Decades of Greed: Behind the Scenes With An Angry Walmart Manager

[Newsjock]

Source: Gawker

We receive quite a few stories from Wal-Mart employees about what life is like inside America's largest employer. But this one comes from a remarkable point of view: a longtime Walmart store manager, who vents in detail about how Walmart has systematically screwed employees over two decades.

Like all of our emails from Walmart employees, this one is anonymous, and represents one person's opinion. But the wealth of detail it contains about the company's management policies is remarkable. In particular, he discusses exactly how compensation and benefit policies have changed to the detriment of employees. We've bolded some of the parts we find most notable. Enjoy:

... This company is being managed by the quarter. We have executives who have no vested interest in Walmart. All they care about is their salary and bonus. So when they make poor decisions, for example this Christmas when they had a One Hour Guarantee for multiple items. This was a complete [financial] disaster but yet the executive praise what a big success it was. [...] You know what direction us managers were given to do in January? Remember Walmart's fiscal year ends January 31st. You guess it, cut hours. For the poor decision made by executives at Walmart who could care less where the company is at in 10 or 20 years, we had to cut hours. Not only that we had to cut all expenses. Home office put a hold on all our ordering of supplies and try explaining to customers you don't have toilet paper for the rest rooms. We had to cut all our part-time associates from 32 hours to 25.5 hours. All our full-time associates had their hours cut too. In addition we had to call all the people we had scheduled for orientation and tell them we couldn't hire them. Imagine you were told to start Walmart on Thursday but then get a call on Wednesday saying nope can't hire you.

Read more: http://gawker.com/decades-of-greed-behind-the-scenes-with-an-angry-walma-1517661634

[Newsjock]

1. From the reader comments:

My son works at Walmart after school. This is what the GM unloading dock looked like a few days ago, and that's before they actually started unloading that days trucks. Additionally there were two full semi trailers stuffed with crap sitting in the back parking lot, waiting - for days - to be unloaded.

It's been like this every day for weeks, according to him. They've cut everyone's hours so far back there's no one left to stock the shelves. If you walk around the store there's nobody there except salaried managers trying to do twelve different things at once.



Every shelf in the store is empty, and they got a million dollars worth of merchandise sitting on pallets in the back, collecting dust, because they're too cheap to pay some minimum wage drones to put it out.

[Warpy]

2. I had to go in for one of my drugs today

and I was struck by how empty a lot of the shelves are.

I guess it's all sitting out in the parking lot or crammed into the back of he store.

They have never been decent to their employees, well, not since Sam Walton died. Now incompetence at the top is starting to destroy the business from the bottom up.

Home Depot had one of those shitty CEOs, fired all the old guys who'd retired from the building trades who knew what was going on and hired a bunch of feckless teenagers who didn't because they were cheaper. They nearly went under because of it.

I have no idea what they are teaching in b-schools these days, but it should be scrapped.

[truedelphi]

16. Wait a minute - if Walmart is bad to the bone,

Should we be going there for our drugs?

[Warpy]

17. We should if we're retired and they're the cheapest.

I didn't should on you, why are you trying to should on me?

[truedelphi]

19. Because if we think something is deplorable, we shouldn't participate.

And if we participate, should we complain?

Anyway, it is not impossible to shop around and find drugs just as cheaply elsewhere. Several friends of mine have done that, and in one or two cases, yes, they did need to go to WalMart's for one or two of the meds, as otherwise the cost was prohibitively expensive.

But the other meds were reasonably priced at other pharmacies, and the quality was as good.
Plus customer service was superior.

And one of the pharmacies actually employs only union workers, as well.

[Warpy]

22. Uh, you're not my judge.

Try to remember that sometime.

[Jamastiene]

29. +1000000

Where I live, there really is no other choice. If Walmart moves into your area, they purposely put into the contract that other stores have to close. They did that in my area. They were very specific that WinnDixie, several of the Food Lions and some pharmacies were to be closed if they put a SuperCenter here. Local Democrats jumped at the chance and let them do it. The town has dried up since then. Choices are very limited. Those who do not live in Walmart "sculpted" towns, have no clue what it is like. And that is what Walmart does. It sculpts the town into a completely different place, by forcing other stores to close down and making deals with local politicians to shut other stores down before they will even move to an area. Because local politicians in my area took the deal, we are left with very few choices that fit our budget. Compare $92 to $28 and I'm taking the $28 medicine.

