probably even more so where wages are low, thus turnover is high. From what I have heard Walmart management gets little respect from their superiors either. They are just driven to lower costs or out the door. They just pass the crap down the line.

So sad. People are no longer people but just objects, things to be used, abused and thrown away.

Edit to add - oh the stories I could tell from my working days - I'm sure most everyone on this board could.

I have built or remodeled 7 Walmarts in my area and often have to relate to the employees. None, not one, has ever complained about management to me. And they're a chatty bunch that love to gossip.
I have never heard a manager speak disrespectfully to an underling. I have never heard an employee say that they are being forced to work harder. And they strictly enforce the break and meal times. Their pay isn't great but they aren't doing work that is especially difficult. How hard is it to restock shelves and run a register?

Walmart could easily afford to pay its workers a living wage so that so many of them don't qualify for welfare.

Easily.

Your complete lack of respect for their workers is disgusting.

If ANYONE works they should be able to afford a basic lifestyle with some dignity.

Our economy has become more and more of a service based economy, and those that work within it still work hard, deserve our respect, and deserve to be paid an amount that gives them a level of dignity (a level of dignity and respect that you and others aren't able to give them).

The Walmart investors and executives have become ridiculously wealthy off of the labor of the people you don't respect.

Are you suggesting that a cashier should be paid the same as say, a car mechanic?
A tradesman has gone to school or had on the job training for a marketable skill and thus deserves a higher wage. Any able bodied person with a pulse can get a Walmart job and can be easily replaced. They have no technical skills that demand higher wages.
A Walmart employee is not being forced to work there. If they have the ambition, they can get a better paying job somewhere else.

It's just a damn shame that it's acceptable in the Democratic Party.

If you don't believe that people that work in service industries deserve more money than they are currently making then we are not political allies. Their wages have stagnated and eroded (their purchasing power) year after year after year, and so many are in poverty now.

You seem to not have a problem with that.

We are not political allies.

I've been an electrician for over 20 years. Most of my career I had insurance, pension vacation pay. Since the crash I've made less than half of that. Do I think it's unfair? Fuck yes it's unfair. I believe that ALL workers should unionize or belong to a trade guild of some kind to represent their members to company management.

And as far as political allies goes, I vote for my own best interests. If I don't like a democratic candidate then I don't cast a vote for that office.

which were really harsh and unkind towards service workers.

You sounded really anti-union until you were called out.

What's up with that?

"A Walmart employee is not being forced to work there. If they have the ambition, they can get a better paying job somewhere else."

By your own assertion, we're talking about workers who do not have (or aren't being paid to have) marketable skills, so just quitting and getting a better job isn't an option for many of them. Quitting their job would almost certainly mean going without an income for at least several days, and for people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck that is simply not an option.

It is so easy for people with a secure job and marketable skills to sit back and say "just quit" to those who don't, but the reality is that it's not that easy to do.

Tuition, even at community colleges, is FAR higher than it was a generation ago. States pull support from higher education year after year to close budget deficits, and students are left to make up the difference (mostly with student loans, which are almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy).

If you're barely subsisting with a full time job (or two or more part time jobs that add up to 40 or more hours a week) as it is, and that's with government assistance such as food stamps, EITC, etc., you're sure as hell not going to be able to swing an education without taking out those student loans and subjecting yourself to tens of thousands in nigh-dischargeable risk to better yourself. That is a risk that state and local governments used to bear because providing those opportunities improves the tax base and economy over time. No more--far too many state governments have been poisoned by the "government is bad!" propaganda and even the bluer states have found higher education a politically easier source of cuts than other expenses in hard times.

A lot of people who learned their skills before this great transfer of risk do not understand how much more difficult it is for a present-day worker to escape low-wage work than it was when they learned their own trade decades ago.

I'm pretty sure that, if we tried, we could come up with a list of college grads who are working at Walmart as cashiers, or stocking shelves. While I would agree with you that someone who has gone to school or has had job related experience or training should receive a higher wage... a big part of the problem here is that the minimum wage is not enough for most people to get by. IF the minimum wage was higher and workers were required to be paid more, I believe that the pay for skilled trades would rise as well.

