I should be so lucky!

It's not very often I get a rock star's mail!



I tried using it at a gas pump, but it wouldn't acknowledge it. I guess that gas pump was broken.

Walmart Myths #5

(This is another in a series of articles in which I will discuss certain aspects of working at Walmart, which is the subject of so much hatred on the internet. I should point out that these are not attempts to debunk or disprove any claims made against the retail chain. I will simply relay my experience working with the company. Some of the things I state reflect the period of time from 2001 - 2006 and working in two locations in California. Some of what I say may no longer be true, may be different in other locations, or policies may have changed.)

The Walton Family Foundation is a facade non-profit that doesn't contribute anything

Every Walmart store has someone in charge of community distributions. People from various local charities can approach their local Walmarts to ask for donations. There's a rather complex process in which forms need to be filled out and it can take at least a month before any funds are approved and released.

The recipients of these distributions typically come to the store during the daily staff meetings and are presented with a giant novelty check for a photo op, along with an actual check in the amount of the contribution. Every novelty check that I've seen read "Walton Family Foundation," but had the Walmart/Sam's Club logo on them.

The only real problem with this charitable giving is that we would often get people from local organizations coming in the store and demanding the contribution right then and there. That never happened.

Walmart gets its products from less than reputable providers

This is something I can't really argue with. There's enough evidence to indicate that a lot of the merchandise comes from overseas locations where they allegedly have sweatshops staff with people working for very low wages. But not everything is manufactured under those conditions.

However, I got to have fun with this once. A woman was in the Sporting Goods department. She asked me how we were able to sell flashlights for a dollar each. I immediately responded, "Child labor in third-world countries." Her jaw hit the floor. That was probably what she thought, but she likely never expected anyone from Walmart to say that out loud. I followed up by saying, "Well, I don't know that for a fact, but you hear stories." She then went and bought a $5 flashlight.

Right now, these are all of the Walmart Myths I'm able to come up with. If I think of more that I can respond to, I'll be posting them in the weeks to come.

Walmart Myths #4

(This is another in a series of articles in which I will discuss certain aspects of working at Walmart, which is the subject of so much hatred on the internet. I should point out that these are not attempts to debunk or disprove any claims made against the retail chain. I will simply relay my experience working with the company. Some of the things I state reflect the period of time from 2001 - 2006 and working in two locations in California. Some of what I say may no longer be true, may be different in other locations, or policies may have changed.)

Walmart is anti-union

As I discussed during the Orientation, Walmart claims that it is pro-associate, not anti-union. During the video presentation, it showed that labor unions constituted 70% of America's workforce during the 1930s. But in 2001, that number had dropped to 30%. It didn't offer any explanation why that happened, but they did indicate that the main objective for unions was to collect dues and if they could get every Walmart employee into a union, that would amount to a LOT of dues.

So, yeah, this was propaganda on Walmart's part. Personally, I didn't care one way or the other. The only thing I didn't like about unions was when they went on strike. They block the entrances and insult people who try to patronize their employer while they're on strike. But if a deal is reached and they're back at work the next day, they try to act like nothing happened. I didn't want to be part of that mentality.

When I became a Customer Service Manager in San Jose, I was serving in a supervisory position and had to go through this special training. New supervisors from all over the Bay Area were at this one location to watch videos about what was expected of us in the event that employees started talking about unionizing. The videos showed a number of scenarios, starting from mild discussions and leading up to things going to a vote as to whether to allow a union to organize the workers. They would show two versions of the same situation, one in which the supervisor takes no real action, and another one in which the supervisor states Walmart's position to the employees and ends with the supervisor thinking, "I need to report this to the Store Manager."

During the presentation, one brave woman at the training shouted, "BUT YOU'RE NOT SHOWING WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE GO TO THE STORE MANAGER!" Yeah, she had likely heard the stories of goons descending on the store to shake some sense into the employees. One of the people in charge of the training said, "Oh, nothing happens. The Store Manager just takes it under advisement." That brave woman didn't add anything, but I knew I was thinking that was only the beginning. I was certain the Store Manager would immediately get on the phone to the corporate office and the next day, our store would be visited by the union-busters.

In fact, my brother Loyd had once heard a rumor there was an 800 number that stores could call whenever there was union talk going around. I think he was hoping I would give him that number so he could start troubles at a Walmart near him. Actually, at the time I worked at Walmart, there wouldn't have been an 800 number. We had a 700 system that connected all the stores. I'm certain that the Store Manager was the only person with access to that 700 number and there was likely a verification process that had to be endured before any action would take place.