[truedelphi]

20. As far as "should's" -

If friends should not let friends drink and drive, should friends let friends add to the economic social, environmental blight that comes from supporting WalMart's?

[Vashta Nerada]

8. I worked at Walmart last summer as an unloader and that's what my store's backroom looked like.

They never had enough staff to finish all the work, but the store manager kept telling us that there were plenty of associates.

[BrotherIvan]

11. That's what will put them under

That and no one wanting to buy their cheap crap. They may have a monopoly for now, but their business model of total mismanagement can't last forever.

[Luminous Animal]

24. Management by "take the money and run."

It's a management ponzu scheme.

[demigoddess]

30. penny wise and pound foolish

an old saying.

[dickensknitter]

3. More

I wish more managers would speak up like this. It would really help. I'm pretty sure many of them do not sleep easily despite their greater security and compensation.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. Low, low

wages

[drmeow]

5. My biggest frustration

One of the comments talks about some of the similar negative stuff that happens at Target. One of the things I find frustrating is that it is gotten so that it is hard NOT to shop at those places because it is hard to figure out where else to get some of the things or if other places to buy certain things even exist. A search on-line comes up with on-line places to buy, not local places. This has happened to me multiple times - I can't remember what I was looking for but simply could not figure out what type of store would sell a particular product even to search the yellow pages for a local business!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. Yep, no local alternatives to buy anything.

[reddread]

23. THAT is their business model, and why none of those other concepts matter much, if at all

shaming people for being cornered by these sharks is pretty sad, and trying to skip the fact that they have ALL the money and influence leaves any analysis bereft. I have seen enough of their more than slipshod indifference to safety and security. they dont give a fuck, and they dont have to.

[TheMathieu]

7. I've done two stints at the local Walmart.

I still have nightmares.

My last stint ended with anxiety meds.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[JDPriestly]

10. Walmart supports Hillary Clinton. Enough said.

[awoke_in_2003]

15. She was on their board of directors, too. nt

[truedelphi]

21. She was Sam Walton's peronal attorney, although her

PR people have cleaned up that part of her resume, so that it no longer reads with the pertinent info.

There is a bit of irony that the great big "It takes a village" family promoter was the attorney to the man who back in the 1980's drove countless numbers of family owned stores out of existence.
And tat was the time period when H. Clinton was working for Sam.

[VanillaRhapsody]

26. difference is ....Sam Walton bought American made goods....

when he died...that practice went out the window...and THUS we have the problem we have now.

[Hekate]

12. Article at link is comprehensive. They are overdue for a revolution

I'm amazed that manager doesn't have an ulcer the size of a moon crater.

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. From the manager's message:

In the first half of the first paragraph, (s)he writes that ignorance was bliss. (S)he concludes the paragraph with an account of a trustful person going to work for a company that shared and promoted his/her values only to learn, later that the company's founding philosophy dies with its founder.

The rest is an extremely sad account of a constant, steady degradation from an organization built up on a solid foundation of cooperation and service for the benefit of customers into a completely parasitic disease that inevitably kills its host.

[Thinkingabout]

14. Through social safety nets we subsidize Walmart profits because their employees are entitled because

Of low wages. This is not the only company who has employees who receive entitlements but they could step up to the plate and change this.

[RobertEarl]

25. And if they did, I'd shop there

If they treated their employees the best, not only would the employees have good things to say about the store but so would we.

I'd pay a bit more knowing their employees were happy.

[Thinkingabout]

27. Agreed

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. I have to drive 150 miles to a Costco. So there.

No alternatives to buy anything. I have to order lots of things online.

Or drive to the Houston Galleria to get a good pair of non-sneaker shoes.

[laundry_queen]

31. That is the mark of a poorly organized corporation

When you have managers that have no vested interest in the long term outlook as a company, they will cannibalize the corporation by making decisions that only benefit themselves short term. How Walmart couldn't know this, and this lowly business student knows that is beyond me. Idiots.