Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Businesses The Internet

Users Trash Wal-Mart On Its Facebook Site 594

hhavensteincw writes "Only two weeks after Wal-Mart launched its latest foray into Web 2.0 land, Facebook users have hijacked a page aimed at selling back-to-school supplies to college kids to instead post rants about the company's labor practices. Of the 100-plus comments, none relates to dorm decorating as Wal-Mart had originally envisioned."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Users Trash Wal-Mart On Its Facebook Site

Comments Filter:
  • by BiggestPOS ( 139071 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:36PM (#20364887) Homepage
    You need one of those ancient "greeters" as gate-keepers on the system. I don't even let people post comments on *my* lowly page without approving them first, how can they be so naive?
  • by More_Cowbell ( 957742 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:38PM (#20364903) Journal
    Only?

    Am I the only one surprised it took so long?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by g0dsp33d ( 849253 )
      Probably due to the large number of people who cared enough to search for Walmart :-p. Don't know about you, but I tend to ignore ads, even blatant ones.
  • by bigtrike ( 904535 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:41PM (#20364923)
    They should go a step further and allow college students to network with the 9 year old children making the products they're buying.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by g0dsp33d ( 849253 )
      Why would they let the children have computers? Plus the 'net would take away from their 18 hour work days.
  • I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)

    by rossz ( 67331 ) <ogreNO@SPAMgeekbiker.net> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:42PM (#20364939) Journal
    From that I have heard, Wal-Mart pays a decent amount, far more than the minimum wage. They aggressively hire people who normally have a hard time getting a job (elderly), they have benefits, and such. So why is their a small group of idiots protesting against them? Is it only because they are a large corporation?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Perhaps because the consequences of their business practices don't necessarily only affect consumers, but the companies from which they are buying their products, specifically the labour practices of the manufacturers. Walmart has low prices, this is true, but the value we enjoy from those prices are supported solely by the unfair wages and operations of overseas manufacturers. It is just like thermodynamics. The low cost of these products has to come from somewhere. It just happens this somewhere is somet
    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bombula ( 670389 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:52PM (#20365015)
      From that I have heard

      Do us all a favor and do something about your ignorance before posting next time: http://walmartwatch.com/ [walmartwatch.com]

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Do us all a favor and do something about your ignorance before posting next time: http://walmartwatch.com/ [walmartwatch.com]

        Do us all a favor and take your own advice. Watch the Penn & Teller 'Bullshit!' episode about Wal-Mart, where they thoroughly demolish the anti-Wal-Mart arguments.

        • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)

          by BrendanMcGrail ( 1094981 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:25PM (#20365319)
          As good as Penn and Teller are about promoting atheism, they have a decidedly Libertarian agenda that they push right along side it, and have a tendency to sweep arguments against that view (which tend to go hand in hand with the the anti-Wal-Mart arguments) under the rug.
        • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) <(ude.lfu) (ta) (dnaslihp)> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:25PM (#20365321) Homepage
          When an argument is using a propaganda sight and Penn and Teller as its sources, we all lose, kids.
        • by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:28PM (#20365353) Homepage Journal

          Watch the Penn & Teller 'Bullshit!' episode about Wal-Mart, where they thoroughly demolish the anti-Wal-Mart arguments.
          I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

          And those would be the same Pen & Teller that think that arming students would end all school massacres [wikipedia.org]? They're funny magicians, not prophets.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            Having watched their gun episode, that's not what they said. Cite, if you will.
            • by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @07:02PM (#20366543) Homepage Journal

              Having watched their gun episode, that's not what they said.
              Their logic that the "walk in and shoot the sitting ducks" method would be foiled is solid.
              But they conveniently ignore the fact that back when anyone could have been carrying a gun, massacres still happened, just with a different technique [wikipedia.org].

              The part where their own reasoning was bullshit is where they imply that "school shooting" == "walk and shoot at point blank" and that they exist because of gun laws; It's bullshit because if that stopped working, people who want to kill a lot of people as part of their suicide will go back to bombs and sniping.

              I don't remember the walmart ep all that well, but I remember that they spent a lot of time talking about how a non-representative sample of people who dislike that store were idiots, and not at all any time on how walmart up and closes any store that dares start a union, build on native burial grounds, etc. They glossed over the evils and focused on people you wouldn't want to be associated with and declared them the anti-walmart type.

