Saturday, June 30, 2007

Inside Scoop From a Store Manager: "Humans are nothing more than a wet napkin for Wal-Mart to use and toss."

I was a salaried manager for Wal-Mart for seven years. I sacrificed time, my life, my safety and my health for this sacrilege. Wal-Mart cares NOTHING about the human lives that stock their shelves and ring the sales. I worked as many as 80 hours a week plus driving 1 hour either way to and from work never working less than 50 hours a week.

I saw hourly's who cared about their work and their job get railroaded by store managers or co-managers because they spoke up about wrongs that were being committed. The "open door policy" they preach is a joke. They use that to make the average assoc. think there's no need for a union.

It's the "OUT THE DOOR" policy.

I wrote an open door letter to the Regional Vice President of my area with the words specifically in bold that said "Not to be read by anyone other than the person to whom this is addressed" . I get a phone call from the Regional Personnel director.. not the person it was addressed to. .

Then I had a meeting with the Market Personnel Manager, and she had a copy of the letter I sent, all pages including the back page with the statement on it. I knew at that point that even though everything that I spoke about in the letter was a true problem with in the store I worked at and that my concern was for the hourly assoc. in that store, none of it mattered and I had signed my own termination papers by writing the letter. I spoke of ethics issues (known theft by employees and store manager doing NOTHING about it, doctoring #'s to make profits look better ect. )

Unethical treatment of hourly assoc. by salaried managers (verbal abuse,railroading ect.) Poor store management as a whole. (some managers like myself that had 99 of 230 hourly assoc. with 10 other managers who had little or nothing) I had the following areas to run by myself, Cashiers, Customer Service Managers, People Greeters, Stock Man, Accounting, Personnel, Customer Service Desk, GM ICS, Grocery ICS, Unloaders, Women's Wear, Men's Wear, Girls Wear, Lingerie, Boys Wear, Accessories, Jewelry, Fitting Room, Shoes, Claims, UPC, Invoicing, DSD and Directs. That is more than half of the store on ONE manager.

I wrote my letter in Jan. and they continued to pile more and more on me. I was working 80+ hours a week doing everything I could to make things work well and to do the best that I could at my job for my hourly assoc.

They fired the store manager in June (or rather they gave her the option to quit) I knew that my time was limited from there on out.. They waited for me to get them through 4th of July weekend and on the 7th of July they fired me. No real reason given, No previous coaching, above standard evals, they didn't have to give a reason I'm in a right to work state, I didn't sign my green sheet and I left peacefully. I knew from the moment that I was called by the Reg. Personnel Mgr. my time was limited.

I was a loud mouth that was willing to speak about their "secrets" but I was strong and knowledgeable so they would use me until they got a new store manager in there.(myself and another asst. ran the store for two weeks while the Co was on vacation )

I know that it was a blessing (my blood pressure went down and I'm much healthier not working and driving so much) I wish the average person would understand that what happened to me and the others that post on here is not "the one in a million" it's the NORM.

Humans are nothing more than a wet napkin for Wal-Mart to use and toss. When you show them you are unwilling to take things lying down and use your voice and morals they push you hoping you'll break and go away. Wal-Mart is like all other corporations with one thing different.

They have sold the general public on the LIE that they actually give a crap about the people that work for them. No one else has used that as a claim to fame, Wal-Mart has banked on this lie and made much money from it.

I know that there are good stores out there but far and above the Home Office direction to always DO MORE WITH LESS and working understaffed all the times is what is normal. The public in general can't see things for what they are every story like mine needs to be taken as a whole and seen for the big picture that it paints. I worthless greedy underhanded disrespecting sweatshop corporation.

Thank you for letting me say my piece. Be Blessed and Be safe...