In Maine, you'd be looking at 7.50 an hour - and without benefits, your best hope for survival would be state or federal aid. We have a governor that has been cutting our assistance programs ever since he took office. Pretty damned hard to get health insurance through the state programs now, there's also the fact that, if you don't make a certain amount of money, you also can't get health insurance under the ACA. Food stamps are getting much harder to get, as is any sort of financial assistance.

No, a Walmart employee is not being forced to work there. However, when you consider areas that have little opportunity for decent jobs, your options are somewhat limited when you have bills to pay and mouths to feed. You can have all the ambition in the world - but if the opportunities simply aren't there, then that ambition doesn't do you much good.

Human decency as well as survival should demand wages that are high enough for families to pay the bills. Most cannot do it on the minimum, or if they can, they have such a low quality of life that they end up clinically depressed, or turn to alcohol, drugs, or worse things to compensate for living in poverty.

I don't know what your experience is, but I have held several jobs that paid minimum wage - as well as back in 02 and 03 when they paid 5.45 an hour here. The work is tough, the hours are long - and you are very much at the mercy of your employers.

Ambition is not always enough. Our mutual humanity, empathy, understanding... these things should come first. A stronger working class benefits the whole Country - there is no reason NOT to improve conditions, and every reason TO do so.

is the lack of public transportation, and how rural we are here.

If I had to work at a WalMart, it'd be a 50 mile round trip. Gas prices are not going to be this low forever, so that fuel would really eat in to an already very tiny paycheck. And I know people who would have to travel much farther than me to work there.

I wonder at what point (mileage wise) would one not be able to afford working at a place like WalMart? Serious question here-- Say gas goes back up to 4-something a gallon and you live 50 miles away, making it a 100 mile round trip. And let us just assume you are traveling 5 days a week, for only 30 hours of work (5 six hour shifts-say)-- Seriously, I'm wondering if someone in such a position would end up with much of anything?

I'm too lazy to do the math, and of course, the after-tax paycheck is somewhat of unknown, but I can't see someone in that situation being able to make it on a WalMart income. They'd have to move into a crappy, closer-to-town apartment, I suppose...

Either way - so around 60 a day. I have a little car that's fairly good on gas, but I probably spent about ten bucks a day, five days a week, then probably another ten or so over my days off (Sixty bucks out of about 230). Right now my commute is about eighteen miles either way, which cuts it down a good bit, and the dropping gas prices have helped quite a lot.

My parents have been doing about twenty-five for the last sixteen years or so - and it adds up, but I'm not sure on what exactly they spend weekly. Between the two of them, with their larger vehicles, it's well over one hundred.

I've considered moving to a City that has public transportation, but then the cost of renting an apartment or home skyrockets compared to what we have here. The rest of the Country, I think, is pretty much as screwed as we are when it comes to cost of living arrangements.

If gas does go up enough, I probably will move into a nearby town, find another low paying job... and rent a crappy apartment or something. Might do that anyway, getting tired of living in the middle of no where.

....a ridiculously low wage and forced to live off federal programs because of it? I think your words personify what is terribly wrong with workplace economics in this country. ALL work is valuable. These low skilled workers you deride are the people that, each in their small way, make Wal-Mart's profits possible. Don't adequately stock the shelves and see if customers get pissed off and don't come back. Ring up their purchases inaccurately or take forever, backing up the check out line and see how customers react. As for pay, it appears Costco has no problem paying a decent wage and benefits, giving them far lower turnover. Thus their overall cost structure isn't all that much higher than Wal-Mart's on a per store basis. Costco is forward thinking and smart, not a bunch of Reich Wing greedy bastards.

And let me tell you...some of the most valuable employees we have at my company started in what you consider menial jobs. However, their pay and benefits were decent and they stuck around, learned the business, became engaged and involved and eventually highly valuable people not easily replaced.

It's all in how you treat them.....treat them like shit as replaceable the minions you suggest and you get exactly that. Treat them like human beings who's labor is valuable and you get far more in return. Not only is it good business, it's the goddamn moral thing to do.

your argument is crap. Are you suggesting because a person works as a cashier and is honest and loyal and dependable but doesn't deserve to make enough money to live? Are you suggesting you know what people's worth is and what every class of worker should earn? Maybe the employees were being respectful towards you and your workers, but you would have them live in poverty because you are the decider when it comes to the value of work.

