My Fair Review of Walmart

[illillillillilli]

I guess it's kind of like a trip to the casino... you just got to know when to leave the table before you get in too deep.

[LNoella3]

Eh, it has its ups and downs. Most of the time things go pretty well where I work. Of course with all this stupid stuff going into place like having to follow a piece of paper that tells you when you have to what, that will more than likely change. I guess we're going to be looking at our watches every hour on the hour to make sure we're not late starting the next routine. LOL!!!!!

[lmw1985]

I think Wal-Mart's main problem is how they try to make things "fair" but they end up making things less fair. Let me explain. From what I understand, a while back all associates were paid the same starting wage with managers of course making a little bit more. For some dumb reason they decided to change the pay scale to levels. Fair for some people. Extrememly unfair to others. Sporting Goods and Electronics are paid more due to the fact that they use registers, however, I was trained on register,too. I just never used it in a department. Why should I be paid a level 2 while Electronics is paid a level 4? In fact I would always walk past Electronics and the employees would be just standing around talking to each other. I would be thinking to myself, "They are paid more than me? Really?"

My day would consist of manual labor interspersed with cashiering. I would plan my days out so I would have enough time to get all of my freight worked only to be told to go up and cashier constantly. Therefore, I would have to work twice as fast to get everything done on the sales floor. Then obviously customers asking me a bunch of questions when I already have a ton of shit to do did not put me in a good mood. And I don't care what anyone else says but I need to be in a different mindset when working on the sales floor than cashiering. Sometimes I would be working in my department thinking to myself, "I can take a break in 20 minutes" and then a minute later I'm told to go up and cashier and I'm up there for an hour. It just pissed me off that I was paid 20 cents more than a people greeter yet I did more work than most managers.

And like I was saying before, the system Wal-Mart has can either benefit some people or screw over some people. When people in Photo, Electronics, or Jewelry cashier they are benefiting from the system since their departments pay more than cashiers. I was getting extremely fucked over when I had to. I was doing the EXACT same thing as the other cashiers yet I was paid less than them. Let me put this in perspective for you... when I applied at Wal-Mart I wanted to be hired as a cashier. Therefore, I did not take kindly to them making me cashier but not paying me the same wages. Plus I had my name in on the WIRE to be a cashier and they NEVER asked me if I wanted to. That's probably because they knew they would never find someone else willing to work so hard in a department and cashier as well. There were plenty of people on the sales floor who were never trained on register. I don't see why I'm the only one who had to be so overworked. One man even came to my register once and said I looked so unhappy and I need to smile more. I was getting paid less than a cashier to cashier. Gee, I wonder why I was unhappy. I know I accidently gave away a lot of free shit when I cashiered and that's mainly because I didn't care. You get what you pay for. If you pay me the same as the other cashiers then maybe you'll get the same quality.

It's just little things like that which pissed me off like you wouldn't believe. If you pay your employees fair then they will be happy. A happy employee is a productive employee.

So basically the only way I can figure anyone would enjoy working at Wal-Mart is if they benefited from the dumb rules, whereas I clearly was screwed over by them.

Oh yeah, people who work in the back room also have it easy. (Claims, ICS, etc...) Another main reason I hated working at Wal-Mart was the horrible, mean customers I had to deal with everyday. If you work early in the morning or late at night then working on the sales floor isn't that bad but I had to work 10a-7pm a lot of the time. When you are getting asked questions every 2 fucking seconds by incompetent people who can't find Q-Tips on their own you want to kill yourself. And then the managers have the nerve to say we need to walk the customer to the product every time they ask. I used to do that until I realized I was doing myself a huge disservice. I shouldn't have to walk miles a day just showing lazy people where stuff is located. There are plenty of signs in the store. Those idiots should learn how to read.
Oh, God. I am so thankful I don't work there anymore.

All I can say is anyone who enjoys working at Wal-Mart obviously didn't have the same job or pay as me.

