company keeps up those profits partly by paying associates as little as (legally) possible. Walmart wages are not only well below living wage, we're paid significantly less than comparable jobs at other retailers.

But I don't have children or major medical expenses, so I do OK with my pathetic paycheck. But several of my coworkers support spouses or children; one just told me he relies on government support to pay his bills, including child support.

My coworkers are a diverse mix. Many are immigrants with limited English skills. Others have college degrees and wound up at Walmart when the economy tanked.

Still others are well past retirement age, requiring canes or shopping carts to move around the store. Yet these are the people management sees fit to post at the front of the store for hours at a time as a shoplifting deterrent. (Did I say shoplifting deterrent? I meant, "Store Greeter.") I haven't been at the store long enough to ask these sextegenerians (and well beyond) why they're still working, but I'm guessing it's not because they really, really, really like wearing blue. They're probably like the growing number of seniors who have lost their retirement savings and are forced to work to keep their health benefits (if the store offers them any), and to keep themselves out of poverty. Hell of a way to spend your final years, demanding to check the receipt of every person walking out of the store.

As diverse as Walmart associates are, we have at least one thing in common: When it comes to our jobs, we have no voice. Walmart is America's largest private employer, yet the 1 million workers who put on that red, white and blue nametag each week have zero collective bargaining power when it comes to our pay, benefits or working conditions.

Walmart corporate policy remains fiercely anti-union. At my employee orientation, we were shown a video titled, Protect Your Signature, a piece meant to frighten us away from even trying to organize a union. A Walmart document distributed to managers describes the types of employees attracted to unions. Among them, the "inefficient, low-productive associate," the "rebellious, anti-establishment associate" and the "something-for-nothing associate."

There are two instances, both in Canada, in which Walmart associates successfully joined a union. In both cases, Walmart decided to shut the store or the department where the workers decided to organize themselves.

And it's demoralizing knowing that by working for Walmart, I'm sleeping with the enemy. Our clothing section is filled with goods sewn by Third-World sweatshop workers earning pennies per hour. The toy section brims with petroleum-based products that will just end up in landfills a few months from now. There's the in-store McDonald's and its high-sugar, high-fat menu. There's nothing -- not a goddamn thing -- about big-box retailers that makes the world better.

But one of the worst parts of my job is the one that makes it all possible: the customers, which brings me back to the Avoid the Customer game.

I didn't always play this game. When first hired, I followed founder Sam Walton's 10-foot rule: Whenever a customer wandered near me, I smiled, greeted them, and asked if there was anything I could do to help.

But that was before the guy who was looking for blenders in the garden section. Or the woman who left her half-finished generic soda sitting in the toy section. Or the guy who shoved another customer's kid out of the way to pull a pillow off the rack. Or the guy who was pissed -- pissed! -- that the coffee filters were stocked next to the coffee machines. Or the woman who, after almost plowing me over with her shopping cart, laughed, "You can't hit the help."

Avoid the Customer mostly involves walking the least-trafficked routes through the store. When heading out to lunch, I take the path of least annoyance: through furniture, automotive and sporting goods. (No surprise on that one; many customers have at least one X on their clothing tags, due partly to the aisles and aisles of processed, low-nutrient junk food we gladly sell them.)

Next week, though, I'm adding a new trick: When asked for help, I'll respond, "No hablo inglés."

Even my supervisors, whose qualifications generally include being white, male and sporting unfortunate styles of facial hair, do their best to avoid the pawing hordes who make their miserable jobs possible. (Yeah, that class-action lawsuit alleging that Walmart promotes mostly men to management positions? Totally the case in my store.)

A couple of months ago, Consumers Digest ranked Walmart stores dead last in customer service among big-box retailers. So was it coincidence that Sunday I spent a half hour watching a training video on customer service?

I tried not to gnaw my arm off as Gas-X commercial rejects enacted examples of less- and more-effective customer service. Supposedly we're not supposed to act as though customers are interrupting us from our endless tasks, even though that's exactly what they do.

Walmart keeps hammering it into its associates that we're here for the customers. Bullshit. I'm here for a shitty paycheck so I can buy beer and rehash the poor life decisions that brought me to Walmart in the first place.

Call me pessimistic, but any signs of economic recovery aren't trickling down to my paycheck. My roommate just beat out 300 applicants to land his new job. Craigslist job postings are filled with scams. (Did I say scams? I meant, "work from home" opportunities.)

But like I said, I should count my blessings. It is better than not having any job. And at least I don't work in fast food.

Walmart is America: underpaid workers cleaning up after malnourished customers purchasing Chinese sweatshop goods.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/148640/
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
What a whiney ass weenie. God gave us each a life. What we do with it is up to us. If you are in an unhappy situation, then change it. But quit pissin and moaning about it. Atleast someone gave you a job. Now its your turn to show your gratitude by EARNING your paycheck.
 

flcowgirl5491

Well-known member
What a person could do if he or she finds himself working in a job he doesn't like is to learn the system of the company and the places it works or doesn't work. If you look at it like an education then it isn't so bad. You know it will end and you will be better educated yourself. It's a lot like cleaning out hog pens or cow pens. You can do it if you see the result is a clean pen! Grit your teeth, stick out your chest, and go to it. (My father was a Marine, sorry.)
 

per

Well-known member
You hit upon the answer flcowgirl, if Walmart is to tough for ya, go join the Marines. They are always looking for new recruits. You get to see the world and it pays better than Walmart. You already have the ability to be stealth and to dodge things (bullets in the Marine's case) so it is a perfect fit. Nothing saying you can't look for a new job while still taking Walton's paycheck.
 

