I know directly how crummy it is to work at Wal-Mart

The only job I actually walked off of in disgust is described below, when I was assigned as a temp to refurbishing a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in Indianapolis.  This was also originally posted on Examiner.com--GF

I know this even though I didn’t directly work for Wal-Mart, but worked for a temp service at an Indianapolis Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, one of Wal-Mart’s grocery, drug and sundries stores.  I worked there from July 9, 2012 until early in the morning of August 2, when I walked off the job in disgust at fellow employee harassment, working there directly under Wal-Mart managers, directly accountable by Wal-Mart rules, and subject to Wal-Mart working conditions.  All of which gave me a good idea of how Wal-Mart operates.

One of the first things I noticed, and this is directly applicable to Wal-Mart’s claim of having consistently low prices, is that a large amount of this cheapness of price comes from the cheapness manifest in the way Wal-Mart stores operate.  The Neighborhood Market I worked at was distinctly tacky in appearance, in supply of merchandise on the shelves, and in the way it incentivized (or rather, dis-incentivized) employees to do a good job.  During my time working there, the Wal-Mart managers liked to put down unionized Kroger’s (Wal-Mart, as everyone knows, is fiercely anti-union), which is where I regularly shop; but when I go to my neighborhood Kroger’s stores, the store always looks clean, items are easily found and in supply, and unlike Wal-Mart, which scrimps on staffing levels, I can always find an employee to answer my queries, give me customer service, and direct me to the proper location.  Further, I’ve always found Kroger’s prices to be perfectly reasonable, and its product lines extensive and of good quality.  So much for the “horrors” of unionized grocery stores!

Further, one of my fellow temp co-workers had actually worked at a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market for several years, was earning nearly $15 an hour, and, with overtime, was grossing $40,000 a year.  He was also training new managers, whom he said started out at $60,000 a year, store managers made $100,000 a year, and regional managers $250,000 a year.  Yet Wal-Mart is known for the extremely low wages and harsh working conditions given its non-managerial employees! Well, good slave overseers are hard to find, you have to pay them well to keep them, I suppose.

 

But he, along with nine other experienced employees, were all let go because their labor costs were too high for Wal-Mart, and they were replaced by green workers who could be paid minimum wage.  So he said, and this tallies well with other reports of working at Wal-Mart, reports numerous and readily available.

Because I was working the graveyard shift I received shift differential pay, and was making the sterling hourly rate of $8.25.  Yet, I was glad to have the employment, and worked conscientiously and quite adequately, at least according to the very little feedback I got from the managers.  My method of working is to be quiet and conscientious, do my job, get it done and done right, and not spend time in horseplay, gossiping or just standing around—in sharp contrast to my fellow co-workers, especially the young ones, the overwhelming majority of whom did all three, and on a regular basis.  And, as often the case, recognition of work performance and ability to do one’s job without hassle often depends on the caprice of the manager, and it was managerial caprice in the face of obvious mouthy harassment from fellow temps that finally made me say “Enough!” and walk off the job.  As that depicted so well classic cartoon, the one with the man with the screw run through his body and the caption, “Do a good, conscientious job and you’ll get your just reward!”

But before I go into that, let me say a little more about Wal-Mart managerial style.  In keeping with its legendary cheapness, Wal-Mart psychs up those who work in it not through concrete incentives, but through generating enthusiasm through psychological manipulation.  We always started our work shape-up with the manager crying out, “How’s everybody doing?” to which we were expected to respond with enthusiasm, and chided when we didn’t—which was the usual case.  Hard to get excited, of course, over a temp job that doesn’t pay well, but to bring that up is a big no-no now in today’s work environment.  Doing so would not only label you a “troublemaker,” it would also mean you’re one of those Occupy types who “won’t take a bath”!  But f course, psychological manipulation is a lot cheaper to put into effect than decent wages and benefits, not to mention job security.

