I Survived the Summer at Walmart...

[Chickerdoodle13]

I started working there at the beginning of the summer on the remodel team and yesterday was my last day. It definitely kept me busy during the summer! Working full time is not easy, but my hours were amazing and I met a lot of people there. Some of our temps only spoke spanish, but I learned so much from them and I will really miss them. I can definitely understand a lot more spanish now and I know many more words. There are some people at the store who I will NOT miss, but the experience was good all the same. Not sure I could handle working there indefinitely, but there are a lot of people who have been there many years, so they must like something about the company! I will probably be returning there during my winter break and possibly next summer, unless some other job comes up.

I was supposed to work until Friday, but I was going to take today off and didn't see the point of coming in Friday. My friends there threw me a surprise lunch yesterday which was really nice. Now I have exactly one week till I return to school and I am not ready at all! I am looking forward to my days off though. I already slept till 11:00am this morning and it was glorious!

 

[smileybritches]

Glad you survived--it's not an easy job by any means. I just recently returned to Walmart, and it was my co-workers that I missed the most.

 

[silkydragon]

lol the walmart here has such lazy employees not even funny i watched some girl go up to a woman and say excuse me loud and clearly and the woman who was just standing beside a cashregister completely ignored her, ive seen ppl ask for ethernet cords only to be told they dont exist

 

[thaiturkey]

We used to make a point of taking the kids to Wal Mart and Home Depot when he vacationed in Florida. We had a great time checking out the huge range of cheapo stuff that made the UK look expensive. I remember buying a hot smoker in Home Depot that was one sixth the price of the very same thing in the UK.

Wal Mart bought the Asda supermarket chain in the UK a few years ago and seems to be doing a good job with it. Why do folk in the US knock Wal Mart so much? I can imagine that it's not the best place to work but it seems to satisfy a big market and I never saw anything wrong with it. You guys don't know how lucky you are.

Also, I never saw any of the weird characters that people keep keep showing me in emailed images. Here are some mild examples on a website. I never saw customers like that:

http://www.uncoached.com/2009/10/22/some-of-my-favorite-people-of-walmart-pictures/


Good on them for being individuals and showing their true characters!

 

[suzettex5]

Quote:
Look up the impact WalMart has on smaller local economies... It destroys local mom-and-pop business', they cant compete with the prices because they cant buy in bulk. Walmart has a looooong history of screwing over employees in terms of benefits and healthcare. Walmart also creates TONS of waste and garbage and uses TONS of energy. It is not always a blessing to everyone. It pretty much eliminates the whole idea of competitive pricing since there are practically no business's out there that can afford to compete with the huge volume of product Walmart can buy and sell. I've personally seen several small business' close up simply because Walmart came to town- it truly hurts the small business owners in many places.

I do enjoy the prices and the selection and the groceries are the cheapest I've ever found. Heck, we make our living selling our products in Walmart so I am NOT antiWalmart whatsoever. Just giving you a few reasons why Americans 'knock' Walmart.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Thai.. i have NO idea why some knock Wal-mart...
If you think about it..Wal-mart IS the LEAST of our problems here...

 

[thaiturkey]

Quote:
I can see that. But, while people buy from them they will do well. Customers get what they want - first cheap and mediocre quality and then, after the competition is wiped out, expensive and poor quality. The people who complain and take photos in their must also be customers. Do they want it both ways?

There might be a glimmer of hope. A UK food chain has opened up over here. In town they compete with other food stores but the old markets still thrive. The same company opened up a small store in our local market town. Local traders put up protest banners because they knew that this company had destroyed small businesses in the UK. Now, this store has found a level for itself but has not damaged local traders. We have two open food markets. Both are clean and sell fresh meat and vegetables daily. You have a huge choice. The UK store, on the other hand, is poorly stocked, more expensive and not so clean. The employees neither know about the stock nor care. Most people still crowd into the traditional market and buy from the UK store only stuff that we foreigners want - butter, sliced bread, mile, chocolate and other unhealthy items.

The same goes for hardware stores. The big stores might have a wide range but a walk around our market area will find us most things that we want at lower prices. Going a step further, I daily buy some items from the village mom and pop store across the road from us even though they are a little more expensive than the town shops. It's good for me that they are there so I buy from them to help them stay open.

Stores like Walmart have their place. If we want to be able to shop at smaller stores then we should go more by quality of goods and services than price. Insist on cheap more than anything else and one day you will get poor quality one way or another, prices stay low only while there is competition.

 

[SillyChicken]

I believe you're referring to this site........ http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

 

[thaiturkey]

Quote:
Indeed! Do people actually dress like that 'normally' or are they doing it for a bet?

 

[SallyF]

The scary part is that those people have AGREED to have their pictures posted on that site. Guess everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame, no matter how bad they look.