Yep. This is where I wound up working. I never expected this. And what I really didn't see coming was that I would work for Walmart for more than four years. (I spent my last two years at Walmart after transferring to another city in California. That will become Job #20.) This was just supposed to be a seasonal job and I had been planning to collect Unemployment after January 2002. However, I knew continuous employment would pay me better in the long run.
I hadn't planned on applying, but I figured I stood a better chance of getting a temporary position there than just about anywhere else. Walmart had recently gotten the reputation of being one of the most successful companies in the country and was on the cusp of becoming so very hated. But none of that mattered to me. I just needed to work someplace that would hire me.
I went to the location in Kearny Mesa (which wasn't too far from where I used to work at Aradiant). I went to the customer service desk and asked where I needed to go to apply for a job. They directed me to the back of the store, where the Layaway department was. There were several people there filling out applications. A lot of people had the same idea I did. I filled out the application and also took the criminal attitude test (similar to the molester test at Toys R Us). After I had finished, a woman asked me to come back to the employee break room to talk with her. She asked about my past experience in retail. I told her about working at Kmart before. She then asked me which department I was interested in. I said, "Electronics." All of a sudden, she got up and said she'd be right back. A couple of employees at the next table (whom I found out later were department managers) snickered and told me I was speaking to the Electronics Department Manager. However, they said she'd be right back.
I sat there waiting for about 30 minutes. Finally, another woman asked me to come with her to an office and she would talk to me. She didn't explain what happened to the Electronics Manager. We talked for a little bit. I said that I was interested in a seasonal position. She asked me if I would be interested in working the Christmas tree lot. I said sure. That REALLY sounded temporary. I envisioned myself cutting Christmas trees and loading him onto people's cars. For some reason, images of shivering outside in a snowy lot eight hours a day popped into my head (even though this was San Diego). At the very least, it wasn't going to be a job I was going to have to think very hard about. Maybe that's what I needed right about now.
She said I would likely be called back for another interview, and if they decided to hire me, I would have to submit to a drug test. I had an objection to drug tests, but I had a bigger objection to not having a job, so I knew I was going to have to do it.
A couple of days later, I got called in for the second interview. They referred to it as a "Post-Orion" interview. Orion was that test I took. The man who interviewed me had me justify some of my responses to that test. I mostly based it off my previous experience as a supervisor. He then had me go talk to another woman. She asked me what position I had been offered. I said the tree lot. She asked me how I felt about being a cashier. It would pay 25 cents an hour more. Even though I had hoped for a job that I wouldn't have to think hard about, I figured I should try to make as much money as possible during the short term I expected to be there. I said, "Sure, I can do that." She then gave me some paperwork with the directions to the clinic where I needed to do the drug test. When I arrived, I saw some of the other people who had previously been waiting for interviews there to do their tests. I didn't talk to any of them. I just waited for my turn.
Even though I knew I was going to pass the test, I was still wary that something would go wrong to produce a false positive. However, it wasn't going to be the end of the world if I didn't get hired there. I would continue to look for a job and I still had some money left over from the severance package to last me through the end of the year.
A couple of days later, someone from Walmart called me to officially offer me a job as a cashier. They gave me a date and time to show up for orientation. I was in!
My experience at Walmart was unlike any job I'd had up to that point in time. So I can't possibly summarize it all in one article. What will follow in the next few weeks will be a series of essays about my observations of working with such a successful company that has been subjected to so much hatred. It wasn't the best job I ever had, but it was far from the worst.
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