Walmart; growing up this was what my siblings and I referred to as the W-word. When a friend would mention an outing to the retail store we would exclaim “You shop at the W-word?! ” this was always followed closely by a sharp gasp. There are two groups of Walmart shoppers; the first wonder how they would live without the large retail store; then there is the second, who hate Walmart with a passion, some even going as far as to never step foot in the store.
If you are part of the first group you probably have been deceived into believing into believing the slogan “Save money, Live better,” When the horrific truth about Walmart is hidden just behind the yellow smiley face. Being a big shiny retail store can make it seem enticing, but the truth of the matter is there’s more behind the friendly door greeters and “low” prices. When you go to a Walmart do you come out feeling great? Most people would answer this with a straight up no. Most of the complaints lead back to customer service, while others have something to say about the prices that claim to be low that are anything but.
Customers aren’t the only ones complaining; workers with lower status jobs, known as associates, have a lot of negative things to say about the company as well. Then there is the way it makes other stores suffer; of course, competition comes with the business, but Walmart takes it to a whole new level. A trip to Walmart is rarely a pleasant one; with grumpy customers and less than helpful employees, it is common to leave feeling completely drained. The registers are always seemingly empty. Help is hard to find, and once you do find an employee they can be hateful, rude, and grumpy.
The fact is that whatever the attitude of the associate helping you has is going to affect your own attitude. When you have bad help you’re going to come out of the store feeling bad. Customer service is the most important thing to a customer. The product brings the customer in the first place, the company’s care of said customer is what gets them to come back. Not only is it an unpleasant trip, but it can even feel unsafe. In an article for Bloomburg titled “Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy” we get a peek into Walmart’s ideas about security.
The story is centered around the events of a store in Tulsa but expands on the general workings for Walmart’s security. To give an idea of just how terrible things are at this particular store the author stated “Last year police were called to the store and three other Tulsa Walmart’s just under 2,000 times. By comparison, they were called to the city’s four Target stores about 300 times. ” If you do the math, that’s just under a 600% difference! The article goes on, saying “At some higher-crime stores, the company is also hiring off-duty police and private security officers. While Walmart’s executives are happy with the progress, these actions are providing, the police officers seemed to disagree; the authors took the statement of a Sargent Robert Rohloff who complains that the company pawns the job of security off to the state “It’s ridiculous—we are talking about the biggest retailer in the world,” says Rohloff. “I may have half my squad there for hours. ” The article states that the reason for their troubling number of crimes at the stores is partially the company’s own fault after “The famed greeters were removed, taking away a deterrent to theft at the porous entrances and exits.
Self-checkout scanners replaced many cashiers. Walmart added stores faster than it hired employees. ” Walking into a Walmart it’s not hard to see the lack of employees in the stores; this, Bill Ferguson, a police captain in Port Richey, says it’s exactly why “It just seems like an easy target. ” The shortage of employees not only make it harder to find help, but it is also like laying out a welcome mat for shoplifters. The fact that the associates you do see on the floor ignore a puzzled looking customer in need of help just reinforces the feeling of “an easy target.
Even the hired security, Read Hayes, director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, admits if “Go hang out in a Walmart. It’s just amazing. Sometimes, what happens in a store like a Walmart can be scary. ” No one should put themselves in an environment that makes them feel unsafe. Besides having a precarious setting, Walmart’s so-called “low” prices match up with the wages they give to their workers. According to CBS News, Walmart’s recent raise in hourly pay, now at a rate of $9. 39 per hour, or approximately $19,531 per year, is below the official federal poverty line of $20,420.
At the end of CBS’s post, they had a worker’s response to a blog post by Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillion, she made a comment about the wages offered by Walmart is just made worse by the hours Walmart has apparently been cutting since August. While I’m sure all workers have complaints about their jobs, the fact that someone can ask for horror stories specifically from Walmart workers and have over 2,000 responses, most of which are long paragraph stories, is more than a little concerning. These stories ranged from complaints about customers to horrible treatment rom managers to poor benefits. An author for Tough Nickel, known simply as Edward, wrote an article called “Why Never to Work for Walmart” claims to have had five different jobs on three separate occasions in the course of five years.
