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January 27th, 2010 Archives

Confessions of a Wal-Mart manager

By Fletcher Irwin

AS A STORE MANAGER I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A $75,000.00 BONUS
10 Comments + Add Yours

The Godzilla of Retail, or a bastion of the American Dream? Hated? Loved? Outsourcing bastards, perhaps peddlers of cheap, sundry goods made in sweat shops? Is it the one-stop-shop paradise or the seventh circle of hell?

Whatever the reigning opinion is of Wal-Mart: someone, somewhere, is managing this Shangri-La of consumerism.

UWeekly: So how long have you been with the company?
I've worked there seven years. I started out as a cashier, part-time. Then I went to being the department manager in jewelry, and now I'm an assistant manager.

UW: How hard is it to work your way up in the company then?
If you have the drive to do it and that's what you want to do, it's easy. They're always looking for the qualified people, and they like to promote within the company. Most of our managers were promoted up from within the company.

UW: Overall, how are you treated as an employee?
I love the company. They've treated me with the utmost respect as an individual. There are blacks, women, gays, lesbians - they're all in upper management. The negative way the public views Wal-Mart is incorrect. I mean, like I said, I've been with the company for seven years and I've never seen any disrespect towards anyone, any gender. There's anyone from disabled people, to Hispanics, to foreign people, so I mean, it's a very diverse company.

UW: So are Wal-Mart employees a big happy family, or is it more cold and corporate?
I think store by store everybody knows everybody. Now to say that everybody gets along? No. You get that anywhere. You always have your conflicts between employees. But as managers, we try to avoid that, have people work things out. I've taken people into the office and tried to work situations out. Sam Walton, when he first started Wal-Mart, it was a family thing. He wanted everybody to be a family and you know, get along. Now I have to say, when I first started at Wal-Mart, it was a big family, everybody got along, everybody did things together, but as time has progressed, the family-oriented feel has kind of gone away.

UW: What makes your day at work stressful?
Customers who think that you have to bow down to their every wish. Get down on your knees to them ... and that's just not retail. Come in, get what you want, we'll help you get it if you need help finding something, we'll find it for you, but don't come in acting like royalty. No one's a king or a queen here, we're all human beings. Just treat people with respect.

UW: Do you think most people feel superior to those working in retail?
There are a lot of people with college educations who are not working in their field. With the economy being the way it is these days, retail in general is the best place to be right now because everyone has to eat, everybody has to have clothes to wear and it's never going to go under. A lot of these educated people are flocking to the retailers, because they know they'll have a secure job. I have been to college, I have a degree.

UW: Wal-Mart started out family-owned. What do you have to say about the accusations that Wal-Mart has since then destroyed the Mom and Pop businesses?
When Wal-Mart first started out, it was a five-and-dime store. That was the very first store Sam Walton ever opened up. And from there, he took it to where it's at today. Yeah, everyone says Wal-Mart puts out the Mom and Pop stores, but that's just society. You want to make your business succeed, and you want to make money, then you've got to find the gimmicks to make it work. Sam Walton and his family found that niche and they did what they had to do to make it the giant retailer in the United States. That's what they did. And now I work for a store that's a billion-dollar store, so that tells you how many people [come] through our doors on a daily basis.

UW: What kind of reactions do you get when you tell people you work for Wal-Mart?
It's mixed reactions. I get the positive and I get the negative. But anywhere you work you're going to get negative feedback - you take it with a grain of salt and you move on. I'm not embarrassed to say I work for Wal-Mart. Granted, I'm from the corporate world, retail happened to fall in my lap when I got downsized from my previous job. But now I make decent money and the employees get treated well. We have an open door policy, where if you're upset with any level of management, from assistant to the district manager, you can go in and talk to that person. That's one reason why the company is against unions. We feel like the associates themselves who work for Wal-Mart already have a voice, and they can handle situations themselves, instead of paying someone else to talk for them.

Originally Published: January 27, 2010

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Comments

  1. Regarding the issue about unions at the end of the interview -- The point of unions is not just to allow employees to express their grievances. Unions also allow for collective bargaining. Without collective bargaining, most Wal-Mart employees will be left without quality health coverage. (Then they’ll be stuck using the emergency room, and that makes healthcare more expensive for everyone!)