The leadership at the training also told a few stories involving unions. One was that if a ladder was blocking an emergency exit, it couldn't be moved out of the way by just anybody. No, a union member had to move it. In other words, something was creating a safety hazard and the union didn't care if customers and employees got injured as a result. The work had to be done by a union member. AND it had to be a union member who worked in that department. Someone couldn't come from the other side of the store to move it. If anybody but a member from that department moved the ladder, even upper level management, the store would be subject to a fine.

They also showed a video of what life is like in a department store with a union. They would show a woman walking into a department and asking an employee to help with something in the next aisle. The employee says, "I can't, ma'am. That's not my department." The woman huffs off, asking, "Whatever happened to customer service?" The video also showed a supervisor asking an employee to give a hand in another department. The employee says, "I can't. The union shop steward is right over there and I'll get in trouble."

At this point, I knew this was all pretty much propaganda. I mean, the unions probably used to be like this 50 - 70 years ago. If you went into a store and an employee said that it wasn't their department, you didn't throw a fit about it. Chances were you were also in a union and you knew exactly what the employee was talking about. However, I've been in union grocery stores and I've seen employees from one department helping out in another. It looks like the unions finally got around to admitting that the customers need to come first. Otherwise, there won't be any jobs for members to pay dues on. While there are probably union shop stewards who are there primarily to keep employees from doing work they're not supposed to, I doubt they're going to stand in the way of customer safety and satisfaction.

When I was a supervisor, I would overhear conversations in the breakroom about having a union. But I didn't report these. One of the things that was made clear during the training is that supervisors would not get a vote as to whether the union could come in. The unions were not supposed to approach anyone who was a supervisor. I did have one person come up to me and ask how our benefits were. I thought he was interested in working for Walmart. I said they were pretty good. He said something to the effect that they would be better if we had a union. I told him he needed to do his research because I was a supervisor. The conversation stopped after that. He probably could have gotten into trouble.

In the end, I don't think my experience with Walmart would have improved with a union. It would have just meant more money getting pulled out of my (already low) paycheck.

Walmart Myths #3

(This is another in a series of articles in which I will discuss certain aspects of working at Walmart, which is the subject of so much hatred on the internet. I should point out that these are not attempts to debunk or disprove any claims made against the retail chain. I will simply relay my experience working with the company. Some of the things I state reflect the period of time from 2001 - 2006 and working in two locations in California. Some of what I say may no longer be true, may be different in other locations, or policies may have changed.)

Walmart doesn't have enough women or minorities in managerial positions.

At the two Walmart stores I worked at in California, almost every Store Manager, Assistant Store Manager, Assistant Manager and Department Manager was a female and/or minority. But this is probably more of an issue in the Midwest and Southeast parts of the country (where Walmart is KING).

Personally, I saw several efforts by Walmart to promote women and minorities into positions of authority within the company. When I first started working there, they had a program called "First in Line." Since the stores had a lot of women and minorities who were going to college, Walmart offered those who were about to graduate a chance to go into their Assistant Manager training program so that they would start making substantial money once they got out of school. (And I once saw an Assistant Manager's paycheck. It was considerably HIGHER than mine. I would have needed about 20 years' worth of raises to start making that much.)

(The bad thing about "First in Line" is that they had nothing in place for employees who came into Walmart who already had degrees. For me, it would have been great if they had a "Next in Line" program. It could have worked like this: Spend one year as an associate. After that, you would qualify to enter the training to become an Assistant Manager.)

The next thing I saw them try was to put up notices asking associates who were interested in becoming Assistant Managers apply online. If someone had been working for Walmart for at least six months in the same position, they would qualify to be interviewed for the training program. Flyers would be posted once every three months. I applied every single time, but never got called for an interview. However, everybody I know who got selected for the training was a female or a minority.

I doubt a lot of people outside Walmart complaining of the discrepancy involving women and minorities know much about the attitudes of the associates. You can go up to any employee and find out if they want to become an Assistant Manager. A lot of them will tell you they have no interest. Some employees don't want all that responsibility and consider themselves lucky to just have a job that allows them to provide for their families.

I knew one woman who had the skills. She was the Head CSM in San Jose. I asked her if she ever planned to become an Assistant Manager. She said, "No. Assistant Managers have to work 50 hours a week with 10-hour days. I don't want to do that. I want to spend more time with my family." People outside Walmart make a lot of assumptions about what the employees want.

From my experience, Walmart appeared to go out of its way to promote females and minorities. The real issue is that a lot of employees aren't looking to lead and don't see themselves as suitable for those positions.