              P.S. In their "environmentalists are t3h dumb" ep, they pass around a fake petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide, and then say they told no lie... meaning that they really intended to ban water? Bullshit. I like watching those guys, really I do, but they produce bullshit whilst decrying other people's bovine manure: they are entertainers, not the mighty defenders of the Truth.

              P.P.S. Mythbusters also "bust" myths that they simply failed to do right: It's TV, corners are cut. Watchers beware.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Gregory Cox ( 997625 )
          GGP post only asked "Why are they complaining?" That link gives plenty of reasons. Whether they are justified in their complaints is another question.
        • Hypoxia (Score:4, Funny)

          by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @05:08PM (#20365701)
          Penn and Teller have spent too much time underwater for me to trust their opinion of Wal-Mart.
        • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Jim in Buffalo ( 939861 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @07:51PM (#20366837)
          Penn & Teller use the Straw Man a lot, a potent and popular tactic in a visual medium.

          They find someone to act as the spokesperson for the position they're arguing against, and that person is always going to be someone who is utterly disagreeable to pretty much anyone who isn't a complete psycho.

          For the Wal-Mart episode, they want to show what the anti-Wal-Mart crowd looks like, so they find these two nasty people who print up nasty t-shirts belittling some cruel stereotype of the Wal-Mart shopper, as well as the stereotype's wife and children.

          Who's going to agree with that?

          Then, on the pro-Wal-Mart side, they've got a nicely-dressed, soft-spoken young college professor.

          Penn & Teller are funny and I agree with a lot of their conclusions, but they are very manipulative in their approach.
      • too bad people keep shopping there and making them boatloads of money. seriously, walmart does just like any other very larger company, they do as much as they can to control the market and make money as is allowed under the law. is that right? perhaps not, is it legal? yes. don't like what they are doing? don't shop there. don't work there and certainly try to get the applicable laws changed. the only way companies will stop taking advantage of their situation is if people strangle the companies that d
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Far more than minimum wage? How much is 'far more' to you? 10 cents? 50 cents?

      Than why do so many Wal Mart employees in California require social assistance to just to scrape by?

      • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by the unbeliever ( 201915 ) <chris+slashdot&atlgeek,com> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:00PM (#20365085) Homepage
        Maybe because the cost of living in california is exceedingly high, and even making $65,000/year there is barely enough to live alone without any assistance?
        • Last time I lived there I paid $850 for a one bedroom in Mountain View with a back yard. And that was right at the height of the tech boom in 1999.

          Walmart isn't a employee friendly company. The reason their employees go on welfare is because they can't get full time work. walmart doesn't want have to pay benefits so there are few full timers.
          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            That's funny, I know more than my fair share of wal-mart employees, and they all work full time. And they're not managers either.

            Anecdotal, yes. But it's a fact.
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by notamisfit ( 995619 )
              I've had a few friends do short stints at Wal-Mart after crashing and burning elsewhere, and I got to meet a few of their co-workers. The job really pays about as well as anything else they'd be competent and motivated enough to do. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )
          In California, living alone is is practically a luxury.
      • "Than why do so many Wal Mart employees in California require social assistance to just to scrape by?"

        Walmart is an employer of last resort.

        Employers of last resort tend to hire people who are already on the margins. Walmart is more likely to be drawing people from the welfare roles than say Sun Microsystems.

        Since Walmart is an employer of last resort there will be a lot more movement between welfare roles and employment than in higher end companies. It is difficult to tell if Walmart is abusing the wel

        • by notamisfit ( 995619 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @05:14PM (#20365771)
          You make a really good point here. I'll just point out that working at Wal-Mart is also in that comfort zone where 'working' generally consists of standing around, operating a cash register, and moving around pallet jacks. I mean, I'm sure there's probably some disaffected underemployed would-be software designers in there somewhere (I'm taking this as an article of faith, I've never *met* any of these), but this isn't exactly high-demand labor. And it's not as if these people are unemployable anywhere else. The jobs they can get might not be as comfortable, or may not be within climate controlled environments, or they may have to load up all of their cheap shit and get on a Greyhound to another town, but there's opportunities out there for those willing to break out of their comfort zone and look for them.
      • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mosb1000 ( 710161 ) <mosb1000@mac.com> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:15PM (#20365203)
        When my girlfriend worked at wal-mart last year she made $8.50/hour, while the minimum wage was $5.15. Before that she worked for a small business downtown which paid her $5.50. Six years ago when I worked at wal-mart they paid me $7.50/hr. So yes, wal-mart does usually pay significantly better than other retail businesses.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by treimor ( 1094353 )

          You're missing the point.