[illillillillilli]

Oh yeah, people who work in the back room also have it easy. (Claims, ICS, etc...) Another main reason I hated working at Wal-Mart was the horrible, mean customers I had to deal with everyday. If you work early in the morning or late at night then working on the sales floor isn't that bad but I had to work 10a-7pm a lot of the time. When you are getting asked questions every 2 fucking seconds by incompetent people who can't find Q-Tips on their own you want to kill yourself. And then the managers have the nerve to say we need to walk the customer to the product every time they ask. I used to do that until I realized I was doing myself a huge disservice. I shouldn't have to walk miles a day just showing lazy people where stuff is located. There are plenty of signs in the store. Those idiots should learn how to read.
Oh, God. I am so thankful I don't work there anymore.

All I can say is anyone who enjoys working at Wal-Mart obviously didn't have the same job or pay as me.

ROFLMAO... Backroom people have it easy.... that is funny. Level 3 and clocking in more than 5 walking miles a day. If we sell it, we count it. From dairy to garden center. We sell it, I count it. From a pack of gum at 20 some odd registers, to that negative on hand sitting in that clearance aisle. We count backroom AND salesfloor. If I stand next to a salesfloor associate wearing navy top and khaki pants and I'm wearing navy top, blue jeans, holding a telxon and now we have to wear the bright yellow vest ALL day, the customer comes to me. Even if I'm in the middle of counting something that's a thousand odd, I would be the one interupted because I have a telxon in my hand.

While still a level three here... I'm required to get manual and system picks every hour, Count stuff that should've been stocked or adjust SC that the DM doesn't know how to set, Audit whatever the lil telxon tell me to (which has increased due to overordering), Bin in whatever 10-7 cant, salesfloor and backroom counts, and set up for truck. All has to be done by four, no matter what the backroom looks like. What I do is logged. Management knows what counts I've done, management doesn't even have to leave the office to see where I'm at in my day...
What I do is documented on a backroom scorecard which is closely monitored by my lead, the zones, the assistants, the shift managers, the SM, and Market. I mess up and I'm asked by at least six people on why I didn't get done. It's even worse if MM notices.

I'm in Retail hell limbo. Not a DM, but not a salesfloor associate... I'm not going of at anyone, I'm just going off.

[lmw1985]

I know you do have to work on the sales floor once in a while but not nearly as much as a Sales Associate. Plus the daytime ICS people at the store I worked at wore walkie talkies so if someone did ask them a question when they were on the sales floor (which rarely happened since they never wore their name tags) they could just call someone from that department. I was never given a walkie talkie and I was never asked if I wanted one. I hear people say that the walkie talking is annoying or whatever but it would have made my job a million times easier if I had one. Plus you only have to work until 4pm and they play music in the backroom so at least you have something to listen to while doing picks. I wish the idiots in charge would have let each department do their own picks instead of making the rule that only ICS people can. I hated waiting around on the sales floor for it to get done when I would have been more than happy to do it myself.

All I can say is the daytime ICS people at my store looked like they had it easy and I had my name in for that position as well as EVERY position that paid more than a 2 (excluding the food departments). As much as I would love to work with raw meat all day I think I'll pass.

And this huge bitch that worked in Claims would always be complaining about her job and I would be thinking to myself, "If you don't like your job then I would be more than happy to take it." While I was writing up defects one day I heard her talking on the phone in the Claims cage to a relative and I know it was a relative since she said "Dad" in the phone call.

That must be my problem. I work too hard and actually follow rules and don't steal time. (it's very easy to steal time in the back room when there are no customers bothering you) Doing all of that makes me a very angry person at how unfair the world is.

The job I have now actually is fair and I actually enjoy working there. Go figure.

[iceman7481]

how much does walmart pay those associates that you see on the front cover of walmart today magazine? lolz...a few months back they did a story about 3 store managers who some how..dont ask me how moved up the ladder...you see them smilling...saying this and that...i just dont buy it...

sorry for being off topic..lol

[JustAGlance]

Perception is everything..I love how everyone thinks another has it better, till they walk in their shoes.

