Walmart is NOT as bad as you think!

I've transferred to three different stores in three different states, and you know what I've commonly seen? LAZY PEOPLE. These crap statistics that paint Walmart in a bad light, saying that 80% of the employees need assistance is entirely true, but it's not because of the big evil corporation, it's because of the EMPLOYEES! About 75% of all people I've worked with don't WANT to work more than three-days a week, and when they do show up and don't call off they DO NOT WORK or want to work. Walmart currently hires part-timers at $9.00 an hour, if you work third-shift you get an extra .50. Next year all new hires will START at $10.00 an hour ... let that sink in for a minute. YOU WILL GET FULL-TIME if you freaking work!! It's really that simple. All but one supervisor I work with in my current store started as a stocker, the current CEO of Walmart started as ... you guessed it! A STOCKER!
Now, there's plenty of things I don't agree with when it comes to Walmart, but all this crap I keep reading is putting blame on the wrong entity. In reality, which most of ATS is entirely alien to, Walmart will and does treat the people that DESERVE it very, very well. Store managers make about 100,000 a year. I watched a manager throw a hundred on the counter to pay for coffee, and they then proceed to tell the clerk to keep the change.

So let's get real here, most of America truly is fat, lazy and dumb. Americans swallow any information that morons will give them in bulk. And I GUARANTEE all the idiots on these boards that splash those statistics like they're the smoking-gun that Walmart is a big vile corporation have never worked there, probably never will, and probably couldn't handle it if they did.

Only America would think that putting items on a shelf is a ridiculously hard task, and actually hide to get out of doing it. Only America, folks!

Only America would think that putting items on a shelf is a ridiculously hard task, and actually hide to get out of doing it. Only America, folks!

You may be surprised to know this is not only in America...

OK, I go to Walmart about daily....I see that yes, they create jobs for people who would other wise not be employed ...The one argument that you can not disagree with is that Walmart has squeezed out the little shop owner. I feel if it was not them then it would have been someone....My brother refuses to shop there . but it is were I buy his Christmas gift , and he always likes it. .a reply to: Flesh699

a reply to: Flesh699

You know what they say, the truth hurts.

a reply to: Flesh699

Walmart has bad employees because they hire them. All they want is cheap people easy to fire and replace. Don't blame the sheeps, blame the shepherd.

When I was in college I applied to walmart for one summer... I said id work any day, any hour, and do any job. I had a call from not 1 but 2 stores within 1 hour. They both asked if id work any job, any hour and any day. I said yes. Both stores offered me a full time position working 40 hours a week at slightly above minimum wage. Once I started working there I tried to keep the morale of my coworkers up. A good friend of mine at the same time was in college and working the summer got his wife pregnant. Walmart offered him some kind of manager in training job when he came to them stating he would like to make walmart a career. Our shift was actually great fun and we had a good time.

With that said, at walmart I have seen racism from managers, little tricks to try to get rid of people...often people who don't pull their weight but they were tricks none the less. Its fine for a temporary job...if you want to do a long run id try to get into management...which actually has decent pay and incentives but...requires lots of hours of work and stress.

When I was younger, I would do above and beyond the call of duty. I took pride in my work and still do. It doesn't make a difference and you get taken advantage of. I always had a strong work ethic and thought hard work would pay in time. I'm all for starting at the bottom and working your way up. When they take advantage of that I do get upset. I'll work for myself and cut that in the bud. I remember being a Machinist and having to run four machines because I was the only one they could trust to do so. Here's a reality check, if they can't do the job it's time to fire their ass. Get competent people and you won't have me look for greener pastures.

I might work longer and harder being self employed but I wouldn't have it any other way. Usury is alive and well in the good old USA.

Not to mention politics and favoritism.

originally posted by: Flesh699
About 75% of all people I've worked with don't WANT to work more than three-days a week,

Well in an evolved society, I think the people should have the right to work just 3 days a week if that's what they wished. Sure, they would have less resources/money but free time is worth a lot to some people.