    Chris | 2010-01-27 - 12:37:28 AM (CDT)

  2. Are you an idiot? Wal-Mart does NOT have unions!! They won’t allow them!!! Wal-Mart insurance is horrible. My ex-husband has SLAVED away there for 7 years and has been turned down for every single promotion he has applied for because the store manager didn’t want to the lose the best stocker he had on third shift. My ex is from the Czech Republic and gets treated like garbage by his co-workers and his store manager, even his co-managers. Only a couple of co-managers have treated him well over the years and they claim to want him in mgmt but somehow someone just keeps him where he is. There is so much discrimination it’s pathetic and the ratio of managers to stockers is ridiculous. there are not enough people to do the work and managers stand over them with stop watches timing them every minute of their shift - yet the managers let certain types of people sleep past their breaks or no show on a regular basis just because they are the same race as the co-manager. the african immigrants are able to do whatever they want, but the white immigrants are kept to the letter of store manager law. wal-mart treats its REGULAR employees like garbage and its managers like kings and queens. it is definitely the 7th ring of hell and should be shut down. let the mom and pop stores employee people for a decent wage and RESPECT - something Wal-mart knows nothing about.

    joan of ark | 2010-01-28 - 10:47:51 AM (CDT)

  3. The interviewee’s response to the mom & pop question is pretty bad. He/she essentially says "yeah, they do destroy local stores, but whatever... no big deal."

    Johnny Appleseed | 2010-01-28 - 04:36:42 PM (CDT)

  4. Go rent the documentary, "Wal-Mart: the high cost of low prices"
    and see just how friendly that little yellow smiley face is

    gomer pyle | 2010-01-28 - 12:18:13 AM (CDT)

  5. Wal Mart is good for America. I cannot imagine the prices we would have to pay without them. The reason the union is so involved now is because Wal Mart sells groceries much cheaper and has grown food market share. Why not let them in Wal Mart. I’m sure they can help the average food prices about like they helped the American auto industry. Oh wait, they didn’t help. At the end of the day if you want to make a doctor’s salary go to college and earn it. If not work as a retail worker for the going rate. I would rather have low prices and savings for the mass amounts of shoppers. Workers get paid what they deserve to get paid at Wal Mart.

    Joe | 2010-01-31 - 12:25:40 AM (CDT)

  6. I don’t understand why people have to be so upset with a company like Wal Mart for just trying to be successful... Also you cannot blame the whole company just because one store had a manager that would not promote a worker... For all we know he was not good at his job and did not deserve the promotion, so that is no reason to hate a company!

    Phil | 2010-02-03 - 04:06:54 PM (CDT)

  7. I am an African immigrant and had worked for Walmart before. I left Walmart to work for Target after completing my masters degree, although Target gave me a $20,000 raise, its hell to work there, there so much work and not enough people, the store leader has his/her own ingroup and if you are not part of it, everything you do will be spinned to make you look bad, so much hatred and gossiping at Target, all the workers are so unhappy, I have never seen such a negative work environment in my whole life and I have worked for almost 16 years of my life. Walmart environment was 100% better to immigrants and minorities than Target. At Target you have to be white or very selected minorities they use to make up their EEOC quota to be successful. You think Walmart doesn’t have enough people, go to Target every thing there is about controlling payroll while the workload is increasing, sometimes you will have 10-15 people to offload, stock and backstock a 2300-2800 pieces of truck, its ridiculous there. My biggest mistake was leaving wal-mart, I have been trying to get back to wal-mart, hopefully I can get that opportunity again to work for the best discount retailer in the world. You want a career in retail, be warned Target is not the best place especially if you are a minority

    Symba | 2010-02-22 - 11:23:37 AM (CDT)

  8. Look I work for Wal-Mart and to be honest it is on a store to store basis on how the associates get treated. I work for one of the biggest Wal-Marts in my region and my store manager will bend over backwards to satisfy his associates. He even uses his own money to give us parties cookouts and whatever he thinks we deserve. The situation with walmart is most of the newer managers haven’t even worked for walmart as an hourly associate, they’ve been hired in straight from college. They don’t have the mentality as to how walmart actually has to be ran. Whereas with my store manager, who started as a cart pusher, knows what its like to start from the bottom. I worked my tail off to do my job and got promoted because of it. If you put in for a department manager position and don’t know how that area works they will overlook you for someone whos more knowledgeable rather than having to take time to teach another associate how to do that particular job. Its a great company to work for if you have a strong work ethic and are willing to work for what you want.

    Josh | 2010-02-28 - 07:10:16 PM (CDT)

  9. Wal-Mart is not Sam Walton anymore. BUY AMERICAN!

    Douglas | 2010-03-16 - 09:40:23 PM (CDT)

  10. AS A STORE MANAGER I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A $75,000.00 BONUS

    lucy | 2010-03-17 - 01:12:55 AM (CDT)
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