For someone who does remodeling for a living, you sure are quite the expert in labor relations, how hard people are working and how they should be compensated.

Walmart is a multi billion corporation with huge profits that could well afford to pay employees a living wage. Retailers like Costco seem to manage to do this and still remain profitable.

That is the real issue.

They do not pay their employees enough to even eat well let alone dare to dream of getting ahead.

Not to mention that Walmart almost certainly benefits from a large portion of those food stamps issued to their employees as well as getting a large amount of that paycheck back.

the public's responsibility -- to raise the minimum wage. but if they won't do that, to pay benefits to those who otherwise wouldn't eat.

certainly walmart benefits: but again, the answer isn't to punish minimum wage workers (of which walmart is probably the biggest, but certainly not the only, employer)

Very easy.

been done?

where's the political coalition pushing for your plan?

getting things done requires more than sitting on the internet saying 'it's easy'

It WOULD be easy if every time congress voted to raise there own pay they had to raise minimum wage.

To make THAT happen would take an act of congress.

The only people those fuckers care about is the 1% that pay to get them re-elected.

My son was one of them and he had his certifications. The low pay and pressure to up sale unneeded repairs is what drove him away. You see, I raised an honest liberal who felt like a piece of shit when forced to rip off customers. He's got something a lot of other people don't. It's called compassion for others and a conscience that accompanies that compassion.

Sounds like you did a good job raising your son.

He floored me recently when I overheard him giving a lecturing to one of his friends about how everyone has a right to health care.

having no minimum wage or work standards at all. It draws from the presumption, the incredibly wrong presumption, that each person has the power to negotiate their wages with their employer, or that somewhere out there are tons of jobs with good wages but Walmart workers are 'just too unmotivated' to go get those jobs.


Do you not at LEAST support that minimum wage should have been kept equal with inflation? That being the case, Walmart workers would make $12 an hour.

Or do you believe that only the wages of people with special training or advanced education are relevant, that every other job has no human worth, no dignity, the workers are cattle and 'capital'? Because that is how you come across.

No one has suggested in any way whatsoever that a cashier should be paid the same wages as an electrician. Why do you jump to such a statement; I don't understand.

Does this then mean that cashiers should be happy if they were paid $3 an hour? Or $2? Because they aren't tradesman, their work has zero value, right? They are peons and less than people?

In your position as someone opening new stores or doing whatever type of work you are doing, do you think that somehow the local employees consider you to be one of their circle, and so privy to their real feelings? Or maybe they view you as a nice person, but someone who is temporarily there to do the dictates of the corporation?

ALL the power is with business and the corporations. They pay crap because they CAN. Because we as a society have allowed that to happen. Someone in my really crappy town who must work to live can get a job at Walmart, and nowhere much else these days. No matter the education level or training. He can't say to Walmart: this is the pay I demand. Because the truth is, Walmart is such a huge employer, Walmart has succeeded in depressing wages nationwide.Not only have they killed a good portion of our manufacturing, they are a force large enough to depress wages nationwide.

LIVING WAGE. Your argument is divisive and demeaning.

we are all needed to perform different tasks.

And, your personal anecdote aside, hundreds of Wallyworld workers are agitating for better working conditions. I don't think they are making up their issues, do you?

BTW, corporate america is fraught with disrespectful, power-hungry middle and upper management morons. There's a name for it: the Peter Principle. I could share several personal anecdotes about my experiences with such pitiable humans, but such anecdotes are scientifically indefensible.

And there are plenty of Walmart employees and managers that have risen to the height of their incompetence. I base my opinion on personal experience with Walmart employees and have never heard of any of the incidents that we are talking about here.

I have to wonder if most of the people who you deal with at Walmart can sense that you feel their jobs are so trivially simple and meaningless. That their labor doesn't deserve a higher wage. Since this attitude of yours permeates everything I've read from you so far in a VERY unflattering light, I would not be surprised if many of them knew.

