Xamonas Chegwé wrote:You should talk to Roger Barr, pc. He's the guy that got sacked by Walmart for being an unashamed atheist. He's on Facebook. You have a lot in common... Well, you both got chewed up and spat out by the same Moloch!
Sorry to hear you're out of work but pleased to hear you're out of a job you hated!
I am also an unashamed atheist though it didn't normally cause any problems. Several coworkers were equally as agnostic/atheistic as I. Only sometimes customers would hand me a flyer and after they left I ran it through the shredder.
The thing is I used to like my job and have great respect for my work. In this department you literally have to do everything. Stock merchandise, bin the merchandise into the backroom bins, do picks from the bins, run back to the registers to handle customers (process their items, look up tires, batteries, oil filters, anything like that, cut keys, etc), let people out the door (a button to allow the exit to open, both for customers as well as shop associates), do inventory counts and audits of backrooms (which is a real PITA when for some random reason a battery bin has been emptied out and then you have to move every car battery out, re-audit everything back into the bin, stack it up again, then print inventory precount sheets so whenever IMS does an audit they get it right, only for them to fuck it up when they do picks from the battery bins but don't update the precount sheets so the audit after that one from the precount sheet is wrong again). The harder you work, the more they want, but never want to give any more (if my labor should be for sell, then more labor should be worth more): I would also mix paint for the hardware department, cover sporting goods (which was annoying when dealing with some of the gun folk always fussing about why we are out of ammo, maybe if they didn't buy it all up right when we get it in stock). I would keep the area zoned, and on occasion stay over a few minutes just to make sure it was clean before I left. Even to the last day (well next to last), I would clean up before I left: take any pallets back to the back, take cardboard boxes to the compactor, take returns to customer service and bring any of our returns back, etc. I got the same pay back there in automotive as I would if I had stayed at the front end registers (which has fewer actual tasks involved, just check people out, keep the line moving, zone the area, etc). Hell the hardest working associates (the cart pushers, working 8 hour days in sleet, rain, or blazing hot sun) get the shittiest pay, starting at bare minimum wage, and get fussed if the lot doesn't look good or buggies are in their stations, even when they are understaffed (sometimes only 2 cart associates on a busy day) and constantly running carry-outs. Sometimes they are even not allowed to come in for water from the indoor water fountain, instead a cooler is filled with ice and water and some foam cups are used to drink, which eventually starts to taste like the plastic it is in. (I know as I used to work the parking lot very frequently when I worked the front-end, often being outside every day instead of at a front register.) The front end never has enough registers opened, and they call associates from every other department to the front to help, only for an announcement to ring "Customer assistance is needed in ..." and management getting fussy that the associate, currently at the front, isn't moving any faster to empty his full line, with people continuously getting in the line even after he cuts his light and tries to inform them that he isn't taking any new customers so he can finish with those already present and get back to his department to those customers.
Management policies changed. Little things but many little things add up. We were no longer allowed to use buggies for the stock trash: buggies are only for the customers (despite that third shift stock still used buggies, you used buggies when a mod drops and you have to redo entire shelves, etc) Buggies are great for storing the cardboard boxes, not the shuttle carts, as they can actually contain them while the trash just falls of the carts. Hours started getting cut, but the same amount of work is expected to get done. As new management came in, hours got crazy, instead of a simple opening of 7-4 or closing of 11:30-8:30, they started having hours such as 9-6, 10-7, 8-5, randomly picked by the computer mostly and often getting changed last minute without even being informed (I've arrived several hours late one day because a schedule was changed the day before). Many times you have a schedule to be there late one night and then come in early the next morning. Often getting your breaks was impossible and lunch times varies sometimes to the very last minute. Management wanted all the stock off the floor before you left, but at the same time, you could not get any overtime and being the only person there still had to handle any customers as well. Overages had to be taken at lunch, you could not come in late or leave early. Often when another department (sporting goods) would take lunch, I would accept their keys in case someone needed something out of the ammo case. A manager recently stated that if you accept the keys you have to stay at that department the whole time (So who do they give the keys to? Even management isn't going to stay there the entire time while the associate is on lunch. Hire enough\t people to cover the department.) Recently the same store has started hiring temps and cutting everyone else hours. I think it is in order to cut the bonus/benefits/etc: temps don't get them, cut other hours to keep payroll the same, but those who do get bonuses get less due to less time. An associate who works in the shop injured his knee several months ago and filed workers comp. He won his claim, but will likely be fired a short time afterward. This happened before with someone in the garden center due to an item stored improperly on an upper shelf, and he was also fired shortly after his workers comp claim (the item stored there was not his fault).
). But mostly, I was just imagining how long YOU would last in such a job before you found it "necessary" to resort to personal attacks and insults over some indignity.
