I think I have stepped in Wal-Mart for the last time. (1 Viewer)

[Tomoko Noguchi]

So people who work at Walmart, etc., are now lazy and so are people like me, who disagree with you almost in total.

 

[Max Leung]

In before the lock!
For a good read on the fast food industry, which has had their ideas embraced by the retail industry and now the IT industry, check out the book "Fast Food Nation". It gives a very balanced view, from the people in government, the executives, and the workers at the bottom of the pyramid. An engaging and suspenseful work, meticulously researched, and also very human. Dome, I heartily recommend this book to you: People who are just like your parents (newly emigrated or illegal immigrants), are taking these godawful jobs with minimum-wage pay, "voluntary hours", and literally risking (and losing) their lives in hopes of a better future for their family. They are putting everything they got into their jobs, no matter how tiring, brutal, or dangerous, and the corporations KNOW it. Only a handful make it into the middle-class, but most just lose their limbs or their health. :frowning:
It is a harbinger of our times...a new industrial revolution, but with a Starbucks in every corporate cafeteria, a logo on every t-shirt, and a booth-babe at every career fair! Every statement is a PR contrivance, every whistle-blower a talk-show guest, and every politician an actor.
It's every man for himself, to heck with everyone else! Because YOU are worth it! The entire universe revolves around you baby! Now get back to work, or you're fired!

 

[James_A]

Hehe.... this is fairly common in many jobs that are hourly... I worked (recently got a new job) for a retailer (not gonna say which one), and my manager was on vacation. I was "supposed" to do all of his work (he works 60 + hours a week) and all of my work (40 hours) in the Allotted overtime of 6 hours. woohoo....
I did what I could, and he got yelled at by his boss after he got back for my inability to finish his work...
Also, I've worked at Wallyworld, and can't remember this happening to me, but they did enough other weird things to make up for it... including having everyone do a "Wal~Mart Wiggle" if you were there for opening of the store (as part of the Wal-Mart Cheer that they do every morning).
Jim

 

[Robert Crawford]

Dome and Tomoko,
Either let it go or take it off line! Enough with the snide remarks about not working hard and the use of the word "lazy".
Crawdaddy

 

[Eve T]

Walmart is the Devil.

I've talked to several Walmart employees, one who was ringing out my purchase in line once was very frantic to get her daily chores done because she said she absolutly could not go over her alloted hours or she would be fired and would have to stay and get it done.

I quit shopping at Walmart. I don't like the lines, I don't like the smilie faces above their prices in the aisles.. and I don't like the old guy that stands at the front either. I'm just a crabby person I guess. :b

But seriously, the reason I don't shop there is because the way they treat their employees, the way they tear apart small communities, and when they don't make enough money the way they pack up their stuff and leave after they have destroyed small businesses and leave many jobless. (maybe that's a good thing since they are no better than slave laborors)

Speaking of why didn't these employee's leave....

Have you ever thought that Walmart sometimes moves into small towns that aren't close to a big city? Sometimes when they move in and other small business's move out ...Walmart is the only place a young person or a person without a college education can work. Mothers have to feed their children, fathers have to provide best they can and sometimes Walmart is all there is. If you had a couple kids at home wouldn't you want ANY job instead of no job at all? It's not easy for some people to just up and quit their jobs when they have hungry mouths to feed and not much else where to go looking for work.

Now where I live...I have NO FRIGGING clue why people work at Walmart, there are plenty of other jobs out here. I'd work at a car wash or a fast food joint before I'd take squat wages from a company like Walmart.

Would you like ketchup with those fries?

 

[Philip_G]

I quit shopping at Walmart. I don't like the lines, I don't like the smilie faces above their prices in the aisles.. and I don't like the old guy that stands at the front either. I'm just a crabby person I guess.

