February 2014 - Page 18 of 27 - I Hate Working In Retail

Feb
11

Decades of Greed: Behind the Scenes With An Angry Walmart Manager

Category: Grocery Retail, Walmart Tags: Interesting, Walmart 1 Comment

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We receive quite a few stories from Wal-Mart employees about what life is like inside America’s largest employer. But this one comes from a remarkable point of view: a longtime Walmart store manager, who vents in detail about how Walmart has systematically screwed employees over two decades.

Like all of our emails from Walmart employees, this one is anonymous, and represents one person’s opinion. But the wealth of detail it contains about the company’s management policies is remarkable. In particular, he discusses exactly how compensation and benefit policies have changed to the detriment of employees. We’ve bolded some of the parts we find most notable. Enjoy:

“I was recently on your site and was reading several of the stories from former and current Walmart associates. I would like to give you my experience. I write to you with a new email and will not give my real name; retaliation is alive at Walmart. I’ve been with Walmart for over twenty years beginning in the early 1990s. I’ve work at more than 9 walmarts and held various positions. I’m currently a salary assistant store manager and been one for nearly a decade. For most of my career at Walmart I enjoyed coming to work and quite frankly was the happiest before I became a manager. Once I took on the role as a manager I was privy to meetings, emails, and behind the door discussions that a typical associate will never hear. I know that well established companies must change as time progresses to remain competitive. However I’m not oppose to change and welcome it. If anyone was to speak negatively about Walmart back in the 90’s I would be a defender of Walmart and I was only a stocker in my early twenties back then. But Walmart was a much different company. I started shortly after Sam Walton’s death [ed.-in 1992]. We just began the expansion of super centers and no real international presence. In fact in those days we still had signs in our stores that read ‘Buy American.’ We would have items flagged that were manufactured in America and brag about the jobs we created by buying American goods. We all know that isn’t true now. Before I begin to relay some knowledge you may not be aware of or heard I would like to list to the best of my abilities some of the benefits Walmart has taken away from its associates in the last twenty years.

[Below are some] Benefits that new hires don’t receive. Long Term associates keep these benefits *Hence a reason to get rid of them*

Sunday Premium: 1 1/2 Pay
Sunday Premium: $1.00 an hour (This replaced the overtime pay for Sunday but this $1.00 was also taken away)
Profit Sharing: Automatically put 6% of Pay in Profit Sharing Account

In 1997 Walmart changed the policy and put 2% in Profit Sharing and 2% in their new 401-k. They effectively got rid of 2% and never bother to inform associates of this loss. The typical associates had no clue how this would impact them in the long term. This is typical of Walmart executive is to change benefits but spin it as a good thing. Eventually Walmart around 2010 did away with Profit Sharing all together. They now have a 100% match for the first 6% contributed to the 401k. This actually is better however again Walmart know the typical employee can not afford to contribute to the 401k plan. Even though this has helped my 401k balance greatly since I can afford it; I know it doesn’t help the many people that work under me at $8.00 an hour.

Full Time: Only had to work 20 hours

Full Time: Only had to work 28 hours (This replaced the 20 hour policy but now any new hires have to work an average of 35 hours for full time status)

90 Day Raises: You use to get a raise after 90 days, they took this one away recently. So now you must work 12 months to get a raise.

Insurance Cost: Maybe not fair to blame Walmart on this one but in early 1990s’ I was paying $9.00 per pay period (BiWeekly) for a $300 deductible. Now I pay $150 (Bi Weekly) for a $3500 deductible.

Christmas Bonus: I can’t remember the amounts but no more than $200. It doesn’t exists for new hires and salary managers don’t qualify for it

Long Term and Short Term disability: Can’t remember exactly but I know it use to pay around 80% of pay then it was cut to 60% and now it only covers 50%. Oh but the premium went up. So less coverage for more cost

Merit Raises: Store manager use to be able to increase hourly pay but now all pay is controlled by home office

Good Job Pin: This was again another award program. If you got four of them you could turn them in for one free share of Walmart stock. Basically all award programs of monetary value has ended at store level. With the exception of a possible quarterly bonus up to $475 but i never been in a store that got such a large amount.

Pay Cap: Walmart use to keep giving you raises no matter your hourly rate. They now have caps based on position held. I have many associates who have not received a raise in nearly nine years.