Mr. Edward has had firsthand experience in several areas of Walmart, the place that he describes as “dreaded land of awfulness. ” The first thing he complains about is, of course, the healthcare benefits. “I paid for the best plan and had 71 dollars come out of every check, but when I went to the doctor, I still had a mountain of a deductible to conquer. Mr. Edward finally decided to simply receive his full paycheck and choose his own healthcare “Oh, and for less than I was paying for my Walmart plans. ” He then goes on to complain about the way they prey on full-time workers. He explains that they waited like predators lurking their prey, they waited for any reason to fire or cut hours on full-time workers for they cost more money to keep on than part time.
Lastly, he moved on to management; Edward recalled new management would come out of nowhere, you’d have no idea who they were. I was sick of new faces popping out of thin air and ordering me around like I’m some meat-puppet. That’s how the managers learn to treat everyone. ” Edward admits that in some ways this is the job of management, but the way he describes his experience with Walmart management it seemed like they forgot they were working with people and not machines. “Not all managers are evil,” Edward admits. “but all managers are stressed. And a stressed manager is cranky. And a cranky manager is hard to live with. They make your life suck because their life sucks.
It’s just a trickle-down effect that people looking to apply at Walmart just don’t know. ” His whole purpose for writing the article was to inform those looking to apply for a job at Walmart not to make “the same mistakes” that he did. He complains that his superiors expected too much, this was either a misjudgment on human capabilities or a ploy to avoid giving employees benefits; either way, this is a horrid thing on Walmart’s part. The only jobs at Walmart with any real promise are in management.
An author for the Huffington Post wrote the “5 Best and Worst Jobs at Walmart”; four of the five “best” jobs listed were some kind of management position. To sum it up; if you ever do get a job at Walmart, better hope it’s in management. Another thing is the way Walmart forces its vendors to lower their prices. The FastCompany published a story called “The Walmart You Don’t know” elaborated on the pressure Walmart puts on its vendors to bring down their price. “Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors.
To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U. S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas. ” Walmart wants stores to bring down their prices till they’re barely breaking even, and if they don’t, Walmart pulls out; “for any product that is the same as what you sold them last year, Wal-Mart will say, ‘Here’s the price you gave me last year. Here’s what I can get a competitor’s product for.
Here’s what I can get a private-label version for. I want to see a better value that I can bring to my shopper this year. Or else I’m going to use that shelf space differently. ’ While this might seem like a good thing to you as a customer, in terms of these businesses, it can leave them struggling to stay afloat, which of course can lead to bankruptcy and if you think about it that way, no brand means no one to bring the product. “In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart.
The article explains, “Part of Wal-Mart’s dominance, part of its and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes to speak for American shoppers. ” The companies feel threatened and pressured to deliver a certain price, but they just can’t reach the low prices while still making enough profit to keep the business going strong. Lastly, Walmart isn’t as cheap as they claim to be; Dawn Bradshaw, mother of ten, recalled taking her daughter, Elizabeth, shopping for thanksgiving last year.
To make it easier on the bank account, Mrs. Bradshaw makes it a point to price check regularly, especially when large events come up and she has extra mouths to feed. Mrs. Bradshaw stated with disdain that only one item on her extensive list was found cheapest at Walmart. While there are some areas that the store does, in fact, have the lowest prices, other products can be found for the same price or cheaper at other stores. When out shopping, remember, price tags can be deceiving, even when brightly colored. Going to a Walmart can feel draining, you shouldn’t have to deal with a sour and unhelpful worker no matter how good of an excuse they might have.
Working at Walmart is just as bad, if not worse, as shopping there; customers deal with grumpy associates and associates deal with complaining customers, all while being deprived of proper benefits. Price checking is a tedious task, but in doing so you’ll find that the cheapest prices are not always sold at Walmart. Is it worth saving a dollar shopping at Walmart if in the end, you’ll have to pay three? Are you willing to let Walmart bully vendors till they can no longer do business? Next time you think about shopping at Walmart, maybe you need to watch for more than falling prices.