If I go to walmart it's NEVER before 2am. I can't STAND the greeter, the stupid people, and the smilie faces. But most of all I DESPISE the stupid racks of shitleft in the MIDDLE of every aisle so there's like 3 feet on either side of it

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

No problem, Robert.


On topic: When I have gone there before, it feels like a flea market.

 

[Edwin-S]

Why's that mom having two kids in the first place anyways?
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Maybe she was married, had two kids and then hubby split on her.

Right now they are in process of building one of these abortions where I live. I could not believe how our city council was whining and sniveling because we did not have a trash-mart like another nearby town did. It was pathetic! WALMART with it's shitty labour practices can go f... themselves.

 

[Dave Gorman]

Do I shop at Wal-Mart? You bet! The Supercenters in my area have generally good selection of almost all the items I buy on a regular basis at generally the best prices around. I can get 95% of my regular purchases at one place for decent prices without spending all of my non-work time running from one store to another looking for things. I can't afford the high-end prices for low-end merchandise at Target. I've only stepped foot into a K-Mart 2 times since the first Rosie ad appeared (not to mention most K-Marts make most Wal-Marts seem like paradise). Most of the local supermarkets/grocery stores either have a pathetic selection or rape you on the prices (I shopped at HyVee the other day and was lucky to find just over half my shopping list).

Are there things I hate about Wal-Mart? You bet! The clutter in the aisles and at the checkouts is abominable. Most of the employees have never even heard of customer service. And they no longer carry my favorite brand of coffee. Nevertheless, for me Wal-Mart is the lesser of several shopping evils. As fed up as I often get with Wal-Mart, I try other places and end up even more frustrated and displeased.

Does Wal-Mart treat their employees like crap? You bet! Are they the only employer that does? Nope. I was treated like crap in an office job I had with a "good" employer. If one doesn't want to be treated like crap, don't work there. It may be the lesser of several evils for many of the employees, but probably not many are being forced at gunpoint to work at Wal-Mart.

What Wal-Mart is doing is not right, but employment there is not mandatory. And if I refused my business to any company or subsidiary with whom I disagreed with principles or practices, I'd have to be living in a cave, completely self- sufficient.

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Dave,

Of course, the large number of people patronizing Walmart only supports your opinion, unfortunately. It is too bad that people who do not support a company's practices do not do so with their wallets and go somewhere else. I, for one, do. There are not Walmarts now in Japan, but there will be soon. I won't be shopping there either.

 

[Trace Downing]

Most of the employees have never even heard of customer service.

If they were being paid for the (whole) job they were doing, I would agree with you. I don't expect slaves to be cheerful. That's just too much to expect.

 

[Dave Gorman]

It is too bad that people who do not support a company's practices do not do so with their wallets and go somewhere else.

To carry out a consistent "non-support" philosophy, I should refuse to do business with any company which has practices I do not support, and I should refuse to buy any product from any manufacturer that has practices I do not support, etc., etc. Now, if all the facts were known, there would likely be very few, if any, companies or businesses I could patronize under this "non-support" philosophy. This leaves me with 3 options:

1) Live in a cave & be self-sufficient (it has to be a cave since almost every house has some wood in its construction and I need to be firm about not supporting deforestation).

2) Carefully evaluate the practices of every company I could potentially do business with to evaluate which company's non-supportable practices are more grievous than the other's. After all, if I'm going to the bother of not doing business with Company A because of its non-supportable practices, I better be damn sure that in doing business with Company B I'm not inadvertently supporting other non-supportable practices. That would defeat the purpose of the whole thing!

3) Continue my evil and selfish path of choosing between unsupportable companies by evaluating which choice benefits me most as a consumer.

Choice #1 is simply not practical (I'd have to give up DVD's, for crying out loud!) There isn't enough time in the day for #2. So I will wickedly continue practicing Choice #3.

