This is an ongoing series of the stories and people who work and shop in a small town Wal-Mart.
I am not always kind, or generous in my assessments of situations, but true feelings about outrageous situations don't come cloaked in the socially acceptable.
Read on for more about Wal-mart's time management.
There are times when working at Wal-mart and actually thinking seem counterproductive. We are treated like children most days, and I do feel that there is a war going on between corporate home office and their sell-outs(salaried management) and the workers. I think that corporate would rather have people in the Cyborg mindset than any truly innovative, creative, thinkers. Oh, Wal-mart will talk a good game, and they are masters of manipulation-(here, come to this meeting where we are going to Redbookinvestigate you, but here, sit down, it's so hard standing all day, and oh, by the way, I bought you a large latte from the coffee shop, I know you like those, and have a doughnut,) to dividing and conquering through money. The number one weapon Wal-Mart will use is to tell you that your personal myshare(profit sharing) will be decreased if a union comes in, or if you disrupt other workers by talking to them while you are off the clock. The biggest outrage right now at my store is lack of time management, or as Wal-mart puts it-our employees are stealing time from us by talking to each other, and bathroom breaks, and taking too long to walk to the front of the store.
It makes sense, in Wal-mart's mind, and to paraphrase Sam Walton,* the biggest detriment to a store's profit is labor costs". In order to reduce the drag on Wal-mart's profit margin, labor costs are reduced. At my store, no hourly person makes over $15.00 per hour, if a worker finds herself making that much, she is automatically cut from the payroll by either the hostile work environment suddenly created, or a transfer to a salaried position happens. I actually stood outside the AD office while our store manager told one of our hourly support managers she was so happy that our support manager took a job elsewhere, because now she wasn't on the store's payroll. I asked the support manager how much she was making an hour, and it turned out to be around $14.10 per hour.
In any case, our co-managers have decided that we workers are the biggest wasters of time. Never mind that we rank highest, and Wal-mart ranks highest in productivity, never mind that the community mindset is the good old Midwest work ethic predominates, even among the Generation Tech, we are all time thieves stealing valuable time from Wal-mart when we, off the clock stop by a register and ask how a valued colleague or friend is doing, or when we because we have sore feet and cannot afford good shoes take longer than five minutes to walk from the back room where the time clock is to the front end where our work begins. We have workers who won't take a break in the break room where the microwaves, fridges and important social interactions takes place, because they won't make it up front in time and will be written up.
It used to be our Customer Service Managers(CSMs) trusted us cashiers to make decisions on when to turn off our lights. We would turn off our light and run and get receipt tape instead of having to wait for an overworked CSM to bring it to us. Otherwise, our light would stay on and it would take four to five minutes sometimes for the only CSM to bring us receipt tape, with lines stacking up and frustrated customers waiting. Or, we could, if you are like my friend Stephanie, who just had a minor stroke and now has a slight bladder issue, able to turn off your light and just go to the bathroom without asking permission. Now, Stephanie has to punch in a code, and ask permission to go to the bathroom and wait for a CSM's palm pilot to receive her request and for the CSM to punch the code in for approval. Yesterday, we were so busy that all our CSMs were put on registers, and were not timely on responding to our codes. Stephanie soiled her pants waiting, because to leave her register meant that she would get "coached" and written up. A 61 year old woman being treated like a second grader makes my stomach churn in anger.
But the biggest and most outrageous issue on the whole "Time Theft" issue, is that now, both off the clock workers and workers on the clock will get verbal and written warnings about time theft. If an off the clock worker is caught on the floor interacting with an on the clock worker, and it's not customer related, such as where is the aluminum foil I am buying some today? both workers will be given coachings. Get enough written coachings and you will be dragged in to the officer for what Wal-mart calls Decision Making Day, where you will be sent home with pay and forced to write an essay about why you shouldn't be fired to be presented at your next scheduled work day.
Wal-mart infantilizes us, I didn't know I was considered to be 2nd grader at school, not a fully functional adult who is able to make competent work decisions.
*For further reading, check out NYR Inside the Leviathan" by Simon Head.
Tue Feb 14, 2012 at 9:30 AM PT: Hi, thanks for all the support! I am sorry, I worked yesterday afternoon.
So, one or two of you are asking me if my soiling story is true, and yes, it is. You see, Steph was hired to be a cashier, and while normally during non busy times, they put her near the bathrooms, it's not an issue, but we have been crazy busy with tax refunds coming in(I agree with Atrios of Escahton, free money for the 99% and none for the banks is the way to turn the consumer economy around, because I see what the extra money does for lower income people, they spend on TVs, computers, clothes, and at 10 bucks a lb, steak!, but that's an issue for another time) and valentine's day. But, as I mentioned our CSMs' who are responsible for the running the front end, were all on registers. Plus, I don't know how to describe this, but when a person such as Steph can't make without her crap job at Wal-Mart, breaking the rules such as not waiting for the approval code to come through on the register touch screen, plus the whole hmm, cognitive dissonance-they must not have forgotten about me, they will get to me quickly, probably paid a part in Steph's decision not to go. I told her next time, just go, and our CSMs, who are good people and get that our jobs are really hard, and ARE supportive, will back her up by saying they were busy. This wasn't the CSMs' doing, I blame Wal-mart's chronic under-staffing and making CSMs' get on registers instead of hiring enough cashiers or scheduling enough to begin with. Plus, as I notice, Wal-mart they tend not to keep GREAT people, the mediocre tend to rise to the top of the salaried positions. The petty, power-hungry I want my bonuses screw the rest of you managers are what we get stuck with at Wal-mart CSM's they are just one step up from cashiers, and probably only make 40 cents more than I do for more responsibility.
Also, our time clock is in back, and yes, if a cashier is healthy, and doesn't have foot problems other issues, and also doesn't get stopped by customers who can't find anyone to assist them ,yes, it can take more than five minutes to walk up front. I watched one of the best cashiers I know, hobble to the back just the other day for her lunch, it took her longer and she got stopped twice on the way there. Wal-mart says well, providing customer service is different, but you know what? I just watched a CSM yell at another cashier saying being stopped on the way back up front doesn't happen every day. Well, yes, it does actually, especially in our busy store.