Artistic minded people value their free time more than people that work 60 hours a week can understand. I don't think that most Walmart employees feel accomplished for their work. 40 hours a week in doing nothing that you feel is an accomplishment is very VERY different than working 60 hours a week towards what YOU consider an accomplishment. I can put in 60-70 hours a week in my music and, although I do feel it's hard work, it doesn't feel like slavery.

I'm sure there are many other personally rewarding activities that people rather do than work in a boring job that doesn't make them grow towards what THEY consider important.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your point of view and you have the rights to pursue your goals but their goals aren't lesser because they don't care about the job as much as you do.

To me, screwing off and not doing what you are hired to do is actually stealing from who you are working for. Maybe my attitude is why I always got along with my employers and got along with them after I left. I was never a drain on my employers, I always did what I was paid for. If I didn't agree with what I was supposed to do, because of moral issues, I just told the boss why I was quitting. You would be surprised how many people will respect you for being honest. I left half a dozen good jobs because of the constant tension between other employees and they wanted me to choose sides. Many of these tensions were created by groups of workers that did not want to pull their weight, forcing the other workers to work harder.

There is nothing wrong with Walmart. I just don't like it because it led to multiple other businesses closing which employed more people than Walmart created. So it ultimately was bad for our community. But now we have Walmart and very few small stores spread out around the towns. I liked it better the other way, but that way has gone the way of the dinosaur.

You know what causes laziness?

GMOs, preservatives, fluoride, technology, & most of all, despair at being forced to live in a disgustingly broken system.

a reply to: Flesh699
Wal-mart is worse than you think, just a couple of the many sources available ...
Children Found Sewing Clothing For Wal-Mart, Hanes & Other U.S. & European Companies

According to a National Labor Committee 2006 report, an estimated 200 children, some 11 years old or even younger, are sewing clothing for Hanes, Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, and Puma at the Harvest Rich factory in Bangladesh.

The children report being routinely slapped and beaten, sometimes falling down from exhaustion, forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, even some all-night, 19-to-20-hour shifts, often seven days a week, for wages as low as 6 ½ cents an hour. The wages are so wretchedly low that many of the child workers get up at 5:00 a.m. each morning to brush their teeth using just their finger and ashes from the fire, since they cannot afford a toothbrush or toothpaste.

The workers say that if they could earn just 36 cents an hour, they could climb out of misery and into poverty, where they could live with a modicum of decency.

In the month of September, the children had just one day off, and before clothing shipments had to leave for the U.S. the workers were often kept at the factory 95 to 110 hours a week. After being forced to work a grueling all-night 19-to-20-hour shift, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. the following day, the children sleep on the factory floor for two or three hours before being woken to start their next shift at 8:00 a.m. that same morning.

The child workers are beaten for falling behind in their production goal, making mistakes or taking too long in the bathroom (which is filthy, lacking even toilet paper, soap or towels).

In 1996, after Charles Kernaghan and the National Labor Committee revealed that Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line for Wal-Mart was being made by 12 and 13-year-olds in Honduras, the resulting scandal and publicity was enough to virtually wipe out child labor in garment factories around the world producing for export to the U.S.

"Exactly a decade after the Kathie Lee Gifford scandal, children are again sewing clothing for Wal-Mart, Hanes and other U.S. companies,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.

