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.