I could keep going but basically Walmart has been hacking on its benefit and pay structure for years to save on cost. Their over all view point is that there is little difference in performance and return on investment from a ten year associate and a new hire.

As I said before, Walmart was a good company to work for in relations to the retail sector. However I feel horrible for the associates I have to manage and the struggles they face. I ask this question, How come in 1999 Walmart could pay me over $10 an hour but in 2014 I hire people in at $8.00 an hour? I know Walmart will claim that the average associate makes $12.78 an hour. I have multiple degrees and one is in business. I don’t need a degree in business to understand elementary statistics. The question that should be asked is what the Median pay of Walmart associates is? The typical associate (median) is under $9.00. I know this for a fact. Sure if you add all the ones who make $15-$20 an hour plus us managers that make $50,000 to $100,000 then you can get the $12.78 an hour average.

Below is something you may not be aware of and I will finish the email with this tidbit.

Walmart use to require us at the stores to have a 60%:40% ratio to Full-Time:Part-Time. Then I was told it had to be 40%:40%:20%, Full-Time:Part-Time:Temporary and to add insult we expect all associates to have open availability. Also Temporary associates can work at the store for six months to a year and not be entitle to any benefits. So if you have 100 associates, 40 FT, 40 PT, and 20 Temporary. Paying a lot less in benefits plus turn-over is high.

Now here is where a lot of greed and in my opinion immoral behavior begins.

This company is being managed by the quarter. We have executives who have no vested interest in Walmart. All they care about is their salary and bonus. So when they make poor decisions, for example this Christmas when they had a One Hour Guarantee for multiple items. This was a complete [financial] disaster but yet the executive praise what a big success it was. […] You know what direction us managers were given to do in January? Remember Walmart’s fiscal year ends January 31st. You guess it, cut hours. For the poor decision made by executives at Walmart who could care less where the company is at in 10 or 20 years, we had to cut hours. Not only that we had to cut all expenses. Home office put a hold on all our ordering of supplies and try explaining to customers you don’t have toilet paper for the rest rooms. We had to cut all our part-time associates from 32 hours to 25.5 hours. All our full-time associates had their hours cut too. In addition we had to call all the people we had scheduled for orientation and tell them we couldn’t hire them. Imagine you were told to start Walmart on Thursday but then get a call on Wednesday saying nope can’t hire you.

Do you know how hard it is to go to someone that make $8.85 an hour and tell him, sorry but I have to cut you down to 25.5 hours. These people can barely pay their rent as it is and with no notice we cut their hours. The root problem besides greed is that Walmart’s culture changed drastically with Sam Walton’s death and the departure of David Glass as our CEO and Tom Coughlin.

Lee Scott [WM CEO from 2000-2009] instituted a [culture] where you could not question the company’s direction or offer critical feedback to the leadership. Years ago on our company intranet site, he had something I believe was called ‘Ask Lee.’ It was basically a place you could ask him a question and he would respond. I remember a Store Manager asked Lee Scott why walmart didn’t offer its store associates a pension program so they could have the ability to retire. Lee Scott blasted this store manager for asking this question and I was quite surprised that he even allowed this example to be posted. None the less ‘Ask Lee’ was eliminated and I wouldn’t be surprised if so was the store manager. This mentality extends all the way down to the lowest level of the company. I could never send an honest feedback such as this email to anyone of authority at Walmart without being retaliated. I’ve seen it many times. We even had a 50 year celebration last year and each district was to send salary managers to a open forum discussion. Guess what the direction was, ‘Select managers that are positive’ and it was understood you were not to ‘complain’ about anything. Your market manager and store manager were present for these meetings.”

Sourced from gawker.com

Feb
11

By IHWIR Admin

Taco Bell Manager locks homeless man in dumpster….

Category: Food Retail, Taco Bell Tags: Taco Bell Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of Jon Cook. Josh, left, and Jacob, right.

Good News Rescue Mission officials are outraged after they say a downtown Redding Taco Bell manager ordered employees to lock a homeless man in the restaurant’s dumpster.

Sharre Whitson, the mission’s director of community relations, said the man was locked in the dumpster for more than an hour at the South Market Street restaurant on Saturday morning.

“We are very disturbed by the reported incident. It is unimaginable that anyone should be treated in this manner,” said mission Director Cesar Partida.