Walmart Myths #2

(This is another in a series of articles in which I will discuss certain aspects of working at Walmart, which is the subject of so much hatred on the internet. I should point out that these are not attempts to debunk or disprove any claims made against the retail chain. I will simply relay my experience working with the company. Some of the things I state reflect the period of time from 2001 - 2006 and working in two locations in California. Some of what I say may no longer be true, may be different in other locations, or policies may have changed.)

Walmart employees take advantage of government programs like Medicaid, Medi-Cal and Food Stamps because they don't get paid enough.

I can tell you right away that Walmart offers medical and dental benefits. The premiums get taken out of your pay, but it was around maybe $30 a paycheck (and I may not be remembering the amount correctly). There was no minimum number of hours you needed to work to qualify for medical insurance. But for dental insurance, you needed to be working at least 32 hours a week. (Toward the end of my employment, I told my Store Manager I was cutting my number of hours per week to 12. He told me that I would lose all my benefits. I told him I had already talked to HR and they said I could keep my medical, but would lose my dental. He admitted that was correct. What was he trying to pull?)

During my first month of employment, I noticed that the store's HR department had posted notices asking specific employees to come into the office to sign up for benefits. I thought these were employees who had started just a couple of months prior and that they needed to come in before they hit the three-month deadline. I was expecting a similar notice for me and the others who started at the same time within a couple of months. I knew that I just needed to keep my eyes open and I would get a reminder.

A couple of months later, I never saw a notice with my name on it. In fact, I hadn't seen any notices since before the end of the previous year. My three-month anniversary was coming up. I went into the HR office and asked what I needed to do to sign up for benefits. The HR person said, "I'm glad you came in today. If you had come in tomorrow, it would have been too late for you to get benefits!" WHAT? "Uh, I was expecting to see a notice asking me to come in like I saw in December." "Oh, that was for Open Enrollment! We're required by law to get all our employees to state whether or not they want to sign up for benefits during that time." "But what about new employees?" "Oh, we're not required by law to get new hires to sign up for benefits. If they miss it, they have to wait for Open Enrollment at the end of the year."

I didn't think to ask what would have happened if I needed benefits but didn't get them. I assume that if someone asked, the HR person would have pointed them toward contacting Medi-Cal (or Medicaid outside California) because at our wage levels, we would have qualified for coverage. But I don't know that for a fact. It would seem like employees who did get Medi-Cal would decide that they didn't need to have money removed from their paychecks to cover insurance since they already had it, so they would just continue to decline the benefits when Open Enrollment came around.

I do know that the benefits offered by Walmart weren't very good. I had to pay a lot more money than I expected for appointments. Later, I found out that I had to pay $30 and $40 amounts for labs. When it was determined that I had a number of health issues related to my high blood pressure, the labs cost me hundreds of dollars. But who knows how much I would have had to pay if I didn't have insurance?

As for Food Stamps, I can tell you that in the four years that I worked the registers, I never once had an employee come through my line with an EBT card. Some people I've told this to have countered by saying that maybe they were too embarrassed to let their co-workers know they were on Food Stamps. But that didn't make sense. We got a 10% discount on non-perishable food items. That discount would still apply regardless of how the customer was paying for the food. And Walmart already had the lowest prices on that food. I don't see how being embarrassed about Food Stamps would have kept anyone from stretching those funds as far as they could by buying food at Walmart.

I will tell you this much: I never felt the need to go onto Food Stamps. I know I would have qualified, but what I earned at Walmart was enough to pay my rent, pay my bills (including my car loan and insurance) and have enough left over for pizza from time to time (and there were PLENTY of those times). But I have to admit I didn't have anybody else to take care of.

Things that are hard to stomach

There were a lot of things about myself that took a big chunk of my life to figure out. For example, I was in my 40s when I determined that I possibly have Asperger Syndrome. Things like that make you realize you don't know yourself as well as you think. I'm pretty lucky in that I'm able to discover my own problems without having other people point them out to me (most of the time).

Something that affects me every day is what I eat. There are some foods that I have to be careful not to consume, or at least, not overindulge. These can cause me to get sick to my stomach. Some of these food issues are common with other people and others seem to only be exclusive to me. Here they are:

1. Lactose Intolerance

I was in my late 30s before I came to this conclusion. My entire life, I'd always had a problem drinking milk. It wasn't something I noticed right away. I could drink one glass of chocolate milk and have no problem. But if I drank two glasses of chocolate milk, my stomach wouldn't feel right. And if I tried to go to sleep after that second glass, it wouldn't be long before I experienced re-flux. That was never fun.