          I work for a major grocery store chain that is unionized in the Northeastern US. I started there at minimum wage (5.15 at the time), but there was a detailed plan as to my financial advancement. Seven years later, I now make basically triple that, and also maintain benefits for myself and my family.

          My college buddy has worked at Wal-Mart for the same time that I have worked for the grocery store, and he is making a dollar more an hour then he did when he started, and with mini

  • by klenwell ( 960296 ) <klenwellNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:48PM (#20364977) Homepage Journal
    (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory)

    Now if they had actually gone to their local Wal-Mart store and defaced that, I'd be more impressed.

    I'd be even more impressed if they started hand-crafting their own dorm furniture from self-produced resources instead of just shopping at Target or Ikea instead.

    On the larger problem, see today's New York Times article [nytimes.com] on China's (and soon, the world's) environmental problems.
  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @03:50PM (#20365009) Homepage
    Most people out there know someone that worked at or works for Walmart. I have never met someone that had anything good to say about working there, yes even higher up district managers.

    And if anyone is surprised that a publicity stunt / Advertising trick that intrudes on what many college students think of as their "hallowed ground" of friend networking backfired in such a way that it's incredibly embarrassing, they must be either silly or don't know what they are doing.

    That's like Microsoft putting a "tell us how you love Microsoft" section in the middle of a linux community.

    The fun part, Let's see if they try it on MySpace and expect a different result.
    • The fun part, Let's see if they try it on MySpace and expect a different result.

      They might actually have a modicum of success of myspace, unlike Facebook . Facebook users are more socioeconomically advantaged [nytimes.com] than those on MySpace and tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college, and who end up having higher income than their myspace counterparts.

      Simply put, myspace users are more likely to shop at Wal-Mart than Facebook users.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        The fun part, Let's see if they try it on MySpace and expect a different result.

        They might actually have a modicum of success of myspace, unlike Facebook . Facebook users are more socioeconomically advantaged [nytimes.com] than those on MySpace and tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college, and who end up having higher income than their myspace counterparts.

        Simply put, myspace users are more likely to shop at Wal-Mart than Facebook users.

        That was true, and still is, somewhat. But Facebook used to be a gated community.
        Now that everyone can join, the class divide is fading rapidly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
      And if anyone is surprised that a publicity stunt / Advertising trick that intrudes on what many college students think of as their "hallowed ground" of friend networking backfired in such a way that it's incredibly embarrassing, they must be either silly or don't know what they are doing.

      "Hallowed ground"? It's a web site!
  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by g0dsp33d ( 849253 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:13PM (#20365187)
    Walmart bursts into a community where its not wanted and people there complain. They must be turning over a new leaf.
  • by syousef ( 465911 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:30PM (#20365369) Journal
    The Facebook college crowd may mostly be out of their teenage years but they're still about rebellion and experimentation (college). Having the "grown ups" come in and be organized and taking over their little corner of the world just annoys them. Our Australian politicians have been trying to use the Net - social network sites (including myspace which does have a teenage bent) and wikipedia. They're quickly realizing that having some old ass politician come in and try and be one of the cool kids is just going to get them trashed. They're about as cool as golf pants. Well some corporations are going throught he same thing. Short of getting younger already cool representation (look at the softdrink companies hiring rock stars) and having a youngster targetted product range, this is what they can continue to expect.
  • by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:45PM (#20365487) Homepage
    I think it often happens with organizations that are large enough to be insulated from the world, or that have very active propaganda machines, that they start believing their own propaganda.
    And Wal-Mart is probably one of these.
    They probably do think that the anti-Wal-Mart people are just a few malcontents, and that for most people, Wal-Mart is the center of happy shiny communities. And so they are probably surprised to learn that among many people, especially the educated, they aren't popular.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:52PM (#20365541)
    If someone is willing to do work for you for less, why isn't it moral to choose that person?

    The alternative to Wal-mart is people starving and dying like in Africa where there is hardly any industry.

    Wal-mart isn't forcing people to work at Chinese factories. People are choosing to work there instead of dying of starvation and preventable diseases on the farm.

    American workers can easily do other stuff instead of repetitive and boring factory jobs. Plus with the flood of cheap goods less work would be needed. Come on gardeners get paid $50 an hour. You think a factory worker would get anything beyond minimum wage? Also, we currently have a 5% unemployment rate here. Which jobs taht people are currently doing would they have to leave to fill up the shoe making factories? Are you prepared to give up cell phones and great computer software so that you can have shoes made by americans ... americans who could have been designing technology instead?