And if they know how you feel about them and their jobs, they are NOT going to be open and honest with you.

And so many other things.
We're done talking. So go ahead and get the last word in and place me on ignore or something.

Since you said pretty much none of what you are accused of saying.

ANY retail worker should get battle pay. Dealing with people all day is sometimes no fun. The only people that don't have a list of tasks they should be doing besides waiting on customers were the cashiers.

The WalMart I worked at was remodeling ladies clothes, the dressing rooms, accessories and jewelry. The remodelers rose to their own incompetence when we came in to find that only 1/4 of the work was done over night. It didn't involve knocking down walls, plumbing or anything complicated. The store manager was not happy, as this put us behind with setting up the new displays.

on "personal experience," as I noted in my response. Personal experience is rarely scientifically defensible. Now, I've seen numerous posts depicting hundreds of Wallyworld employees agitating for union protection and fundamental changes in how they are treated. I think I'll go with that evidence.

You would see what's going on around you and not be stuck working as an electrician for half of what you've decided to pretend you're worth.

Funny how the Peter Principle tends to distribute people, even electrical contractors who think they have it all figured out.

And I know that when you're called out for your bullshit you become aggressive and hostile.

If you're more than a judgmental blowhard, then it's up to you to demonstrate it. It's not my job to assume that you're a swell person in spite of all the evidence.

The guy said he's fallen on hard times, so naturally everyone below him on the economic pyramid is unskilled and lazy. I think that's the roadmap for this flavor of state monopoly capitalism, a petite bourgeoisie who eats out of the same dumpster but wants to cut food stamps.

to account for those, like many of my old supervisors, overshot their level of competence by 3 or 4 levels.

Most of these people had a mix of narcissistic and antisocial traits that enabled them to do "whatever it takes" to satisfy the whims of their superiors and climb the ladder.

How hard is it to remodel a Wal Mart ?

But that's where the Peter Principle gets us.

And those same electricians seem to think that they're gifted neurosurgeons rewiring the brain of God. Why the hell should some votech grad get to charge $200 to hook up a light switch? Anyone who's read a book on local codes and who can connect point A to point B can do it, yet we're supposed to believe that some annointed class of enlightened technicians is all that protects us against the rise of a new dark age?

I'm calling bullshit.

See how stupid and condescending that sounds? Do you see how offensive and presumptuous it is for someone on the outside to judge your profession based on a flawed and incomplete understanding of it? How insulting is it for an ignorant outsider to denigrate your profession simply because they've decided that anyone can do it?

That's exactly what you've done repeatedly in this thread, insulting every cashier and stockworker in the country and basically saying that they deserve to starve for their stupidity.

And yet you have the nerve to comain about your 50% pay cut? Funny how you're so eager to devalue the work of others yet so quick to complain when someone devalues yours.

They know that their friendly conversation with Mr. Electrician might very well result in their most recent paycheck being their last, so they smile and recite the company line.

can't easily be faked, though: 'contempt' and 'condescension,' both of which Mr. Electrician has in abundance. Never thought I'd read such drivel on a supposedly progressive board.

Do you really think Walmart people are that stupid or paranoid?

No, Charlie, just you.
Goodbye.

This seems to be the kind of atmosphere WM is promoting.

Regardless of what people think, we weren't/aren't that stupid or paranoid.

heard an employee complain and I said that this was probably due to workers' suspicions that Mr. Electrician was actually either a part of management or some underccover goon.

Now you are saying that the workers aren't that "stupid or paranoid."

Fair enough. So why didn't Mr. Electrician hear any complaints from workers? Because WM is a workers' paradise?

It's OK to disagree with my thesis, but what is your thesis?

The people that came in to remodel the store could in no way be mistaken for anything other than what they were - remodelers. Nobody that I worked with thought that they were 'plants' or cowered. I never said that it was a workers paradise. All I am saying is give the people that work there a little credit.

The store manager I worked with was a genuinely nice guy. I was always treated fairly, as were my co-workers. I think a lot of people complaining is due to who the store manager is.