I been cashier, I been salesfloor, I worked every Sunday, 99% Saturdays before taking this position, which now I work every weekend, regardless. I have worked every darn hour they schedule.

I am sorry, but ICS has one thing over them that salesfloor associates don't..that dan walke going off in thwir ear every damn 5 minutes with a member of management screaming..How are the picks? How is the Counts? ARE YOU DONE YET?????

The million times one goes up a ladder, down a ladder, to the garden center, to the freezer to TLE.

I look back, and you know..that 10-7pm where you heard your name every 5 minutes to come up front while your looking at your department going,..I can't finish this, and the customers asking..where is the ....? and your ready to frickin scream....lol Yeah, been there, done it..now I get the pleasure of people in my ear..do we have in the back? Managers..PUSH them, How are the picks? We need a bale..etc...etc....whether it is by 4pm, or 1am, or my shift, by the end of the night you want to CHOKE some associates as well as Managers and customers alike.

I have learned one thing, EACH department, EACH job code has it's share of ups and downs and stress. But to assume one has it easier is a HUGE mistake in this company.

[lmw1985]

I have learned one thing, EACH department, EACH job code has it's share of ups and downs and stress. But to assume one has it easier is a HUGE mistake in this company.

If all jobs suck equally (which they don't) then why do the positions have different pay levels? The way I look at it... if everyone hated their job at Wal-Mart as much as I did then there would be no long term employees there.

I know how the old saying goes, "The grass is always greener on the other side" but I don't think I'm wrong when I say being paid a level 3 to work in the backroom is better than being paid a level 2 to work on the sales floor. I have done picks for my department before they changed the rules so it's not like I don't know what an ICS associate does. Being paid a level 3 to cashier is better than being paid a level 2 to be a back-up cashier. (especially because when the store is dead then the cashiers can stand around by the register whereas I still have to work on the sales floor stocking and zoning) If they would have given me a job I actually liked then perhaps I wouldn't have been so desperate to find a different job.

[Wal_Mart_0172]

I have learned one thing, EACH department, EACH job code has it's share of ups and downs and stress. But to assume one has it easier is a HUGE mistake in this company.

If all jobs suck equally (which they don't) then why do the positions have different pay levels? The way I look at it... if everyone hated their job at Wal-Mart as much as I did then there would be no long term employees there.

I know how the old saying goes, "The grass is always greener on the other side" but I don't think I'm wrong when I say being paid a level 3 to work in the backroom is better than being paid a level 2 to work on the sales floor. I have done picks for my department before they changed the rules so it's not like I don't know what an ICS associate does. Being paid a level 3 to cashier is better than being paid a level 2 to be a back-up cashier. (especially because when the store is dead then the cashiers can stand around by the register whereas I still have to work on the sales floor stocking and zoning) If they would have given me a job I actually liked then perhaps I wouldn't have been so desperate to find a different job.

I think that you both make excellent points, and I also think someone in Bentonville is missing the boat. As for being your typical "level 2" sales floor associate that has to "back-up cashier" (a level 3 pay grade), that just isn't right. Even as a level 2 pay grade, I don't mind helping out there once in a while, but it gets to a point where it's happening way too often, especially when there's tons of projects to do, and/or customer service within the departments. What's worse is that half of our floor associates aren't register-trained, and out of the ones who are, about half of them are in areas such as Electronics & Sporting Goods, where they apparently are exempt from being called up front unless it's extremely busy. What really gets me mad is that I'll go by Electronics and see 3 or 4 associates standing around talking, so I know they have the coverage (compared to other areas). Meanwhile, we have level 2 associates in other departments who are often times the only person covering multiple departments, and they are the ones who get yanked up to cashier most often. They are also the ones who get chewed out when their tasks aren't done on time.

