I know that this blog has absolutely nothing to do with gaming but just bear with me. I’m getting ready to tell you some information that not many people know.
Wal-mart, a retail giant. If Wal-mart was a country they would be the 21st most productive country in the world. Most people think they know all about Wal-mart. They are greedy, self serving and ruthless. I think those are all common facts about the ‘retail giant’. Now I’m going to tell you the part that you don’t know. Information that you would only know if you work there or you have worked there in the past.
To start with they brain wash you with in the first 2 days of working there. They tell you to think, eat, sleep, drink, act and work “the Wal-mart way”. After you start your job in the store you start to notice things. I don’t know of any job where anyone doesn’t complain about their job, but at Wal-mart it’s unbelievable just how unhappy their ‘associates’ are. Out of any store I have ever been in, Wal-Mart has the lowest morale of any company I have ever seen. At first you wonder why. Then after roughly 2 weeks of working there it all becomes clear.
“Welcome to the Wal-mart family. ” That’s what they tell you. Little do you know that becoming part of the Wal-mart family means giving up yours. 365 days in a year, at Wal-mart you can miss 7 of those days without losing your job. Now if you have no kids and are invincible to illness then this attendance policy is just right for you. If you are a normal human being it’s not really going to work for you. While we are on the subject of policies lets talk about the ‘Open Door Policy’. The way this is supposed to work is if you have a problem you can talk to any member of management about anything with no worries of any problems for your complaint. Now on here I can’t go into too much detail…let’s just say it doesn’t work.
Now for the part of this blog that inspired my writing. I am going to give a ‘hypothetical’ situation. Let’s use the name ‘Mary’. Now ‘Mary’ has her availability locked in for family reasons and management approved this locking in. Granted, it was a fight but it happened. O.k. So now they have implemented a new policy thats called a ‘scorecard’. Basically this says that if you can’t have availability for the job you’re at, Wal-mart will ‘adjust’ your hours. In layman’s terms it means that if you don’t have open availability you will be punished for it. Even if ‘Mary’ already had it approved for family reasons by management they can still do what they want.
Now when this happened to ‘Mary’ her hours where reduced from 36 hours a week to 14 hours a week. When ‘Mary’ asked how she was supposed to live this was the answer she got. “If you can’t unlock your availability we can’t do anything for you.” “If that will be a problem maybe you should apply for government help to make sure your family can live.” Now if you have a job trying to support your family why should your employer tell you to do such a thing? Evil in retail has never seemed so true. The next time you go to Wal-mart and see those big letters on the building, remember ‘Mary’ and think about how long it might take you to go somewhere else.
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