Michael1942's Blog

Wal-Mart will be closing 200 plus stores after instituting a minimum staring pay of 10.00 per hour . This increase affected only the people who were earning less than 10.00 per hour and had no effect on the people who were above that hourly rate. The above folks seemingly got no increase at all. These closings appear to be a way to offset those increases. Aside from the major purchases and manufacturing coming from abroad what exactly is Wal-Mart contributing to the US economy? When you visit a Wal-Mart store how often do you see smiling faces save a few? If you visit the same store often enough you get to know a few people and you can hold brief conversations with them. During these conversations you can learn a lot without asking anything at all beyond a normal greeting. In response to hello, how are you,could receive a response like “same old, same old, it’s a job, or this place sucks”. This has even come from department managers. The attitudes are more from the front liners ( the people who face the public daily). Their higher-ups want things done that are often impractical and at worse counter productive yet this is how its done. In retail the push is to get the merchandise on the shelves (customer service) in a specified amount of time (the time set by people who apparently never stocked shelves during shopping hours) and workers can be penalized if they fail to complete the tasks in the allotted time. If there were no State mandated breaks and meal times then there would be none. The biggest problem is the Managers who through no fault of their own believe the company hype about service even when they know it is misguided. Customer service is simple: keep the shelves full, answer questions from customers to best of your ability and assist them when you can. Many workers take their breaks with regularity of a sunrise but that is their way of coping with the sometimes idiocy of misguided management. There are no co-working managers just working or non working ones. These non working ones are the problem as they have forgotten what the job is about. Like many modern mass retailers Wal-Mart has forgotten the human part of the workplace.

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