    The world still needs cures for major diseases. There aren't cheap cars of BMW quality. Ferrari performance is not available cheaply yet. Not everyone has a large house, there is mad demand fror pre-fabbed structures so that infrastructure to be built. All of this shows there is a need for products and services .. products and services the world wants .. that Americans can provide.

    Do you think China has enough workers to construct all the machinery to develop their infrastructure? I don't think so .. there is already signs of labor shortage emerging in China ..factories are having to provide beter and better incentives for their works (google china labor shortage ) .. just to make products for export.
  • by patently obvious nam ( 883358 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:53PM (#20365549)
    One look at the YouTube video confirms that Penn and Teller have no interest in examining the Walmart issue. Might I suggest http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walm art/ [slashdot.org] as a more reputable source? There are so many things wrong and destructive about Walmart that it's hardly worth trying to communicate them. If you can't see it, it can only be because you don't want, or are incapable of believing it.
  • by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:56PM (#20365583)
    Every company is now trying to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. It's the equivalent of a guy trying to be cool in a hip. trendy nightclub wearing a pair of plaid golf pants.

    It really surprises me that marketing departments don't take one look at the concept of a corporate Facebook page, MySpace page, or Second Life presence and fire the idiot who produced it.

    Imagine trying to sell life insurance to a bunch of skater dudes drinking Mountain Dew...that's the success rate this will have.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26, 2007 @04:57PM (#20365603)
    Tell me again why unskilled labor should be payed at the same rate as a highly trained, skilled worker? If the pay was the same, what incentive would people have to learn skills and work in a more demanding, higher stress job?

    These people chose to work at Wal Mart and knew going into it what the pay was. Its simple economics. Wal Mart pays poorly because they have an abundant pool of workers who are quite willing to work at their pay scale.

    Don't like the wages? Take a few night courses and move up. Or just work somewhere else.

    Don't like how Wal Mart treats its employees? Don't shop there.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      ... and the same goes for the children in third world countries that produce the products they sell. They CHOSE to be starving third world citizens. If they cannot afford bread on what they make, let them eat cake, I say ...
    • by solar_blitz ( 1088029 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @08:34PM (#20367095)

      These people chose to work at Wal Mart and knew going into it what the pay was. Its simple economics. Wal Mart pays poorly because they have an abundant pool of workers who are quite willing to work at their pay scale.

      Don't like the wages? Take a few night courses and move up. Or just work somewhere else.
      Wal-Mart destroys locally run "mom & pop" stores, lowers the real estate value of business districts, and as a result Wal-Mart is one of the few businesses left. People don't choose to work at Wal-Mart; they're forced to. Furthermore, corporate executives of some areas even ask that its employees go onto welfare, medicare, and medicaid. (See "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"). I'd think more people would jump on the anti-Wal-Mart wagon if they knew our tax dollars were being used to give Wal-Mart a free ride like that.

      Y'see, something about this post bugs me. Most people in the lower salary brackets are less likely to move up to higher level salary brackets (i.e., earn better jobs). That's because they don't have the proper resources to make that kind of progress. I'm sure there are some cases where people can attend night classes and earn some sort of certification for their efforts, but that's the exception from the norm. Fortunate folks like to think things are simple all across the board - for all people rich and poor-, but when you're smart enough to the point where you have a college degree (and can comprehend the majority of the stuff on /.), you don't realize that a lot of these people in these situations aren't as fortunate or as capable as you are. It's amazing how so many of us educated individuals can have such poor insight on important topics like this.

      One of the other problems people have is that they don't like to acknowledge this kind of social issue in today's society. [sarcasm]God forbid we ever acknowledge the plight of the poor and feel guilty about being so well-off. We might just feel a bit too uncomfortable to even turn on our television sets.[/sarcasm] People think that if they don't acknowledge these issues then the issues will go away. And even if they do have to read about it, they'll just cast it off with a simple no-bs remark "don't like such-and-such? don't give em' your business." If things were that simple, I would've stopped paying my taxes when we went to war with Iraq in 2003.
  • by justinlee37 ( 993373 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @05:20PM (#20365831)

    They launched a campaign targeted at college students, trying to get them to discuss dorm decoration?

    That might have worked on grade school kids, but college students aren't so easy to "put one over" on -- they're adults, and they're usually informed about the issues. Wal-Mart's marketing suits should have realized that their terrible reputation would precede them.