This caused a problem in my childhood. As teachers, my parents only got paid once a month, on the 15th. That was the day we went grocery shopping and they would allow me and Loyd to each buy a box of pre-sweetened cereal. (We always tried to choose the ones with the best prizes inside.) When we got home, we were allowed to eat that cereal for dinner. We would probably eat about three bowls that night.

And once a month, every month (for a few years), I would wake up in the middle of the night because I was vomiting. I'd jump out of bed, scream to Mom and Dad that I was throwing up and run to the bathroom, leaving about five puddles on the floor along the way. (I remember one night, they were yelling at me to go to the bathroom. Loyd got up and tried to pee in the toilet while I was throwing up because he thought Mom and Dad were telling him to go to the bathroom.) I don't recall for certain if this monthly event took place right after the payday cereal feast. But looking back, I think it did, and I'm surprised that we never made that connection.

I should add that I don't have a problem eating cheese. It seems like I can eat all the cheese I want and it doesn't affect me. However, if I eat ice cream before bedtime, I will wind up with re-flux. If I eat sherbet, I don't have that issue.

2. Orange Juice with Pulp

When I'm feeling okay, I can drink any kind of orange juice. It doesn't matter if it has pulp or not. However, when I've got a cold or just feel sick overall, my stomach cannot handle pulp. And there's only one way to get that stuff out of my body. I wind up vomiting and all that comes up is this orange glop that looks like the pulp my stomach couldn't properly digest. Before, I wondered why some orange juice brands state whether or not they have pulp. There are probably people out there who cannot digest it all and they need to know before they make that purchase.

3. Sunny Delight/Sunny D

In my 30s, I thought I found a cheap alternative to orange juice. Sunny Delight came in gallon containers and were a lot less expensive. I can drink some Sunny D, but if I drink a lot of it in a short period of time, it all comes back up. I guess there's something in the chemicals my stomach cannot handle. After having this happen to me a couple of times in one year, I swore to never drink it again, unless I was in a situation in which there was nothing else to drink. And even then, I'll only drink one serving.

4. Beef Brisket

What the heck? I LOVE beef! And brisket tastes very good. And again, I can eat a couple of slices and be just fine. But if I gorge myself, it won't properly break down in my system. Even worse is that it can take several hours before it decides to come back up. The last major incident was at my Grandma Ogolon's funeral. I helped myself to as much free meat as I could handle. My brother drove me from Broadview, NM to Espanola. We had planned a big spaghetti dinner when we got home. We bought the ingredients and rented a movie to watch. After we started to boil the pasta, I wound up in the bathroom. I sure didn't feel like eating spaghetti after that (nor did I want to watch the movie). I went straight to bed because I was going to have to catch a flight the next day to go home.

5. Ham at Denny's

I don't know why it is, but if I order something with ham in it at Denny's, I wind up losing it later. I figured this out after eating a ham omelet one time and a Moons Over My Hammy sandwich another. I haven't ordered ham at Denny's in about 30 years and I've never gotten sick from that restaurant chain since. There's plenty of other stuff on the menu.

I should point out that these are all foods that I enjoy consuming. I just don't like how they make me feel later. I almost understand people who consume alcohol until they get sick to their stomachs. The only difference is that I know when to hold off on these items. They want to keep partying until they puke.

Walmart Myths #1

(This is the first of a series of articles in which I will discuss certain aspects of working at Walmart, which is the subject of so much hatred on the internet. I should point out that these are not attempts to debunk or disprove any claims made against the retail chain. I will simply relay my experience working with the company. Some of the things I state reflect the period of time from 2001 - 2006 and working in two locations in California. Some of what I say may no longer be true, may be different in other locations, or policies may have changed.)

Walmart only pays its employees minimum wage.

This is a claim that a lot of memes make that people don't put a lot of thought into. I have been amazed by the number of people I have talked to who are surprised at the amount of money I was making as a floor associate at the time that I left Walmart (which was around $10 an hour in 2006). "What? I thought Walmart only paid minimum wage!" To be fair, there are some positions that do start at minimum wage (like Door Greeter). But if you start as a cashier, you get paid 25 cents an hour more. If you work in Electronics or Sporting Goods, you also get an extra 25 cents. If you work overnight stocking, you get about $1 more. If you work at a SuperCenter, you get $1 an hour more than working at a regular Walmart (and overnights there would get $2 an hour more).

Also, there are merit increases every year. Everybody gets a review and can get a recommendation for an hourly increase. When I first started working there, the increase was 2% for "Meets Expectations" and 3% for "Exceeds Expectations." By the time I left, they made it a solid 40 cents for Meets and 55 cents for Exceeds. So if everyone does the job they're supposed to do, there's no way they're going to stay at minimum wage after working for Walmart for years.

