Monday, April 28, 2008

Snooty People at Wal-Mart

Well it was back to work tonight after my all to short day off. My feet hurt but not as bad as they have hurt. My knees hurt too. My cut is better. I was disappointed that no one asked me how it was though. Thats probably asking to much though. I had a woman get snooty with my tonight. A skinny little b*tch with a tan and a big rock on her finger (my rock is bigger but I can't wear it at work). She had on a nice new looking old navy t-shirt and was clearly very fit. Her cart was "full" of expensive name brand products and she wanted the expensive specialty Cajun turkey breast. I had a hard time finding it because it wasn't wear it was supposed to be. I didn't want to open a new one without making sure there wasn't one already opened and I guess she didn't appreciate having to wait for it because she gave me a dirty look. I returned it as she walked away.

I get so pissed at these snooty people. Less than a year ago my husband and I had an average "daily " income of 500 dollars a day. 1000 dollar it became days were not uncommon. It all has slowly gone to crap. It started in August and has steadily gone to crap since for reasons most of us are painfully aware of already and led to my part time job at Wal-Mart and my husbands full time job as an accounts manager at Rent-A-Center. I get pissed because I look at them and wish i could tell them ""Your not safe, you could find yourself working back here faster than you think, your world can go to shit too i promise you that!!!""

I have bled for Wal-Mart

I sliced my hand open on the slicer the Saturday night. I got it good too. My co-workers tried to talk me into going to get stitches but at most it would have been only 2 or three at the most and I just couldn't see going to the doctor for that. I left a trail of blood to the first aid kit. The cut bled for 20 minutes before they could get any kind of bandage on it. We covered it with a thick gauze pad which we covered in medical tape to keep the wound closed while I worked. It bled through the first one in about an hour and bled through the second one by the time I got home. I put some of my own homemade medicine on it made from sterile red clay, honey, a little bit of water, and powdered plantain leaf. It was still open yesterday but not as sore and clearly healing. Today its closed up completely and will probably be little more than a scar in a weeks time. Good ole clay. I love using that stuff on wounds. Its so simple.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Walking on Daggers at Wal-Mart

I noticed my feet hurting just a little bit less tonight. By the end of the evening it still feels like I'm walking on daggers though. Most of the people I work with are much older than me or much young. There are two freshmen college students working in the deli with me and the rest are people that should probably be happily retired but aren't. At one of the meetings I went to last week one of the employees requested that we be able to wear green shirts instead of blue for earth day and today there was a sign hanging over the time clock saying it was OK to wear green shirts if we wanted too. I will say this about Wal-Mart, the requests of employees don't seem to go ignored.

Leaving the Scene of an Accident for Wal_Mart

The one rule about the attendance policy that bothers me and I haven't had time to talk about until now is that you are not excused for being late if you have a car accident unless you go to the hospital. This is regardless of it being your fault or not. If you go to the hospital your excused. The reason this bothers me is because it seems to mean that there encouraging you to leave the scene of an accident. After all you have to wait for the police to get there so the police report can be filed. That could take 30 minutes to an hour or longer. am hoping that the assistant manager that told me this or the person that told him this got it wrong.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Orientation

Orientation was a surprising 16 hours long. It took 2 8 hour days. The first day was spent watching videos and being talked to by the personal coordinator and one of the assistant managers. We got a tour of the store and a brief lesson on cleaning up different kinds of spills and then more paperwork and videos. The next day was spent on the store computers completing training modules and taking tests on them. I didn't count how many I did but it did take a full 8 hours to complete.

There are some very very strict rules and very very lax policies I would like to cover. we were warned by several people that spoke to us to never ever work when we were off the clock under any circumstances. It didn't matter if we were walking across the store on a break and a customer asked us a question. It didn't even matter if it was 30 seconds. It didn't matter if you were at home sick and a manager calls to ask you a question you are expected to submit a time clock alteration slip to pay you for that brief bit of time. Failure to do so could get you fired.

Another interesting rule is clocking out for a meal break at least every six hours. You are not allowed to work even 1 minute over that 6 hour period without clocking out for a meal break . If you do so you risk termination.

Paid breaks have become a thing of the past in most businesses. The mortgage company I used to work made me clock out just to go to the bathroom. Wal-Mart pays you for your breaks.

The next policy I want to cover is there attendance policy. I was concerned about this because I am notorious for being 5 minutes late for everything!! My senior class even voted me "most likely to be late". At Wal-Mart you can clock in as late as 15 minutes after your shift starts before you are considered late. You can also leave 15 minutes early before it counts against you as well. Your allowed 3 unexcused absences before you get in trouble for missing days and you have to be later than 15 minutes or leave earlier than 15 minutes before it counts as one of those three days. Thats got to be one of the more lax attendance policies I have heard about.

There are some negative issues that I want to discuss but I'm tired and I don't feel like staying up that late now.

Monday, April 14, 2008

The Interview

I was called for my interview at Wal_Mart 3 days after submitting my application. The assistant manager though I would be perfect for working the late shift in the Deli since I had food handling experience (assistant manager at Arby's 8 years ago) and he also thought my experience would earn me much better pay than what I was expecting (I was only expecting to get 6 dollars an hour but was offered 8.20, that good pay in small town in Arkansas. I was interviewed by the deli manager and by the assistant manager. The entire process took an hour.

The entire time I was there (an hour and a half) the cold white walls and the prospective of not only having to work with food again but having to work for hourly pay again as well began to sink in on me, pressing down around my shoulders and making me feel very depressed. I had been self employed and working on my own for 5 years now and if it weren't for the crappy economy and the sales on all three of my home businesses being down 65% I wouldn't have been sitting there interviewing for a position at Wal-Mart. I would be home enjoying the fruits of my labor like I was a year ago. There 8.20 an hour was still far from the 100 to 1000 dollars a day I was making less than a year ago but it was better than the 20 or 30 and sometimes 50 dollars a day I've been averaging lately. Especially when you added that 20 or 30 dollars a day to the 40 dollars a day I would me making at Wal-Mart. It also meant possibly having the chance to save up an adverting budget for a USA based business that would cater to customers in the UK (there not having a recession in the UK and there money is worth twice as much as ours is).

After my interview I was given a blue and white form to take to a local clinic for my drug test. About a week later they called me back and scheduled my orientation. A surprisingly 8 hour 2 day long orientation.