Conclusion

I know that the entire point of this blog was to express my frustrations with working at Walmart and they're all valid and true frustrations, but the one thing I haven't really talked about is what I do like about my job. The biggest benefit of my job is my coworkers. My coworkers get me through the day and I owe 90% of my happiness at work to them. Obviously there are enough positive things about my job to keep me around because I've been there for over a year. It's been great this semester to have a place to vent about my frustrations at work but this will be my last blog post. Thanks reading my rants-- I know that not all of my posts were gold, or even bronze, but thanks for sticking through it with me.

Good Customers

I know I complain about customers a lot, but one to two times each week I get a customer that brings a smile to my face. Whether it's just a complement, or the feeling of accomplishment when I help them find the item they're looking for.

A few days ago I helped a lady find three bikes and a ton of accessories for her kids. As she was heading up at the registers she looked back at me with the biggest smile, full of excitement, and said "thank you". I knew I didn't really do a whole lot for her, but seeing how excited she was to give the bikes to her kids was incredibly rewarding. It's customers like these that make my job almost worth it.... almost.

Walmart isn't a retail store.. It's a cult

Sometimes I joke about Walmart being a cult for several reasons. The first reason being that they honor a Sam Walton so much that he feels like a deity. There are posters with quotes from him all over the break room and his quotes can even be found throughout loading screens on miscellaneous computer programs in the store. I understand that Sam was the company's founder and a brilliant business man, but he's been dead for 23 years for Christ's sake. Some of the big whigs in the company are obsessed with him to the point that it gets creepy at times.

The next reason is that there are Walmart cheers that are shoved down our throats at every single stupid meeting. These cheers feel more like a chant to the dead. Okay, not really, but they are really annoying and nobody has enthusiasm except for management (and even then, some members of management look like they want to hang themselves during the cheers).

Walmart probably isn't actually a cult, but it certainly does feel like it at times.

Overtime

One of the biggest reasons that I have such a huge lack of respect for my managers at Walmart is the pressure they put on associates to stay past their scheduled shift. At just about any other job that I had, I had no problem staying past my scheduled time off because I knew that I would be adequately compensated for that time. However, because Walmart is a corporation that is more concerned about profit than they are for the well-being of the people that make their profit possible most stores have disciplinary action in place for associates who are clocked in more than 40 hours in one work week.

I cannot tell you the amount of times that assistant managers have told associates that they "have" to stay late, and the assistant manager will usually use the argument that "I stay late without pay all the time", but the difference is that they're salaried, which not only means that they receive much better pay and benefits, but most of the time they know going into the job that they'll be working more than 40 hours some weeks. Then, the day after telling someone that they had to stay late, they'll turn around and tell the associate that he/she must take a long lunch to cut any overtime. I've become so tired of this manipulation that I've refused to stay late and clocked out in front of a manager right after being told to stay late even though I'm part-time and rarely have to cut OT. The way that managers manipulate their associates and threaten them is unfair abuse of their power. My store makes nearly $300,000/day but it "can't afford" to pay an associate time and a half for an hour (keep in mind that time and a half for most associates in my store is roughly $13.50). I'm disgusted their greed.

Walmart Raising Minimum Wage: Is it a PR Scheme?

In February Walmart announced that it would be raising it's minimum wage for all U.S. facilities to $9.00/hr, which is 24% higher than the federal minimum wage. In one of my earlier posts, I expressed my concern that this was a PR scheme to get the media off of Walmart's back for a little while. Although many may argue that this is untrue, now that the raise has officially taken place, my feelings about the raise are still there. Forbes makes an interesting case as to how this was just an act for good publicity. Forbes illustrates how although Walmart claims it'll have a massive effect across the company, the wage increase will only effect a small percent of Walmart's employees.

Burtless, a writer for Brookings.com, expressed his concerns that the wage increase means that inflation is just around the corner. The video below is from Slate, and suggests that shoppers will only see about a 1¢ per item price increase to account for wage increases, however, it neglects to point out that Walmart is a huge part of the U.S. labor economy, and this wage increase could cause a market-wide wage increase.

My next concern with the wage increase was that Walmart would be cutting it's benefits. Although this isn't completely true, there is still some validity to my concerns. I previously mentioned how there were pay levels (1-7). With the pay increase, levels 1-3 will now all be making the $9.00 wage, and any associates who were already making more than $9.00 will only receive a 2% increase (for most associates this ends up being about $0.20). Then there are associates like me, who have an annual evaluation raise that increases their wage $0.40 higher than a new-hire of the same position. Essentially, I've lost my evaluation raise because I'll only be making $9, which will be the same as a new-hire (with less experience). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I'll be getting an additional $0.60/hr, I'm just a little discouraged that I'll be making the same as an associate with a year less experience than me.

Next, a $9.00/hr wage is still not a living wage. A part-time employee making $9.00/hr is still only making about $25,000. According to The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, this is still below poverty level.