Report PDF here

PBS - Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town

Wal-Mart employs more people than any other company in the United States outside of the Federal government, yet the majority of its employees with children live below the poverty line. "Buy American" banners are prominently placed throughout its stores; however, the majority of its goods are made outside the U.S. and often in sweatshops. Critics believe that Wal-Mart opens stores to saturate the marketplace and clear out the competition, then closes the stores and leaves them sitting empty. Freedom of speech issues also come into play. Musicians are at the mercy of Wal-Mart's stringent content rules, forcing many to create "sanitized" versions of their albums specifically for the discount chain.
*****
Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of the stores' items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops. In fact, only after Wal-Mart's "Buy American" ad campaign was in full swing did the company become the country's largest importer of Chinese goods in any industry. By taking its orders abroad, Wal-Mart has forced many U.S. manufacturers out of business. The chain was broadly criticized for being the primary distributor of many goods attracting controversy, including Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, Disney's Haitian-made pajamas, child-produced clothing from Bangladesh and sweatshop-produced toys and sports gear from Asia. Difficult working conditions also exist in the United States: In 1991, labor inspectors found labels for Wal-Mart brands being made in Manhattan's Chinatown. There, 16 and 17 year-old Chinese immigrants without permits had been working for one month without being paid.

These are the practices why Wal-mart is hated and viewed as evil, the pay here in the U.S. is only the latest criticism. While every company has lazy employees like you describe, not every company has a track record of employee treatment as Wal-mart does.

originally posted by: FaceMyBook
You know what causes laziness?

GMOs, preservatives, fluoride, technology, & most of all, despair at being forced to live in a disgustingly broken system.

As compared to the reality that a certain % of people in the world are just lazy.

Always someone or something else to blame vs people being accountable for their own actions.

Sad to say it but I don't believe the laziness you've seen is anything new nor only limited to WalMart. I learned that from being a Head of Department in retail. Needless to say I was getting raises not the other people if they did last long at all there.

Though, maybe WalMart just reflects while being just as bad, or rather a mascot, of what the nation has become in the last few decades or so.

originally posted by: Indigent

Only America would think that putting items on a shelf is a ridiculously hard task, and actually hide to get out of doing it. Only America, folks!

You may be surprised to know this is not only in America...

Yup, shocking so to some it appears the rest of the world or at least more and more developed areas as well as the Western world are catching up.

originally posted by: FaceMyBook
You know what causes laziness?

GMOs, preservatives, fluoride, technology, & most of all, despair at being forced to live in a disgustingly broken system.

That coupled with the "me" generation ideals, and Corporatocracy greed. Not a good combo. Rather, welcome to dystopia.

originally posted by: dreamingawake

originally posted by: FaceMyBook
You know what causes laziness?

GMOs, preservatives, fluoride, technology, & most of all, despair at being forced to live in a disgustingly broken system.

That coupled with the "me" generation ideals, and Corporatocracy greed. Not a good combo. Rather, welcome to dystopia.

My thoughts exactly, well said.

So really its just people are as bad as I think.

a reply to: Flesh699

I have seen Walmarts that were alright and others that stank, and yes, the employees were what made the difference. Employees that care, and want to do the best job they can, and think about the customers, if coupled with good management, can make a good store. Crappy employees, that act as though the customers are in their way, and bad management, can make for a terrible store.

That said, there are problems with the corporation as well. One that I have is how they have dropped so many products they used to carry, to carry ONLY certain brands of lots of things. Or, carrying only certain sizes of some products. Examples? Dish soap in certain scents, widely available in other stores, and Walmart went to carrying only their brand in those. Or cat food of a certain type, in a smaller bag. Or DVDs in anything but ONE brand. That,a nd the way they demand exclusive contracts from vendors, which is another issue. My brother-in-law works for a company that sells AC units, mostly industrial ones, and that company was contacted by Walmart, to do business with them. "Sure", they said, they could sell units for home use to Walmart. Ah, but that wasn't good enough! Walmart said they would only take them if the company ONLY sold to their stores. Unreal!!! Walmart actually expected them to stop selling their industrial units, which is most of their business, to be able to sell in Walmart stores. So, they are trying to control what brands we buy, what sizes we buy,a nd prevent competitors from selling thr same items.

On that note, they also have a habit of running small businesses out of business when they move into an area. I have heard stories of them carrying the same products as little exclusive stores, at greatly reduced prices, till the local stores were forced to close for loss of revenue. Then, the Walmart would stop carrying the items completely!

So, yes, the employees can be a real problem. That doesn't mean there are none with the company, though.