I have not had a job where complaining to somebody working at the business temporarily was a 'thing'. I worked at a law firm where the general manager was a real piece of work. Why would I complain about that to an outsider?

was alleging. Sounds as if WM managers may be good or anti-worker on a store-by-store basis and not as part of some nefarious WM corporate policy.

With the attitudes Mr. Electrician brought to this thread, workers could be forgiven for suspecting his bona fides is all I'm saying.

As far as I know, the same thing would go for working in any chain store, as well as any other job.

anonymous middle manager named 'Dan' who claims that a lot of the shit rolls downhill from corporate headquarters. Sounds like some store managers and assistant managers are more deft at fending off the BS than others (judging from the article and your commentary).

We had 2 meetings daily. An early one and a later one depending on your hours. The manager would give us updates on when new display things were coming, how the store was doing..whatever. One meeting he told us not to get all excited, that the schedule would be up later for the 2 weeks including Thanksgiving. We were supposed to be open until 5 or 6. He was going to fight them and stay opened only until noon, and would adjust the schedule after that. He then asked who wanted to work that day and took down the names. He fought them off, and we were only opened until noon with people that wanted to work that day.

There's a lot more to it than just ringing up their purchase and taking their money. The cashier is the one who has to take the heat when the customer couldn't find what they were looking for, or if something rings up the wrong price, or if they have to wait a long time for a supervisor to override something. Don't even get me started on long lines, corporate never schedules enough cashiers, and the cashiers who are scheduled catch hell from customers who have to stand in line for 10 minutes for just one or two items.

insist that the coupon that is a year old is still valid. I also had a woman come in with a sale flyer from a different store and yell at me because we didn't have that item.

OTOH, there were also plenty of pleasant customers that made up for the asshats. Pretty much true for any retail job.

Even from apparent Democrats! A few in this thread...

It's very stressful work, and it's A LOT of work since these large companies expect their workers to be hyper-productive (much more than is reasonable).

Of course they deserve much more money for all of the work and crap they have to deal with as well.

Other industrialized countries have found ways to pay their service workers much more than we have. Yet another instance of the U.S. getting things wrong for the masses (but oh so right for the wealthy elite).

If you can find it, watch it.

Walmart is just the icon for what is wrong with American businesses attitude toward their workers.

Nuff said. Walmart sucks!

My, how shocking.

and no I am not saying there is such a problem as I dont know but what I do know for a fact is the company does treat its part time employees like dirt as far as wages and hours go.
For example my brothers girlfriend for the last 3 weeks has gotten on average only 15 hours per week at around 8 dollars an hour and that is not a wage anyone can live on at all.

There is a lot more to it than just stocking shelfs and running a register. Who do you think orders all those goods you buy or builds those displays. I work for a large grocery store and my day consist of more than stocking shelves or running a register. I wonder how well you would do in keeping fresh perishables arriving daily and at the same time spoilage to a minimum. You also have many products with a wide variety of delivery dates. I love when others tell me that I'm an unskilled worker.

Oh and about running a register how many produce codes do you know? there are more than a thousand.

I know people who work for Walmart - they are careful in how they put things because they need a job and there are too few jobs in this area.

Managers all speak as one - the Walmartspeak, basically it is the peons are disposable, all must serve the Waltons and all must save as much money as possible so the Waltons can be our true overlords. Dramatic - yep, but when you get a group of managers together who say exactly the same thing using the exact same words and even mannerisms something is rotten in Denmark.

Oh by the way Walmart may enforce its breaks and meal times because of the law suits they have had against them, however they will make sure that every last peon works the to very last millisecond of their shift.

And as for your condescending last sentence - you really are a douche.

ESPECIALLY if you sell things that have to be restocked with a forklift, like I did.

Shows more about the biases of the writer than anything else.

NONE of that happened there.

It isn't as if managers at other places of employment are always kind, considerate and wonderful. I would imagine several people here could put up stories about horrible managers/supervisors.

Low wage workers need to be intimidated to remain at work for their minimum wage jobs, is corporate philosophy, and since workers are widgets, easily replaceable.

Unions and/or minimum income laws are the only solutions.

Although there is always revolution by seizing the means of production.

make a new and better society while we're at it.