Not only do we not get paid as much as regular cashiers, but there are other consequences. For one thing, if you get have a coaching on record, or a "below expectations" evaluation, you aren't even allowed to move up from your level 2 position to be a cashier (in spite of the fact that you get yanked up there quite often). Also, sometimes your evaluation takes into account how often you go up front to cashier, and if you are good at it, you'll probably get a meets (or maybe an exceeds if you are able to get your regular tasks done PLUS cashiering when called). However, with some managers, even if you go up to cashier, they'll still hold the fact that you're not getting your tasks done against you, and rate you "below expectations" despite the fact that you probably "exceed expectations" in that you do cashier, even though you might not "meet expectations" within the department. We have had people who have WANTED to be cashiers, but have had to work the sales floor instead, and have been coached (or given sub-par evalutions) because they were up front so much that they weren't able to get their department tasks done. When they asked to transfer to a cashier, they were told that they couldn't because of the active coaching and/or evaluation on file. In my opinion, that sucks.

The other thing that I think stinks is that those who back-up cashier, don't even have cashier listed as a "secondary job code", which means they don't get the benefit of the CBLs to learn the basics (and more complicated tasks to cashiering). Now, I believe that if you work in Sporting Goods and Electronics, you do get those CBLs because you have to know how to cashier just to work those departments. But for most level 2 positions (like Housewares, HBA, Pets, etc.), you don't get those CBLs, so you just get minimal training, and you only go up there when it's busy, so you really don't get much time to learn what you need to know.

We also have the issue where half of our Garden Center associates (which is also a level 3 position) don't know how to cashier, and that's not right. If some level 2 people have to cashier, then almost all level 3 people should have to. Out of our current group of Garden Center associates, I think only 3 or 4 know how to run registers. Keep in mind, that our Garden Center can use up to 4 registers (compared to other stores that have only 1 or 2), so I don't see the big deal with those people learning how to cashier just to help out with cashiering in the Garden Center for a few minutes when it gets real busy.

Personally, I think there should be some kind of incentive for everyone to know how to backup cashier, whether it be 20 or 30 cents per hour higher than their "normal" hourly wage would be, or being upgraded to "level 3" job code since they have to go through the aggrevation of cashiering plus their normal duties.

I could go on and on about this, but my basic premise as far as the cashiering situation is this. I don't think it's right that "Level 4" associates in Electronics & Sporting Goods (could add Level 3 associates in Garden Center) get to stand around "chit-chatting", while the level 2 associates have tons of work to do (often one person having to cover multiple departments). And it's usually the level 2 associates who get called up front to cashier first. I am going to raise a real "stink" about this to a store manager (or at least some assistant manager) relatively "soon". It might not be this week or next week, but it's going to happen pretty soon.

As far as the level 3 people working the backroom, I don't expect them to have to cashier, because they need to maintain the backroom properly, because if the backroom falls apart, the rest of the store probably will fall apart as well. I'll admit that I haven't worked the backroom much, so I don't know what all they have to go through. I've heard that they go through a lot of hell as well, with the bin accuracy being low, a lot of negative on-hands, and of course the critical picks. In theory, the idea of having all items scanned in (as opposed to the old way of things being in random spots where nobody knew where they were) is a good idea, but the execution is not quite up to par. Personally, I think the system worked better when we had some of the ICS team working on the sales floor. If you want to know my suggestion on how to fix the backroom problems, this would be a partial list:
1) Add back the 11-8 ICS shift because this is where the customer traffic is heaviest and when we need the best possible communication for resolving possible "outs" within the departments.
2) Have two different "job codes" for the ICS team. Half of the people work in various areas on the sales floor, while half of them work the back room. However, all of them should know how to work both areas.
3) Give all ICS team members (not just the team lead) walkie-talkies to enable better communication between the sales floor members and the backroom members. While we're at it, give all department managers walkie-talkies as well for better communication with the ICS team members when they need a problem resolved.
4) I also think that everyone (at least the ICS team and any supervisor such as department manager on up) should be able to create manual picks when they see the need. Although it is true that in general the system is pretty good at giving us picks that will actually go up, sometimes they don't give us a pick when we really NEED it. I think we're relying too much on a computer program here. Furthermore, we're not letting the human element of those who are actually out there on the sales floor and see the outs generate a pick that might otherwise be forgotten.