  • Fix me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Miracle Jones ( 976646 ) <ticktickticktick@@@gmail...com> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @05:57PM (#20366113) Homepage
    Reactionary internet graffiti aside, the divisiveness of Wal-Mart signals a more complicated problem than the superficial split between the caring and the cold-hearted.

    Wal-Mart's revolting nature comes on a gut level, and not a rational one. There are arguments against its existence for worker's rights reasons, for anti-globalization reasons, and for aesthetic reasons - but most people go looking for these reasons in the first place as a result of actual time spent in the store, and the feeling of sweaty, raw animal terror that the experience inspires in a person who has a choice to go elsewhere.

    Should Wal-Mart be allowed to exist? Of course it should. It's a free market, baby, and they are PROVIDING. Jobs, cheap-ass crockery, optometry, etc. But that's no reason not to feel overwhelming pity for the people that are forced to shop and work there. It's a horrible place, but so is the overnight shift at a city hospital. You can't get rid of a place like that because it is ugly.

    If anything, Wal-Mart does a public service for the impoverished of a community. It forces the middle-class to look at them -- under stark, neuron-scrambling fluorescents -- and see that they are neither institutionally lazy nor inhuman. They are falling apart, and the only people interested in helping are a corporation with a profit motive that panders to their every prejudice and weakness.

    The first impulse is to trample that ant-hive. Find a reason to get rid of it. The ant-hive is the problem!

    But Wal-Mart is a challenge. Can we do better to provide for the bottom of society? If not, then Wal-Mart is better than nothing. I think we can do better. I think -- in the same way that Scientology is challenge to scale down the state protections for religion -- Wal-Mart is a challenge to improve the quality of life of impoverished America. It is the natural outgrowth of the system that we have created. It is a website under construction that says "FIX ME."

    So shop Wal-Mart, think real hard about how to make it better, and SAVE.
  • by mojosmackwit ( 1119183 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @06:57PM (#20366499)
    I work at WalMart now, I make 8.30 an hour. For telling you that I make that much, I would be immediately fired on the spot. There are about 7 pay grades, and being that I work in the Electronics department I am on grade 6. Each pay grade equals to about a 40 cent difference in pay. There are two departments that are on my pay grade: Produce and Bakery. Everyone else is on pay grades 1-3, they make around 6.50 to 7.50, and the minimum wage is 6.15. In each department there are between 1 and 3 full time positions, and over 5 part time positions depending on the size of the store. Benefits for part-time associates are basically intangible. Company policy states they are not to receive over 32 hours a week, they are usually given about 28, so they can't afford health insurance. And they have to be with the company for two before they are even eligible, full time associates are eligible immediately. My wages are capped at 10.00 an hour. I will never make more than that without a promotion. Promotions are generally handed out to friends of management. Why do I really evil though? Because on more than one occasion with more than just a few people (myself included), management has gone back to modify the number of hours recorded in the system that you worked. People have gotten fired for working overtime, when the only reason they had overtime was because management held them over working on something (unloading an especially large truck, cleaning an isle where some jackass dropped a 6-pack of Corona and didn't bother to tell anyone, running a cash register and never being relieved, regardless of the number of times they called management and told them they needed to clock out, etc). Or maybe its the fact that after all the years, not a single manager has come up from the bottom of the company? Throughout your orientation you are told that WalMart promotes from within (also that unions are evil and only want your money, but that's an entirely different subject). But I have yet to see a manager who has actually worked below their current rank. How about the "Open Door Policy" where all associates are supposed to be able to go to management whenever there is a problem, but how the door is always locked with paper taped over the window. People have been fired for knocking too many times when the door was locked and a customer wanted to talk with them. Also, my store itself has been robbed too many times to count. Not petty theft I refer to, I'm talking about men with guns demanding money or merchandise. Yet there has never been even the consideration to hire any kind of security to protect neither the customers nor the employees. Surely some part of the 80,000 salary of the BOTTOM rank managers at my store could be taken to hire an armed guard or something. But oh well, I guess I'll just suck it up and not starve and continue to follow the WalMart-provided pamphlets helping me get on government money just so I can survive.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Shados ( 741919 )
      Walmart really IS an awful place to work at... A few things caught my attention though. Its quite a common policy, no matter your job or social rank, for companies to fire (or at least threaten to) someone giving their salary. Usually work conditions are between you and your employer, so on that, Walmart isn't really special. And while your salary is total crap (like virtually everyone who work there), from what one of my friends who worked there told me, you DO get a bonus at the end of the year (which sti
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by king-manic ( 409855 )
        A non evil union and a non evil company can make things good. A evil company or an evil union will automatically convert their counterpart as a defensive mechanism. At my previous union job I made a good 6-10/h more then a similar non-union job. (6 when I started, 10 when I left 3 years later). Conditions where pretty decent. Full benefits for full timers, a decent number of full timers, and a lot of hiring from within. We had occasional strikes and the union didn't have a iron grip on the company but over
    • by notamisfit ( 995619 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @07:27PM (#20366695)
      If it blows that much, quit. Go clean bedpans at a nursing home, or roof buildings, or even take some of that free money the govt throws around, take some college courses and learn how to do something that pays money. It's your life, man.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26, 2007 @08:18PM (#20366995)
      Perhaps you should go to the "Career Preference Dashboard" on the WIRE. It's easy: sign on to the WIRE, click on the green "Life" tab and finally click on "Career Preference" in the "My Career" box. Now research some of what you are saying. Electronics is not pay grade 6. Electronics salesfloor is pay grade 4. Electronics department manager is pay grade 7. Assuming you started as an Electronics salesfloor associate at $8.30, and assuming you had previous work experience for extra credits that bumped your pay (the difference between pay grade 3 and pay grade 4 is $0.20 or $0.30, so if you are making $8.30 per hour, you must have had some extra credits), then your cap will be higher than $10.00. I'm afraid I don't remember the exact formula, but the cap for pay grade 4 would be (for you) around $13.00 to $14.00.