No overtime, an only slightly higher pay-or even lower once the hours worked are considered, and much more stress.

Managers are salaried, and don't get paid for overtime. I've known managers to work 80+ hours a week and when you take that in consideration to what they are paid it is barely minimum wage.

excuse me, associates. When a huge, profitable corporation, the largest employer in America, pays the majority of it's employees minimum wage, which is a poverty wage, we have a problem.

For society to function, wages should reflect the success of the company. After all, without the employees at the lowest levels, the company doesn't operate. We have the complete opposite of this with Walmart, McDonalds, etc, and this pay a little as possible attitude has taken hold in other industries. There is no gratitude or acknowledgement of workers' contribution to the profitability of the company.
This is a terrible business model and will lead to the end of capitalism, as it should.

their workers getting subsidized by the government (us, the taxpayers) with food stamps.

They even instruct workers on how to do that.

And WM is considered hugely successful. Hell if I had a business that I didn't have to pay a living wage because someone else was paying to feed them, I could be a billionaire too like those greedy sibling Waltons.

They're all billionaires, that's with a 'B', and won't pay their workers a decent wage.

Disgraceful!

What's that saying about the lowest, hottest rung in hell is reserved for cruel certain types?

Say hello, Walton siblings.

proudly served on the board at Wal-mart. But really this is the American workers fault. They refuse to organize because of socialism scares or I can do it all by myself. My father was a teamster truck driver from the 50's to the mid-80's. The company he worked for successfully got the union voted out with a bunch of new young drivers. The young drivers were in for a shock when their health care benefits were drastically cut along with their pay and their vacation days canceled. The next year the company increased their profits by 40%. My dad retired on his teamster pension and SSA the next year.

I have never experienced anything mentioned in the article. I have several medical conditions and management has always been very accommodating with me about them. Not all managers have been perfect; I have had a couple of bad experiences with a few assistant managers over the past 10 years, but overall my experience with them has been very good.

I wouldn't place all the blame on the store managers and assistants. They are just mid-level management and they often catch all kinds of hell from corporate in Bentonville. Whenever someone from corporate is expected to make a visit, the assistants all run around like headless chickens making sure everything is in tip-top shape. I know of several assistant managers and at least one store manager who have been unfairly fired by corporate for BS reasons. Corporate only cares about the bottom line.

but to recognize instead that corporate is running a place that encourages or allows or expects even
managers and assistants to act like jack asses.

I work for a large supermarket chain...actually,I believe they are the largest employer in Maine. What started as a New England family-owned company many years ago is now a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation. I am a shift supervisor myself,and find managers at the store level basically decent....HOWEVER,in order to advance in the company there is a certain mindset that must develop. Computerized scheduling is adhered to and defended,even when it obviously is not working well. I think our wages and benefits are better than Walmart's,but they still leave a lot to be desired. These retail jobs are very challenging in many ways,and certainly deserve respect. I work in the deli,and our people,many with years of experience,are definitely skilled. I myself have the greatest respect for the front end cashiers,as I could never do what they do all day long. The bottom line,for me at least,is that all honest labor is deserving of our respect and a living wage. And yes,we have a number of "associates&quot hate that term)who have college degrees...the jobs just aren't there for them.

years ago up here ........ he absolutely hated it and would probably agree with everything in the OP. I don't believe he's stepped foot in one since he quit.

I've worked for three different fortune 500 companies, and saw this kind of treatment at each one of them. In fact, I recall a group meeting with a new manager for our department. His first order of business was to say that if he didn't make his bonus because of us, he would be the first one to take us out back behind the building ... seriously.

fortune control as much wealth between them as the bottom 45 million Americans combined. Think about that for a moment and consider whether that fact in any way comports with what we think of as a 'democracy' or 'society of equals'.

It's probably more now.

That's about 132 million Americans. It's probably more than 45% now since it grew so much from 2007 to 2012, and that might very well be what you meant to communicate in your post. It's beyond ridiculous either way though!

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/07/walmart-heirs-waltons-wealth-income-inequality

hereditary lines based on wealth (whence power flows and derives). Looks like the Founding Fathers have failed in their attempt, although it was a valiant effort, so much so that Lincoln in his 1861 Winter Address to Congress could call us "the last, best hope of man."

