Wednesday was the day of the Transformers event/tour; in our area it was talking place at my old Wal-Mart. I don’t like going to the place; there are far too many bad experiences attached to it. Sure, the people are great but management? No. Then there’s corporate. Again, no.
While the tour was setting up, I talked to one of the cashiers who was still working there. After our chat, I’m glad that I’m not there anymore.
New cashiers do not last. They leave within a few days. At one point, no one at that store got a raise because of corporate. It all had to do with classes that management had to take. Even worse? The “classes” that corporate was holding in Plover, the ones that were supposed to deal with store-wide issues and were supposed to spread information that everyone would need, never covered the front end. The cashiers were left out of this. It gets worse.
If you’re a cashier and you change your job code, i.e. you go from full to part time or you’re coded to work in the tobacco bullpen, you have to do a little thing called “Pathways”, which is 18 hours of CBLs (computer based learning). If you don’t get this done within 90 days, you won’t get a raise and you can be terminated.
The thing is that the CBLs are things everyone already knows. But you have to do them, whether they are needed or not. One of my former coworkers was forced to do this garbage and other cashiers, coming off of leaves or switching to part time, are stuck as well.
If you’re leaving for the day? You have to walk out of the General Merchandise doors. Also, your bag–if you have one–will be inspected. If you bought anything while you were there you’d better have the receipt. As my friend Shawn said, “That’s why I don’t shop at my store anymore.” He keeps it to a minimum because of this. It seems a lot of the other associates feel the same.
But not all the news was bad. There were a couple of good things.
One of the asshole managers, Frank, is now back at Darboy. He started there and he can end there for all I care. The guy was a jerk. CSM Mary is no longer a CSM. She’s just a regular cashier now. It seems she got ripped a new one, as did most of management and she ended up demoted. It took long enough, as this was the CSM who shrugged off a Lawn and Garden associate allowing a customer to steal. This was the same CSM who would shove me in the tobacco bullpen while she’d run off and cover the self-checks, which I preferred. She’s the same CSM that cost the store money for taking bad or unmatched coupons. I had to deal with that myself; I made sure to mark everything “Per CSM Mary” before slipping it into the register.
I would have thought that costing our store around $18 to $22 in mismatched coupons would have been enough to get her in trouble. No, instead she gets nailed for something not of her own doing. No, it isn’t fair but it is just. And it was a long time coming.
As I said: unfair but just. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
I used to say that I missed the place, because of the people. But if I had stayed, I’d be miserable, even more than I had been a few years ago. I wouldn’t have been able to handle any of this. If management wouldn’t toss me out on my ass, I would have quit. The stress would have caused me to snap. I know that now.
I feel bad for the people who are still stuck there. They didn’t do anything wrong. I just hope that they get out while they can. Nothing’s getting better. That worries me.
Advertisements Share this:
