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.
