I’m generally a happy person lately, what with love and great friends, and fun adventures, Harry Potter dates, tunnels that aren’t tunnels, hot cocoa, purple sweatshirts, and beautiful music, I would say I am more than content in life. But there is one thing that can, and must be fixed. That is my job. So, I have had to work my entire thanksgiving holiday, from actual Turkey Day through Black Friday and of course yesterday and today. These are some of the worst days to work in a place like Wal Mart, which already is really poopy to work it. And I have plenty to be thankful for in general, but this isn’t one of them. “Well,” people say, “I know you don’t want to work on Thanksgiving, but be thankful you have a job.” But here’s the thing about that: the way this place has been making me feel lately I don’t even know if I’m thankful for having a job. Management can say and do what they want without consequences and quite frankly, I’m sick of it. I don’t really have much of an emotional attachment to money, after all, I don’t consider myself a capitalist by any means, but I do have a problem with one word, “entitlement.” They see that they get paid more than us, for sitting on their butts or for being butts, and they think that any complaint relayed to them is irrelevant. Heckhound will break down for you what has gone on in the past eight months, culminating with what occurred on Thanksgiving, and by the end, I don’t think anyone can doubt my justification for no job being worth all this trouble.
I was asked back in the Summer, if I was interested in going off on a special project for them for a few months, which involved remodeling another one of their stupid stores up near Burlington. And I was told with 100% percent assurance, that I could back out at anytime, and that giving them my name was not a commitment to this assignment. It was two weeks before the thing, and I had yet to hear who was chosen for this thing, and it would be very important to know these things prior to them sending people away. I heard through a third party source that I was going, and I really had no desire to do it, so I went to the assistant manager’s office one afternoon, and this is what she said to me: “We put your name in because you said, ‘Yes, I’m going’ and you can’t really change your mind now.” Me: “You led me to believe otherwise, so what do I do?” And she came back with, “well, I’ll see what I can do, but since you inconvenience us, it’s your responsibility.” How fair is that, when I was told it was some kind of lottery, but come to find out that on the day they told me I am allowed to back out, my name went directly to the place? I knew it was too good to be true, that I could actually be respected by you, Wal Mart. I find gratititude from some of my fellow cashiers and immediate supervisors, who actually know me as a person, and for that I am grateful, but they are not Wal Mart, like me just cogs in a wheel. I took the next logical step in the process and went to the store manager themself, and what did I get there? “Are you saying that they lied to you? Because they told me you were beyond excited about this, and that there was no doubt in your mind you were going.” “Well,” I said, “it didn’t happen that way, and I need to get out of this.” “I’ll help you.” It should have ended there, but it didn’t, instead it was: “I’ll try to help you, but I don’t appreciate that you deny what you said in the first place.” Me, a liar? I am called many things, and I am very laid back in general life stuff, but one thing that would make me indignant, would be, someone calling me a liar. And beyond that, how could I be forced into something that was optional? My problem was taken care of, so I let that situation go for the time.
Then, there I was on Thanksgiving, in tears on the bloody sales floor because some manager thanks the way to help associates is by raising his voice and expecting them to do a better job, and picking on them incessantly as they do lots of back-breaking work. What is the manager doing to help? Just barking out orders and antagonizing, no “let me help you with that,” or anything. I walked away from him, and didn’t know what to do, and didn’t know what this meant for my job or anything, shaking, and begging my usual supervisors to keep me away from him, but they had no power in the situation anymore than I did. If you don’t appreciate someone’s ineptness at pulling pallets from one end of the store to another, either show them what they’re doing wrong, or just be quiet if you don’t know how to say anything nice, or better yet, don’t expect a cashier to be as good at it as someone who spends all of their shifts unloading freight from the damn truck.
Dear Wal Mart Stores Inc.,
Make better policies and hire management people who make us feel if not welcome, at least comfortable if we have to come and work for you.
K, thanks,
Heckhound
Break The Sky 