Wal-Mart policy

Wal-Mart for years have been offering low prices on many products and giving jobs to people ranging from teenagers to senior citizens. The chain store has a lot of pros and cons dealing with their business practices with most of the complaints coming from the Unions. Nevertheless, after what happened the other day, I was sure Wal-Mart practices were becoming more unionized.

Any vendor knows that if you have a lot of shelf space and displays in a store that it will take a while to make sure everything is full before you leave the store. When I serviced one of the many Wal-Mart’s in Cary, little joke there, I had a huge wall display by the customer service area, a pallet display, the main shelf area, a four foot section near the garden center plus registers displays. With so much to do, I started on the area’s that required to most attention first.

Everything was going great. I was lucky to find a decent cart to quickly do my job but as I was preparing to finish up within the next 30 minutes, union style management started to step in and make my nearly completed task drag on forever. I was filling up the one pallet display we had and then I just had the register displays and the garden center display to take care of. Two more minutes and I would be heading back to the receiving area to load up the last cart for the store and then it happened.

I work the store from time to time so I have gotten to know a few people who work there. The pallet display was close to the register so I easily notice one of their many assistant managers go and call someone on the phone. This person walked pass me saying hello and I greeted him as well as he continued to head to the register area and call someone from within the store. After he got off the phone, I heard a page over the intercom paging me to go back to the receiving area. Upon arriving and speaking with the receiver, I couldn’t believe our conversation.

She said she was called by the assistant manager, the same person who I exchanged greetings with, to ask if I was going to take care of the display in the garden shop. I told her that as soon as I finished with taking care of the pallet display that the garden shop display was next on the list along with the register displays as well. She said OK and she would let the assistant manager know. After she called him and gave a reply I then left to continue to work. As I finished the pallet display within one minute, I was heading to the backroom with the now empty cart the assistant manager came and spoke with me.

Now, this is the same person I exchanged greeting with, the same one who called the receiver and received a reply from her. This same person walked up to me and asked me the same question he asked the receiver and already knew my reply. He was now talking to me as if he owned the place. Like he was the sheriff and I was under arrest kind of conversation. I repeated the same response I gave the receiver and then I said something that he did not like.

I asked him if the receiver had contacted him already with my response. It was one of those situations where I knew and he knew that I knew. He made it clear that if the display wasn’t taken care of then I would have to take everything off so they could make room for something else. I almost laughed in his face but I was able to compose myself, somewhat.

First, that display is a paid display so he couldn’t do anything anyways. Second, two cases filled it back up. I could have easily fronted it up to make it look full. Technically it did look full. Third, I was having a kid with more pimples on his face than on my but talking to me as if my life was in his hands. Being on an airplane in South America and having a run-in with Peruvian officials carrying automatic rifles informing me to not exit the plane which didn't work, experiencing the military in Korea, nearly getting killed by a Native American in upper California for video taping a sponsored Native American event just to name a few experiences in my life. To basically put it in a nut shell, his shit didn’t stink.

He did inform me that he would have asked me personally instead of calling the receiver but he didn’t want to bother me. He was followed policy and contacted the receiver so instead of me finishing within 30 minutes, I spent an extra 15 minutes going though company policy sounding like an infomercial when the one guy who started it all could have just simply have spoken with me to begin with. Even the garden Center cashiers were asked me about the display while I was filling up the display by the resgister. This is the same Wal-Mart that years ago once wanted credit for a pallet of damaged 12 pack can drinks that they put outside in the rain to make more room in the receiving area.