Whitson said a local high school boy, Jacob Cook, was waiting in line at the Taco Bell when he overheard an employee and manager talking about the homeless man.

“The store manager, according to Jacob, instructed the employee to lock the homeless man in the dumpster,” Whitson said.

But that manager, Darrin Hailey, said the story told by the mission – that’s since gone viral on Facebook – is completely wrong.

“It is extremely false,” he said. “The gentleman was sleeping in the dumpster. We simply closed the dumpster gates…per city ordinance. The dumpster itself was unlocked at all times. Nothing was locked…the lid has to remain closed or the city fines us a bunch of money.”

However, Jacob, 16, defended his story.

“Josh (the homeless man) was banging there and banging there,” Jacob said. “To say that this is not true is just appalling to me, and it’s honestly just sad.”

Jacob said he specifically saw the employee close the dumpster, which has a bar that puts the lid in place.

“The (employee)…was actually laughing and snickering,” Jacob recalled, still noticeably upset Monday morning.

“That would be locking one in, if they can’t open it,” Whitson said. “Not necessarily a padlock, but you can’t get out.”

Josh was in a dumpster for cardboard discards.

There is no cost to the business for recyclables collected by the city. Wet cardboard is a different matter.

The city charges a $42 fee on a 4-yard dumpster — per solid waste policy — if the cardboard is wet and has to be thrown out like regular trash, said Paul Clemens, Redding solid waste utilities manager.

And although the city acknowledges it does encourage businesses to keep their dumpsters closed and locked, there are no fines.

Whitson said Jacob reported hearing the man banging on the dumpster from the inside until police finally showed up.

“We understand that businesses are not always equipped to handle the growing needs of those who are homeless. However, the mission does have resources available to businesses and encourages business owners to refer individuals to the mission or contact authorities if there is a violation of the law,” she said.

Hailey denied that there was any kind of locking, though.

“The gates can be opened from in or outside,” he said. “There is no locking mechanism to it…I tried to tell him, he’s not locked in. “

According to Redding police logs, the incident was reported as Josh being “discovered by an employee of Taco Bell who closed and locked dumpster enclosure gate, trapping male inside and then threw a bag of trash over the enclosure on top of (him).”

Hailey said the downtown store gets many transients, but they don’t abuse them.

“I deal with transients all the time, and let me tell you what, we don’t abuse transients. We don’t do anything horrible to transients,” Hailey said. “For the most part, as long as they’re not harming anybody, I don’t ask them to leave. I have no control over somebody climbing in my dumpster and taking naps, and we’re not going to endanger ourselves by helping this person out. It’s just that kind of world. We call the police.”

Cases in which people climb into dumpsters are not uncommon in Redding.

There were at least three cases last year in which a city garbage truck picked up dumpsters with a person inside, Clemens said.

In one of those cases, the person ran away after crews pulled him out, and in another case, a fire engine responded.

“We don’t hear of it (from the crews) all the time,” Clemens said.

Last year, the Redding Merchants Crime Watch group, concerned about transients breaking into commercial dumpsters, asked Clemens to talk to its members.

Jacob said he just wants to find Josh again and get him help.

“A friendship has blossomed from this,” Jacob said.

Feb
10

By IHWIR Admin

17 Supermarket Tricks, Tips And Insider Secrets You’re Probably Clueless About

Category: Fun Facts, Grocery Retail Tags: Humor, Interesting 1 Comment

We’ve always known the supermarket is a veritable jungle, set with snares and traps designed to lure even the most observant shopper into buying whatever that heavenly smelling thing is, or lulling us into a contented stupor so we linger longer in the aisles. And now thanks to the combined effort of experts, analysts and grocery store employees, we know even more. Prepare yourselves.

Reader’s Digest went all out with its 50 Supermarket Tricks You Still Fall For. Some of those aren’t so much tricks as valuable insight the average shopper can use to better navigate those daunting aisles. We’ve culled 18 of our favorites capable of cracking your brain open to a new way of viewing the supermarket jungle. Get cracking!

1. Shopping carts are getting bigger so you’ll put more in them:

“We doubled their size as a test, and customers bought 19% more,” explained Martin Lindstrom, marketing consultant and author of Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy.