There's various things customers will complain about within the store such as:
1) No one to help dip fish, mix paint, cut fabric, etc.
2) Checkout lines are too long for them
3) Customer can't find the location of an item or department, and no one was nearby to help them with it.
4) Item customer is looking for is not on the shelf. Sometimes it's because we're flat out, but more are on order tonight or the next night. Sometimes, it's because there's a warehouse outage and we might not get any more in for a while. And then there are times where it's in the back room, but because the system didn't generate the pick, it doesn't come out because we can't do manual picks. As far as I'm concerned, there's not much that I personally can do if we're out of a particular item both on the sales floor or in the back room. But if the item is empty on the sales floor but we have it in stock in the backroom, I'm one of those people who prefers to take a "pro-active" approach (meaning put it on the pick list manually instead of assuming the system is going to automatically generate the pick) rather than take a "re-active" approach (meaning that the pick isn't generated until after a customer asks if we have the item in stock). However, at the same time, I don't want the same pick to be generated twice, so if I HAVE to do manual picks, I usually don't do them until all the current picks in the department have already been stocked or labeled as "overstock". I also like to make sure the area that I am "picking" from is zoned reasonably well first so I can get an accurate count of how much of a certain item I need.

There's nothing more frustrating from a customer standpoint than when the product he's looking for is empty and there is no associate nearby to answer the question as to if we even have the item in stock. And it basically boils down to staffing. As we all know, we're short on the sales floor as is, and the few who are on the sales floor get called up to cashier quite a bit, which further complicates the problem.

The bottom line though is that not all jobs are created equal, and it seems like certain people get paid more for doing less. But the real issue is overall customer service within the store, and I feel (and I'm sure many others within the store, as well as on this site, would agree) that we are not giving our customers the service that they deserve. In my opinion, that sucks. If I was a manager for this company, I would not tolerate that for long. If that means I have to go out to the floor to work the freight to make sure it gets done, even as a manager, I would do it. I think that's the root of the problem. The customer service is awful because the staffing is a joke, and also because most of the managers try to act like "bosses" rather than coming out and helping when they certain areas aren't covered on a particular day.

[lmw1985]

I think that you both make excellent points, and I also think someone in Bentonville is missing the boat. As for being your typical "level 2" sales floor associate that has to "back-up cashier" (a level 3 pay grade), that just isn't right. Even as a level 2 pay grade, I don't mind helping out there once in a while, but it gets to a point where it's happening way too often, especially when there's tons of projects to do, and/or customer service within the departments. What's worse is that half of our floor associates aren't register-trained, and out of the ones who are, about half of them are in areas such as Electronics & Sporting Goods, where they apparently are exempt from being called up front unless it's extremely busy. What really gets me mad is that I'll go by Electronics and see 3 or 4 associates standing around talking, so I know they have the coverage (compared to other areas). Meanwhile, we have level 2 associates in other departments who are often times the only person covering multiple departments, and they are the ones who get yanked up to cashier most often. They are also the ones who get chewed out when their tasks aren't done on time.

Yes! I thought I was the only one who experienced this. Don't get me wrong... I'm glad I was trained on register. It was something else to put on a resume. I just hate that they made me do it so often. I shouldn't have to cashier every day if cashier is not even part of my job description and I'm paid less than a cashier. I know Electronics was only paid 40 cents more than me but when you work at a job that only gives a 40 cent raise a year that is a lot. The people who work in Electronics in my store (and apparently your store as well) are overpaid. The CSMs must have thought I was the only person on the sales floor who knew how to cashier because I was the first one they went to when they needed extra cashiers. I wonder who they have been going to now that I'm gone. As I always say... if you treat your employees like shit then don't expect them to stick around very long.