Scheduling games and forced part time hours hurt the wallet…
I worked for Walmart for 2 1/2 years. I thought it would be a place where I could move up. I was a cashier for five months, working part time. When people would want to be off, I offered to cover their shifts since I wanted more hours. Apparently, that is not allowed. I was called into the office and told that I was showing up on the FT/PT exception list and I could not pick up hours from other cashiers. Don’t they want to have enough cashiers to check out the customers? I guess not. After five months, I got into the management training program. Our training was a joke. We hung around in a room up in front of the training store and basically did whatever we felt like (most of the time watching Rick Flair DVDs or reading the paper…)
I am glad I did leave, because it is getting awful in the stores. I’ve heard from former coworkers that the goal is now 75% PT/25% FT employees in the stores, so they are actually trying to get rid of as many long term FT employees as possible. People are getting fired left and right as they hire new people to come in and be part-time sales associates. I talked to a department manager this week who said that the store manager had been told to cut a thousand hours off the next schedule. At the same time, I walk through the stores and three doors in the milk cooler are completely empty, and the ground beef wall is wiped out. FT people are cut to 34-35 hours, so no one is left to stock the products that customers want to buy. The store manager closest to my house quit just before getting fired. I heard that the managers at the next store over and two other stores were given an ultimatum—get things in line within the next few weeks or get packing. The entire management team at one store was given PIPs (personal improvement plan) and told they had two weeks to fix things in their area or they would be fired. How does that solve anything? These people aren’t stealing, they’re not harassing people, the stores don’t look that bad…what business sense tells you to fire them? It’s sheer stupidity.
And it’s all about getting the higher-paid, long-term associates out so that they can hire people who will work for less since there are so many people desperate right now for a job. If I worked for Walmart now, I definitely would not want to move up, because where’s the incentive when you could just be fired because your store sales are not as high as they want them to be? My husband still works at Walmart and is full time, but he only has to work 28 hours a week since he’s been there over 10 years. I’m worried that they’ll fire him because they are trying to schedule him outside of his availability (he works evenings and stays home during the day with our daughter while I work). I think they would want to get rid of him since he can work 28 hours and still get benefits and is paid much higher than a newly hired associate would. What a crappy company. My job is probably going to relocate soon, and we hope that he can find a better job once we move, but this is paying the bills right now. He sure hates every day of work though.
- Emily