      As for promotions being handed out to friends, what happens in your store does not mean that it happens in all stores.

      Another example of "what happens in your store does not happen in all stores": Remember your comment about management working "below their current rank", I've seen my store manager go outside and push carts numerous times when our store was low on carts. He started out in the company as a cart pusher, by the way. I've seen the front end assistant manager clean a bathroom. I've seen a grocery assistant manager mop the floor. Management expectations start with your store manager. One store manager is not a representative sample of all store managers.

      Management (or anybody else) modifying the number of hours an associate works is a terminable offense. I am not salaried management, but I have the ability to edit an associate's time. If I modified an associate's time (either increased or decreased), I have no doubt in my mind that I would be terminated on the spot. There's a report that runs every Saturday morning called the "Time Clock Archive" that lists every associate's time and if that time was edited, it lists the name of the person who edited it. The information is also recorded in the SMART system under the program called "Electronic Time Adjustment" (select "Change/View Time Adjustment"). All associates are given access to the Electronic Time Adjustment automatically when hired.

      The "Open Door Policy" is more than your local store management. Have you tried talking to your district manager? Your regional manager?

      What Wal-Mart provided pamphlets? In my store, we're usually griping (under our breath) about the number of customers coming in to our store that do not have jobs and whip out their EBT cards- customers we are supporting with our tax dollars.
  • my turn to bitch (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday August 26, 2007 @07:26PM (#20366685) Homepage
    My complaint about walmart and their kind isn't so much the shitty labour conditions, low pay, or buying stuff from China. For me, it's the total lack of selection that gets me.

    For such huge stores, they have many different sorts of products, but in each category usually very low selection. About the only well represented categories are clothing and snack foods. But even in the clothing it's fairly low. I haven't seen cotton shorts there at the one near my place, in a long time for instance.

    I went looking for various things for the kitchen a couple weeks back. They had maybe 2-3 styles of plates, 2 styles of cups, etc. Barely any of the odds and ends [e.g. peeler, can opener, cheese grater, etc]. Then head over to home hardware. No real variety in the light bulbs, power strips, fuses, etc. Head over to the music dept, oh look 300 country albums and the top 20 from Sony/EMI/etc. Wow, wonders never cease to amaze me! I've walked out of dept stores many times this year alone empty handed. Not for lack of want, but just because they didn't have anything I needed. And I have to ask myself, for a store so big, how can they fail in this respect so miserably?

    I like the concept of a dept store, where I don't have to drive around the city to get say towels, movies, dishes, some junk food, etc. It's simpler, faster, and environmentally friendlier. But I find myself increasingly having to shop around anyways.

    Tom
  • by maeka ( 518272 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @10:30PM (#20367845) Journal
  • Oh no. (Score:3, Funny)

    by vinividivici ( 919782 ) on Sunday August 26, 2007 @10:54PM (#20368009) Homepage
    I heard that SOMETIMES people even vandalize Wikipedia! I can't believe people these days! Seriously, what is the point of posting an article that pertains to a single page on a massive social networking site? Get a blog.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau

Working...