... I have no freakin' idea what might happen in Wallyworld, as I wouldn't set foot in one of those shitholes if they were giving money away.

Fuck the Waltons and everything associated with them.

so as part of an organizing campaign. (Actually, betraying my ignorance here, as it may be United Food and Commercial Workers that would organize WM. Not sure at this point.)

everything xchrom says about the Wal-Mart where she works is true....

We live in a very isolated part of the country and so just quitting her job and finding work elsewhere is NOT an option....

these are not xchrom's words (although I have no doubt he or she stands fully behind them).

Pedantic itch scratched, now back to regular programming!

It's the largest employer in America. My 70 year old friend works around 25 hours a week to supplement her pension and social security. She's worked there 4 years now. Started at Colorado minimum wage and is now up to a whopping $9.10/hr. Co. minimum wage just went up to $8.23/hr.
She's had good and bad managers, and the worst part (besides the lousy pay) is the unpredictable scheduling. Here's the thing, my friend and most workers have a good work ethic, but like she says, when she's scheduled to work a 4 hour shift and it snows, it's just not worth the risk of driving on unsafe roads for around $30 take home pay.

My friend's biggest gripe with Walmart is the destruction of America's work ethic. Like Chris Rock once said, a company that pays minimum wage is saying to their employees: I'd pay less if the government would let me.

Applying for a job at a security company. While I was waiting, I leafed through a company magazine. In it was an article lauding a guard in FL who rode in to work on a bicycle -- in the middle of a hurricane. Would they have run an article about him if he had been killed? Killed trying to get to a minimum-wage job? Unbelievable.

if so, I've got some sweet land to sell you.

Best I have heard to get into for retail is Costco, Publix, Whole Foods, Wegmans and I think there are a few retailers on the west cost but overall retailers have become horrible companies to work for.

Target is actually worse. Walmart just gets all the attention because they are the biggest. But Target isn't any better at all.

I needed a new computer and I wanted to "window shop," i.e. paw the merchandise to get a sense of prices and features. I went into a Walmart in what the perky realtors call a "transitioning" neighborhood and was greeted with a pile of garbage mixed in with the carts. Filthy floor, too. Not a good start, eh?

As I made my way to the back of the store where the computers were, I passed a managerial looking guy talking to a female employee and using terms like "Sweetie" and "Babe" and "Sugar" -- and the two didn't look like they were an "item," either. I felt like I was back in the MAD MEN days! It wasn't just a little bit of sexism, it was full on, drop the jaw, major WTF sexism. I do think I was the only customer in the place (and there weren't too many) who had a skilled command of the English language, and I'm pretty sure I was the only one within earshot who had the capability to determine just how WRONG the whole conversation was. Did I say anything? Hell no--I wasn't going to get the poor woman fired. I gave her a sympathetic glance, rolled my eyes in the general direction of the blowhard, and kept strolling.

Anyway, I got to the back of the store, saw that the few crappy models they had were locked in greasy plastic boxes (they must have had some major loss control issues) and I bailed--just walked out without even doing my window shopping--the whole scene was just too gross.

Contrast this with a Walmart I was in quite recently in a very rural location (I needed a data card and they were the only ones carrying them) --clean as a whistle, lots of employees, all of them seemed friendly, happy, at ease with one another, and they were very helpful to customers...also, the shelves were well-stocked. Of course, it's the only store within twenty or more miles for most "department store" type shopping--there are a few clothing stores, a few grocers, a single hardware store, but if you needed stuff like, say construction paper for a kid's school project, or ink cartridges for a printer, or even to get a prescription filled, you'd otherwise be in for a half hour drive in the car.

Within two weeks I saw the worst and what looked like the best. The first joint was neglected, crappy, AWFUL, and the other one had pretty much become part of the community.

There's no "lesson" to these anecdotes--these are just fairly recent experiences at a chain that I do not regularly patronize.

they are violently anti-union...big surprise.

Ok, I'm done with my dose of sewage for the rest of 2015, not going back there even to look!