Hello, all my dear readers! I hope you all are enjoying the last few weeks of the summer. I’m trying to do that and work at the same time. From one job to the next. Like most college kids, during the summer I had to find a job to bring in some doe that I could take back to school with me. After sending in dozens of applications in I was asked to be interviewed by my local Wal-mart Asst Manager. I went in there, aced the interview and passed the pee pee test with flying colors. I was completely ecstatic. I thought that I was the luckiest college kid scoring a job like this. The Wal-Mart was only a 10-15 min drive from my house so distance wasn’t an issue, I’d be getting paid above minimum wage and would be getting 32-40 hours a week even though I was only a temp worker. Plus I was in the deli dept so I got paid for my overtime. Can you saw sweet or what? That’s what I thought too but sadly it turned out to be way less than sweet. Actually it was kind of bitter and not even bitter sweet, just bitter.
In the beginning it was great, but I think that’s how all really bad things start, huh? I liked the people I worked with. They were tolerable and didn’t bother me to the point where I thought I’d need to break a few dishes (on purpose) to get through the day. But as the weeks went on I realized the dynamics of the deli. First, my dept. manager thought that since she was the dept. manager the rules didn’t apply to her. Including the rule that she actually had to work! A normal day for my dept. manager consisted of her sitting in the back in a rolly chair, disappearing for several hours saying she was interviewing other potential employees. Oh and lets not forget her 2 hour lunch breaks. Now I will admit that she was pregnant so maybe that’s why she spent so much time sitting (she was just lazy really), but that doesn’t excuse her disappearing for hours. Nor does it excuse her always asking us, her employees, to run to the McDonald’s and the Bakery to buy her food. With out own money!! And did I mention that she got paid more than us? If anything she should have been buying us lunch. I’m just saying.
Then, of course there were my fellow employees. Can you say the laziest people ever? Seriously, I understand that everyone has their days but it makes no sense to be a lazy ass 24 hours a week, 7 days a week. Let me give you an example of how lazy these people are. I worked the 1-10pm shift so I took over for the morning shift. I remember one particular day I came into work and all the food on the hot bar needed to be replaced (there’s a limit on how long it can stay out there). I asked the morning shift cook why the food was so old. Her response to me was this, “I don’t cook. I don’t like it.” Yes, those are the exact words that came out of this woman’s mouth. And yes the thought of slapping her ass down to the ground right that minute did cross my mind. But I controlled myself. How? I didn’t want to go back to school with a law suit against me.
Another example of how lazy these people were: When morning shift leaves they have to take out the trash before so that night shift can continue on working without having to worry about the trash. One day the day shift tried to leave without taking out the trash. My friend, lets call her Alexa, stopped on their way out and told them that they had forgot the trash. Their response: “That’s not our trash anymore. That belongs to night shift.” Yes, I am so serious.
There were many other things that made this job so not worth the pay. Like I said I worked night shift so we got stuck with all the cleaning. And we got blamed for everything. First let me point the fact out that we actually got in trouble for having too much overtime. Our managers must have forgot the fact that the only reason we were getting over time is because there usually 3-4 of us cleaning and prepping the whole deli. We couldn’t get done at 10pm when the deli closed at 8pm. It wasn’t possible. It’s not like we wanted to get out of there every night at 10:30pm or 11. However, if something wasn’t done int the morning, like we forgot to put the dishes (the clean ones we washed) away, day shift would have a cow and complain that night shift was lazy and did nothing. Utter bullshit may I just say.
Then there were the customers. Oh, dear god the customers. I was cussed/fussed out 4 times out of the 2 and half months I worked. Customers were impatient and thought since I was a Wal-mart employee it also meant I was their personal employee. Therefore, they could talk to me anyway they wanted and treat me anyway they wanted. Their wish was my command. Or at least that’s what they thought. Oh you want 4 pounds of meat shaved with cheese and you expect me to have all that done in two minutes with other customers being waited on and giving the evil eye? Oh, of course, let me just use my super speed and get all that done for ya. Ugh! I was reported to management twice for being disrespectful when I was just moving too slow for the customer’s standards. To sum up this post, working at Wal-mart this summer has taught me one thing. I will never work in customer service again.