Working at Walmart Has Made Me Hate People

I've worked a few customer service jobs before working at Walmart, and I always thought that people exaggerated about how crappy people really are. Over the last year I've learned just how much people really can suck. They're stupid, inconsiderate, and just outright rude. Below is a list of just a few things that customers have done to make me hate them:

• Parents have yelled at me because the toy they "needed" the day before their child's birthday was out of stock in every store in our market. 
• Parents have walked right by me and neglected to inform me that their child just vomited down three of my aisles. 
• Teenagers have taken displays down from high-rise shelves for the sole purpose of destroying them. 
• Kids have played kickball in my department while I was on break and knocked merchandise all over the floors of every single aisle in my department.
• Customers have yelled at me because another associate from a different store gave them inaccurate information about my on-hand quantities. 
• Parents frequently drop their kids off in my department to entertain them while they do their grocery shopping. For some kids this isn't a problem because the kids are well-mannered and respectful. However, in most cases the kids think that it's a free-for-all and throw toys at each other and make a huge mess. 

I understand that working with the public usually has its down sides, but I feel like at when you're working at Walmart these down sides and unfortunate occurrences are multiplied. I will say though, that working in retail has made me a more conscience shopper. I always make sure to put things back where they belong. 

Being a more conscience shopper has its negative sides too though. This weekend I was out shopping with my parents and in more than one store they noticed me picking merchandise up off of the floor and placing it back nicely on the shelves. I didn't even realize that I was doing it; it has become second nature to tidy aisles up a bit while I'm in them. 

Rude Customers

When you work with the public it is inevitable that you'll deal with a few customers that are less than ideal. Normally I'm able to resolve customer issues or at least better explain a situation to them. However, the other night I experienced a customer that really got under my skin.

I was in the backroom binning some overstock when another sales associate came and got me because there was a frustrated customer in my department. So I made my way back to the sales floor and introduced myself to the customer. After introducing myself, I asked her to explain the situation to me. In her high-pitched squeaky voice, she yelled "All of you guys are just incompetent fools. I hate shopping here, I don't know why they only hire high school drop outs. The shelf tag says this item is $13 but then when I went to the price checker it rang up as $34.99"!. My first thought was that the overnight stockers had stuffed this item in an incorrect home. However, after scanning the item I noticed that the item was in the correct home.

After digging a little bit deeper I found out that the item had gone on rollback about two weeks ago and when the rollback price fell off, my department manager neglected to change the shelf tag back to the regular price. I explained everything to her and told her that we would still honor the $13 price, I would just have to escort her to the register and verify the price change for the cashier. Unfortunately, for some reason, that wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. She then proceeded to make personal attacks on me and caused a scene. I let her tire herself out like a screaming toddler and then asked her if there was anything else I could help her with. She rolled her eyes and I walked away.

As much as I tried not to let her personal attacks get under my skin, they really did. She had said some really hurtful things about me personally. Even though she was probably the worst person I'd ever encountered, I maintained a professional demeanor and gave her good customer service. I don't get paid enough for this kind of bullshit. I really don't. For a final thought, I'll leave you with this Tumblr post. It's the most accurate post I've ever seen in my life.

Overstuffing Item Homes

Let me preface this post by saying that some of my favorite coworkers are overnight associates. With that said, some overnight associates are my worst enemies. There are a select few overnight associates that have a tendency to ignore shelf caps and stuff as many items on a shelf as they possibly can. Sometimes there is stress from management to overstuff homes because it eliminates or reduces the need to bin overstock. Binning, although time consuming, allows merchandise to easily be found in the event that the shelf becomes empty.

To be fair, too, overnight associates are not the only ones guilty of overstuffing homes. My department manager has a really bad habit of overstuffing item homes because she has some weird notion that more merchandise on the shelves equals more sales; this is true--to an extent-- studies show that empty shelves are not as appealing to customers and can cause a decrease in sales. However, the same is true about overstuffed shelves. If a shelf is overstuffed and appears cluttered it can cause slight discomfort and anxiety for some customers, which in turn decreases sales.

Shelf caps exist to keep shelves neat and easily accessible to customers. Caps also make it easier to zone a department because merchandise isn't intruding the next item's home or falling off of the shelf/peg. The frustrating part about overstuffing homes is that 80% of the time someone ends up having to repackage the overstock into a new box and binning it anyway. The new box is typically larger than the original box which wastes our already limited bin space.

Not only does overstuffing homes waste bin space, it also is counter productive. Rather than the overnight associate marking a case as overstock and moving on to the next one, they waste time putting product that is not needed onto the shelf. Then during the day time someone else has to spend unnecessary time finding a box that is an appropriate size for the merchandise and then they have to take the time to bin it.
In the image above, you can clearly see a peg that has been overstuffed. There are about 36 of these toy gliders on the peg. The image to the right is a closer look at the shelf tag-- we can see that the cap is actually 12, which is 1/3 of the amount that is actually on the peg.

In a typical shift I find between 3-5 homes that have been overstuffed but I rarely end up having time to bin the overstock. And on the days when I do end up binning the overstock there are still more productive ways that my time could be spent.

If managers would stop stressing the need to reduce overstock and encourage associates to listen to shelf caps the store would look a lot more orderly and it might even have a slight effect on sales.

Thanks for reading my rant! I look forward to reading your comments.

Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt

The Hot Wheels treasure hunt is probably the thing I hate most about being a toys associate. For those of you that don't know- Hot Wheels inserts "highly collectable" cars into random cases before they leave the warehouse. There is about one collector's car per 10 cases. These cars are valued anywhere between $10 to $50 and only cost the original consumer $0.97. The idea of the treasure hunt itself isn't bothersome at all. It's the vultures (customers) that come searching for collector's cars that get under my skin.

I have about three customers that come in weekly looking for collectable cars. Two of them I have absolutely no problem with; they are respectful and clean up after themselves for the most part. They also don't make any special requests-- like for me to check the back room for new freight that may contain Hot Wheels.

However, there is one customer in particular that I absolutely despise. He's been given the nickname Hot Wheels Guy. He always comes in around 8:30 pm because he knows that's when freight starts being pulled to the sales floor. As soon as he sees my pallets on the floor he begins circling them looking any box that looks like it may contain Hot Wheels. Once he finds a box he's interested in he'll begin to down stack the pallet until he has access to the box. After getting the box he takes it to a semi-secluded area (usually behind the bike racks) so he's less likely to be caught. He then rips open the box and digs through it, usually to be disappointed at the lack of a collectable car. After riffling through the box he usually doesn't clean up any of his mess and just leaves the carnage on the floor.

Photo courtesy of The Elkhart Truth

The problem has actually gotten so bad that certain members of management have given me permission to intervene when he touches the pallets. Unfortunately for me, one night after I'd returned from my lunch break he had already started going through the pallets. When I intervened I explained to him that I've been told that customers must wait until merchandise is on the shelf-- that way all customers have an equal opportunity to shop the merchandise. He then asked to speak to a manager and I happily paged one for him. Earlier in the day one of our assistant managers informed me that we'd be receiving Hot Wheels on the truck and told me that it was okay for me to say no to the Hot Wheels Guy.

The manager that showed up to talk to him is relatively new and hadn't been briefed on the new policy for Hot Wheels Guy. So following his training he wanted to please the customer and basically told the customer that he would have me stop zoning my department just to stock the Hot Wheels for him. Essentially my manager made me look like the ultimate jackass. So I did my walk of shame and walked over with 5 cases of Hot Wheels. I was already a bit behind that night so I was trying to hurry and throw the cars on to their pegs as quickly as possible so I could resume my regular work. However, the Hot Wheels Guy was actually pretty rude and hovered over me as I was stocking the shelf and would grab cars out of my hand before I even had a chance to put them on the pegs.

Overall the Hot Wheels Guy is so disliked among my store because he lacks certain common etiquette. He's actually made me dread Hot Wheels shipments and made me wish that Hot Wheels would do away with the treasure hunt altogether.

What's the Cost of Low-Price?

Walmart is one of the largest corporations in the world and is based in Arkansas. In 2013 the company’s gross revenue was $473.6 billion (McGrath, 2014). Many Americans believe that Walmart is such a strong business because they’ve got a great business model— they would be wrong. Walmart appeals to many Americans because they’re able to beat their competitors’ prices. However, these massive savings often lead to the company cutting corners in other areas.

For example, in order for me to sign up for health coverage through the company this year I would have had to deduct roughly $75 per paycheck. A deduction like this doesn’t sound too bad for health coverage until you take in to account that my average paycheck is about $400. Luckily for me I’m under age 26 and am still covered by my parents’ insurance because I’m a student. For many of Walmart’s employees the health coverage is just unaffordable. Because Walmart’s health coverage for hourly associates is so expensive, many of them have turned to the government for assistance. Walmart associates cost taxpayers $6.2 billion dollars each year in Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other government assistance programs (O'Connor, 2014). Statistics like this should infuriate the general public because shopping at Walmart is actually costing them more money than they think. Their tax money is being wasted to pay for benefits because Walmart is too greedy to pay them for their associates.

Another way that Walmart cuts corners is by intentionally understaffing its' stores. As most business people will tell you, labor is one of the biggest costs that a company can face. January happens to be the end of Walmart's fiscal year. So many store managers cut hours in an effort to help them achieve a nicer bonus. The store manager of a facility ranking in a similar division to mine typically earns a bonus of somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000. This amount is given to them as a lump-sum and is on top of their annual salary, which I have been told is around $120,000.

I'm not complaining that store managers receive that level of compensation because they do work long, hard hours and they have earned it. What I find frustrating is that in order to help them get a few extra thousand dollars on their bonus they are cutting hours so severely that people's families are going hungry. For example, one of my coworkers who is by definition, a part-time associate, is regularly scheduled 32 hours each week. During the first week of February he was only scheduled 12.5 hours. That adds up to be about $170 of wages that he usually takes home but won't take home that week. Many people don't seem to think $170 is much money, but when you're living off of less than $900/month that's quite a loss.

Cutting hours to this extent means that there are long stretches of times where departments are unattended by an associate, often leaving customers without anyone to assist them, for extended periods of time.

I hope this post has opened your eyes a bit and has encouraged to make an effort to shop at your local grocery store. I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you later! :)