2. You probably only know the price of four items:

Your brain can only hold so much. So while you know the approximate price of milk, bread, banana and eggs, 95% of shoppers have no clue what other things cost. The clueless shopper then doesn’t know if you’re getting a good deal on whatever you buy outside those four things, so it might be good to study up.

3. More than half of shoppers decide not to buy stuff in the checkout line:

That’s why supermarkets have started making checkout lanes narrower with less space to off-load those items. If you can’t dump it, you might be more likely to buy it. Dump early, folks. Dump early.

4. Wear headphones and listen to upbeat music while you shop:

Many stores plant earworms by way of slow music, slower than the average heartbeat. That lulls you into spending more time at the store, which then leads to spending about 29% more, Lindstrom says.

5. Because grocery stores can’t compete with Walmart on price, they’re classing things up to bring you in:

To compete with the low prices elsewhere, many stores are bringing in butchers who are skilled with the knife and produce managers who are pros on fruits and vegetables, along with dietitians who give seminars on healthy eating habits, according to Jeff Weidauer, a former supermarket executive and vice president of marketing for Vestcom, a retail services company.

6. That myth about milk being in the back of the store so you have to walk aisle to get to it?

Not quite the real reason: It’s even simpler than tempting you with stuff on the way in, explains Weidauer. “Milk needs to be refrigerated right away; the trucks unload in the back, so the fridges are there so that we can fill the cases as quickly and easily as possible.”

7. If you need a cake, don’t buy it the day you need it:

“We’ll have to give you one from the display case, and those cakes have often been sitting out for a while. If you order in advance, we’ll make the cake for you that day or the night before, and it will be a lot fresher.” — a former cake decorator and bakery worker at a grocery store near Birmingham, Alabama.

8. Sure, that mist on your fruits and vegetables looks nice: But really it can make them rot faster, Lindstrom says. Also make sure you shake off your leafy greens before you get to the checkout — the mist can add to an item’s weight.

9. Ask and ye shall receive:

“The butcher will tenderize meat for you, the baker will slice a loaf of bread, and the florist will usually give you free greenery to go with your loose flowers,” says Teri Gault, grocery savings expert and CEO of thegrocerygame.com. “At some stores owned by Kroger, the seafood department worker will even coat your fish in flour or Cajun seasoning and fry it up for free.”

10. If something is about to expire the next day, ask about getting a discount early:

If you see something in the bakery or meat department that’s probably going to get marked down tomorrow, say “Hey, this is expiring tomorrow. Are you going to mark it down?” Sometimes they’ll do it for you right then. They’ll have to sell it later anyway, so you’re helping them out, says Gault.

11. We’re all fools for the ten-for$10 promotion:

“We’ll take an 89-cent can of tuna and mark it ‘ten for $10,’  and instead of buying six cans for 89 cents, people will buy ten for $10,” explains Weidauer. Who else feels like a sucker?

12. Just because you saw it in your grocery store circular doesn’t mean it’s necessarily on sale: Some of those products are just advertised so you’ll buy them. Make sure there’s an actual sale on an item before you set your heart on buying it.

13. There’s a reason that bread is in a brown paper bag:

The faster the bread goes stale, the sooner you’ll be back at the store to buy more, a former worker says. Put loaves in airtight plastic bags as soon as you get home.

14. Avoid the herd mentality:

Shop when the store isn’t as crowded or you could be in danger of buying more so you can be part of the group. Mondays and Tuesdays are the best — skip weekends if you can.

15. USDA quality grade means more than the cut’s name:

Angus? So what — that’s no guarantee it’ll be a good steak, says Kari Underly, former grocery store meat cutter and author of The Art of Beef Cutting: A Meat Professional’s Guide to Butchering and Merchandising. “Prime is the best, then choice (usually the highest grade available in grocery stores), followed by select, and finally standard.”

16. You aren’t that apple’s first customer:

Shoppers are constantly picking up produce, dropping it, and putting it back, explains another former grocery worker, so beware. “I’ve seen kids take a bite and put the item back. It took me a long time to start eating fresh fruits and vegetables again after working in a store,” she says.

17. The carts never get cleaned:

Babies will do their business on carts, chicken juice will leak and who knows if anyone cleaned up after that? If you’re worried about germs, give carts a quick swipe with sanitizing wipes.