leanin' H

Well-known member
Larry the Cable Guy said it best...... "If you don't like Walmart, DONT SHOP/WORK AT THE FRICKIN WALMART!!!!!! I get sick of folks who throw themselves pity parties when life gets tough. Your attitude is all you can control. Grin and get to work! :D There is good news from the above posted letter....... A loser is no longer teaching kids! :wink:
 

Denny

Well-known member
My wife shops at Walmart as do I at times. We have a Mills Fleet Farm here they sell farm supplies,lumber,hardware,cloths,sporting goods just about anything you need. I don't feel sorry for the mom and pop stores in our little town 5 gallons of hyd oil at Fleet Farm $32 in town $60 starting fluid I can buy 2 cans and a snickers at fleet for one in town.

The greed of these small stores has a bigger impact on their business than the big stores. Our local hardware store sold a shovel it was $14.99 on the tag as my friend put it to use the tag fell off and the Tag below read $4.99 and was from Target.

I need some dried distillars grain Local feed store wants $189 a ton. I can pick it up at the ethanol plant for $135 a ton. If I take a semi-load they quoted $125 I don't mind paying some markup and frieght but it's 30 miles to the plant from town and 3 miles from town to my home thats some serious markup in my book. Another feedstore wanted $165 a ton for a 14 ton load still alot in my book.

I drink alot of Pepsi a 2 litre bottle in town $1.89 Walmart $1or $1.25 depending on the week Sam's Cola 78 cents.

If your going to Gouge the customers don't complain when you have none.

Perfect example welding wire I had a spool dropped of at our local hardware store I called the supplier and had them leave it. Our local store wanted $10 markup on something I had droped because he's their drop point but stocks nothing needless to say I drove 20 miles and bought it else where.After that they drop here.

I can buy my kids 2 bikes at walmart for less than I paid for one when I was twelve years old.Thats 31 years ago.Wages have increased a bit since then.
 

Denny

Well-known member
loomixguy said:
Do you figure any profit when you build your trailers? Or do you sell them for near cost?

Yeah I figure profit but not some whore house charge. When I'm at Walmart and the local store owner is pushing 3 or 4 carts full of product thru checkout then marking up those items a 150% or more don't expect me to buy them. I bet I could save you $1000 to $1500 on a 24' livestock trailer easy.
 

John SD

Well-known member
I don't make a special trip to buy stuff at Wal-mart like a lot of people do. I might go to Wal-mart once or twice a year.

I buy my groceries at local chain owned stores and most of my farm supplies, oil, etc at a SD/IA chain store. The local mom/pop lumberyard hardware store people are helpful but many times they don't have what you want and have to order it and usually at a higher price than other places.

Local co-op is one of the highest places to buy fuel, tires, etc but I patronize them because they are handy and do give excellent service. Privately owned businesses often beat them on prices for competitive products.
 

BuckJones

Well-known member
This just sounds like an activist letter. Trying to start something based on the exceptional experience of a friend of a friend.

I worked at walmart one summer. Scheduling sucked...I think their computer was programmed to give the suckiest schedule. haha. Wages weren't the greatest, but that is retail. They were relatively much more than the other big box competitors, and none of it went to the Union. There are some places here where wages is actually less than min. after the union takes their dues. :S
The customers can be very dumb, but you feel better about yourself knowing it ain't you asking where the price check scanner is when you're standing right under their 2 ft yellow sign or many other stupid things that customers ask. It also makes your day trying to interpret what the customer is trying to tell you when they are looking for condoms and lube, haha.
There was garbage left on the shelves now and then, but you just throw it in the garbage on your way.
I made it my goal that I would empty my skid with enough time to "face" all the stock on every shelf in my dept.
My dept. (Pets) was usually in the top 5 depts in the store every day I worked there, and was the biggest (as in Sales$)of all WM Pet Dept.s in Canada.
Business was simple:
- Keep the prices low! If a customer complains, I add a note to my manager, price maybe different tomorrow...
- Make sure the product is always on the shelf, u can't sell what ain't there.
-If it ain't selling, get rid of it! Product that doesn't leave the shelf fast enough is marked, once it's gone, it's gone for good.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Most of the farmers and ranchers who have made rude comments HAVE had or their spouse HAS had an off farm job just to help pay bills. They did it because it NEEDED done. They did it because they know they you HAVE to work to get the things you need. They most likely did it for little but needed pay. They would have been happier working at the ranch but the extra pay was needed. They understand the old phrase "an honest days work for an honest days pay". They most likely did it with a smile because they were glad to have the job. And I bet they didn't have a union rep to whine to when things didn't go there way.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
For sure, BAR BAR 2. :clap:

As for the big box stores, just remember when your kid or school has
a fund-raiser (yearbook, sports, etc) who donates to that? Ususally it's not
the big chain stores. That's one reason the small local businesses
have to have a bit more profit. They support the town in many ways that Wal-mart doesn't.
And I know for sure what I'm talking about...I sold
newspaper advertising to local stores for 30 years.

I don't like Wal-mart, but I do have to shop there on occasion.
 

jingo2

Well-known member
Well...if you don't shop at Walmart how are they gonna get their money back from us for all that money we had to borrow from them???

Remember the $600 tax cut checks that was " your" money being refunded to YOU???

Bullshite....all you got was the US equal to a handful of yen!!
 
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