 

[Dave Gorman]

Trace, your points are well taken, and I have no argument with them. By mentioning these things, I was making the point that I am not completely pro-WalMart, but rather consider them the lesser of several evils. There are many things I don't like about WalMart, but there is as much and more that I hate about my other shopping choices. So as much as I frequently hate my WalMart shopping experience, I always end up going back there because every other place I try is generally even worse...

 

[Dave Poehlman]

"They give you a lot of work to do, and there is no possible way to do that in the seven and a half or eight hours you've been assigned," he said. "So you feel pressure to clock out and do what you need to do."

WHAT!?!? If I'm working in some crummy retail job for minimum wage at Wal-Mart.. you can bet if I'm working, I'm getting paid for it! Why would you agree to clock out and keep working?!? Don't these people know there are laws against this sort of thing? What if the employee gets hurt "off the clock"? Walmart wouldn't have to pay a cent... at least not without a big legal battle.

Idiots, I say. Idiots.

I hate Walmart. 90% of local crime in my area occurs either in Walmart or the parking lot. The city of Franklin has even placed a police office directly in the Walmart store! I would be happy to see it close.. it attracts all kinds of unsavories.

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Dave, I consider them the greatest of all evils. They certainly are not the lesser of all evils. #2 in your argument basically suggests that there are worse companies out there that practice worse employment practices than Walmart. Name them. #3 just suggests that ignoring #1 and #2 is the best thing to do.

 

[Dave Gorman]

They certainly are not the lesser of all evils.

From the consumer standpoint, for me, in this area, they are indeed the lesser of several evils. Perhaps not from an employment standpoint, but again, 1) employment at WalMart is not mandatory, and 2) speaking from experience, other companies treat employees like crap too (they just don't make the front page because they aren't as big as WalMart).

 

[Rob Lutter]

In the time between high school and college, I am working at Target.
At Target, I am allotted a certain number of hours each day, and if I go over... I just take a longer lunch-hour than I would normally (1 hour instead of 30 minutes) to make up for it. I am over in Food Ave. in Target and it is one of the cushiest jobs I have ever had... I don't even have a supervisor! I basically cook, ring people up, and then clean the grills/popcorn machine/stock at night. I get 2-15 minute breaks and 1-30 minute lunch break in a shift over 6 hours. I usually work about 30-35 hours a week, usually the 4-10pm shift.
Target is all about customer service... we had to take a class on how to greet "guests" and how to treat them like "guests in our house."
Plus we don't have all that shit in the middle of the aisles like KMART and WAL*MART and carry WIDESCREEN DVDs

 

[Dave Gorman]

Once the Target nearest me completes its transformation into a "Supertarget", I will probably give it a try. With the nearest Supertargets being about a million miles from me now I've never really given them a fair shake. In my past experiences with "regular" Targets, I've liked the cleanliness of the store, and the employees always seemed nice. But the prices always seemed quite high, the lack of grocery items at the regular Targets meant having to shop elsewhere as well, and all that red just hurt my eyes. I guess I'll see how things pan out with the new Supertarget.

 

[Aaron Copeland]

From the consumer standpoint, for me, in this area, they are indeed the lesser of several evils. Perhaps not from an employment standpoint, but again, 1) employment at WalMart is not mandatory, and 2) speaking from experience, other companies treat employees like crap too (they just don't make the front page because they aren't as big as WalMart).

So true. When you have over 1 million employees, you are going to have some that are unhappy for one reason or another. You are also going to have some just fabricating BS to try and bilk some cash out of a large business.

The very fact that they have 1 million employees is proof that these problems are NOT widespread. My brother worked at Wal-Mart for a while and had no problems. Yes, they could be long hours at times, but no one said retail work was easy.

Also, this whole Wal-Mart-destroys-towns BS is lame. It's called competition and it's what our entire economy is built on. I guess you'll have to excuse myself and millions of others if we find it simply convenient to pick up various household supplies all at one place at good prices.

Aaron

 

[Dave Gorman]

Thanks, Aaron! I was starting to feel very alone