Hello, I just figured I'd stop by and introduce myself. (Long story...)

After graduating from High School in 2003 a new Wal-Mart by my house was getting ready to open, I figured I'd get a job there and work part time while I attended school. Due to difficulty in school, my status at Wal-Mart changed to full time. For the first several months working there, I absolutely loved it. Going to work was the highlight of my day. I got to see my friends, do a job I loved, and basically have fun. I could not understand how everyone said all these bad things about Wal-Mart. Unfortunatley, I was about to find out. One thing I quickly learned is that if managers do their job, they get promoted, if they don't, they get to stay right where they are. This of course causes a problem. Further more, around the same time I didn't appreciate the hiring of "Outside consulting firms" (those of you, especially long time employees, that were around in june 04 know what I'm talking about). Basically, they brought them (Haygroup) in caiming to be "all for our benefit", when it obviously was for theirs (reffering to the new set wage increases rather than percentage based)

 

I stuck with them though, although I was no longer delighted to come to work everyday, the job was tolerable, and later became a department manager. Over the next couple years, things contantly got worse. I was not being given the resources (like staffing, a telxon) needed to run my department. I was the only one there, and I was expected to spend several hours a week "taking one for the team", meaning helping other areas with plenty of staffing (the ones where the dept managers were favorites of the managers), and of course not get anything in return from those areas. One of the last straws came when the one job I wanted more than any other finally came open, but was given to someone because they stepped down from their old position and "needed to be put somewhere". It was then that I asked myself... "why am I giving 100%?"

 

The favoritism here was unbelievable, what is simply ok for some was a coachable offense for others. My final straw was a D-day, and they claimed it was for 2 reasons, one of which was something I didn't do, the other being something that about 20 others were doing and not even being talked to about (therefore I assumed it was allright). Of course since we all know that this "open door policy" is trying to put your word against the assistant managers, and I didn't want to be flagged as a liar, I kept quiet and used my D-day to apply for job at a new grocery store opening in the area, and that's were I've been for the last couple months. It may pay better and offer outstanding benefits, but I would leave that job in a heartbeat if I could go back to Wal-Mart the way it was in early '04. Looking forward to going to work and having a happy lifestyle is way more important than money.

 

I joined because I wanted to share some of my experiences, listen to what others had to say, see if anyone has a similar story, and to hopefully have a flashback or 2 about the job I was lucky to have a couple years ago.