But I got along well with my initial managers, who did seem to be noticing I was doing a good job, and that even though I was not exactly enthusiastic over this, did have a sense of relief at the prospect that I might become a permanent Wal-Mart employee, even as I observed myself the deficiencies in the work environment they were forced to work under.  Financial stress was a common trait among them, and this was indirectly recognized by management with its constant surveillance on employee theft.  Of course, paying higher wages just might in itself cut down the risk of employee theft, but that was out of the question, especially in our global “race to the bottom” economic system.  But that’s the reality as it appears, not to management, but to the grunts who do the actual work, and I can certainly understand the “attitude” one of the regular Wal-Mart employees expressed when he said, “I work in a grocery store.  I’ll never go hungry.”

Another part of Wal-Mart’s cheapness was the constant lack of equipment.  We temps had to compete with the regulars for access to needed, but scarce, pallet jacks, and that was a constant source of irritation and hogging.  One time I needed some cleaning supplies, and I asked one of my managers (they were brought in specifically for the temp assignment we were working on, remodeling the store) where to find them, and she said she didn’t know, go ask one of the regular managers.  So I asked the assistant manager on duty, who was busy eying the cashiers at closing time as they closed their register drawers and took out the money, and he was just irritated at the question, and told me to go ask one of the special managers I was working under—the very ones who had told me to go see one of the regular managers!  I never did get the cleaning supplies I wanted.

We temps were engaged in a variety of tasks in remodeling such as installing new shelving, stocking such, and one particular task we had to that was particularly cockamamie—change the pegboards behind shelves stocked with merchandise without first taking the merchandise off the shelves!  This resulted in a lot of damage, but that didn’t seem to matter to the managers.  In fact, damaged merchandise and empty wrappers and containers that indicated merchandise theft by customers were commonplace findings, which made me aware that was considered just part of doing business, as it was undoubtedly cheaper to do that than have more diligence and security—which, like the maligned Kroger’s, would mean higher staffing levels.

Our supplies were in these storage sheds at the end of the parking lot, and the supplies within were not organized.  This meant that a lot of time was spent just looking for items; further, items needed were not always there to begin with.  Not only that—excess supplies put back in the sheds were put in haphazardly also.  So a considerable part of the shift was spent simply looking for things.

Our temp workforce was mixed by gender, race and age.  I, a white male, was an older worker with steady work habits, something which really set me apart from the young workers, who preferred standing around rather than working if they could.  Also, I worked steadily and quietly, focused on doing my job, in sharp contrast again to the young workers, especially the young African American women fresh out of high school, who much preferred gossiping to working.  These young women, not a single one of them even 21, essentially had no work habits, but they did have mouthiness and insolence, which became my constant irritation.  I endured four such incidents of such mouthy insolence, all of which was tolerated by management (well, if you’re going to be an effective slave overseer, you do have to make allowances for the unwillingness of the slaves to work!), and with me getting the management lecture on “respect.”   But to these young women the name of the game seemed to be “Get the white boy,” and finally, the insolence forced me to walk off.  Not only was I harassed because one of the African American women had shouted halfway down the hall at me to do something which I couldn’t even hear, these young women all thought it very funny indeed when I made a mistake!  There’s nothing so satisfying as being in a work environment in which you’re subject to contemptuous giggling by youth who barely made it out of high school!  But having been subjected to that a total of four times, I’d had enough, especially for $8.25 and hour and a manager who acted toward me like a drill sergeant.

It is truly unfortunate the youth today are the way they are.  Yes, it’s understandable, given the nature of our society and world of work today, but not forgivable.  For, yes, the manifest lack of consciousness and respect for others manifest in youth today can only hurt them in the long run, yet their lack of caring and concern is in itself a major social problem.  I understand now perfectly why the late Abbie Hoffman said shortly before his suicide, “Don’t trust anyone under 30,” and why Angela Davis was so correct when she said at a conference of Black scholars in 1995, “One should not automatically exonerate those who do harm to self and others.”  Yet we as a society seem to be doing just that.  Doing that also in our glorification of the Wal-Mart model of business, measuring “worthwhileness” by strictly bottom-line criteria, and turning the U.S. into an eastern extension of Guangdong, China.