However, there was an issue with Exceeding Expectations. If you're a cashier, your performance can be tracked by the number of Items Per Hour scanned, number of errors reported and accuracy in your till at the end of the day. You can measurably demonstrate that you are exceeding expectations. But for any other position, it's completely subjective by the department manager. I knew one overnight stocker who was furious that he was busting his butt every night making sure he cleared his pallets in terms of getting product on the shelves. He got a "Meets Expectations." He was aware that other stockers weren't accomplishing their tasks, but they also got "Meets." He said it almost made him not want to work so hard if he wasn't going to be properly recognized. It looked like the managers thought they were going to get yelled at if they handed out too many Exceeds.

And I had that happen to me, too. When I worked as a Front End cashier, I was always exceeding expectations and got the big raise my first two years. But when I worked as a cashier in Electronics, the manager couldn't track my performance, and even though he thought I exceeded expectations in the area of Customer Service, he still gave me a "Meets." When I was a Customer Service Manager, even though the powers that be wanted to make me the Head CSM (which never happened), I still got a "Meets" from my Assistant Manager.

The only time I didn't have a problem with getting a "Meets Expectations" was when I worked in Sporting Goods following my time as a CSM. I had a written warning on my record, so that meant I didn't qualify for "Exceeds." But this was at the tail end of my employment with Walmart, so it really didn't matter whether I got a raise or not. I knew I wasn't going to be around much longer.

When I was a CSM, I actually got the opportunity to do an employee review for a Door Greeter. I gave that guy an "Exceeds." He was so happy. And I never suffered any repercussions for doing that. Either the Assistant Manager agreed with my assessment, or she didn't notice that an "Exceeds" slipped by. Unfortunately, that was the only review I ever got to do. If I'd handed out more "Exceeds," I probably would have gotten into real trouble.

So, a new employee may start at or above minimum wage when they begin working, but if they stay with Walmart and do their job to the best of their abilities, they don't stay at that level forever.

I should point out that I knew someone who started working at Walmart about the same time that her friends started working at Target about ten years prior. She was still getting annual raises, but her friends had reached the wage gap years before and were not getting raises unless there was a cost of living adjustment. And those were few and far between.

A few things I didn't like about Walmart

Yesterday, I provided a list of positive aspects of working at Walmart. Today, we get into the negative.

(Again, these were part of my Walmart experience from 2001 - 2006. I don't know if policies or procedures have changed since then.)

1. The one-hour lunch

During my previous job at Aradiant, I took a 30-minute lunch. While I was working at a call center, I didn't need a lot of time for my meal. There also weren't any good places to eat nearby, so I had to either bring my own lunch, or get something out of the vending machine. It was something I got used to. At Walmart, I always had to take a 60-minute lunch. Admittedly, I absolutely needed all this time to recharge when I first started working there. But after a few weeks, I got used to the flow and didn't need a full hour after that. Even worse, once I was done eating, I would just go into the electronics department to do some browsing, which meant I would end up spending money most of the time. I would have rather been able to arrive a half-hour later or leave a half-hour earlier and get more of my personal time back.

But they were unnecessarily strict about it. Once, I was wandering around the store after eating and an Assistant Manager asked me if I was back from lunch. I said I wasn't. She said that was too bad, because they needed more people up at the front end so other cashiers could take their breaks and lunches. Since I had passed my half-hour mark, I volunteered to punch back in. She told me no, I didn't need to do that. (Then why did she tell me they needed help?)

Every once in awhile, we would be so busy that the CSMs would delay lunches by more than an hour. They would tell us to only take 30 minute lunches. Those days that my lunch was late, I REALLY needed 60 minutes, but was glad to take 30 since it meant I would get out earlier, especially if I was working to 1am. (The store closed at 12am, and I didn't like spending the extra time zoning.) But one time, we got the late 30-minute lunch and I started heading for the exit at 12:30am. The CSM said, "Hey! Where are you going?" "I took a 30-minute lunch." The CSM (who was the one who made me take a 30-minute lunch) said, "No, you were supposed to get 30 minutes of overtime." I said, "I didn't agree to that" and kept on walking. I did not get into trouble.

That brings us to our next topic:

2. Unauthorized overtime

Yesterday, I mentioned how Walmart paid by the minute and had holiday pay. I demonstrated how, if you clocked in a little early and clocked out a little late, that would result in a little overtime. During the CBLs, we were told not to go into unauthorized overtime. Clocking out a few minutes late was considered unauthorized overtime. I never got in trouble for unauthorized overtime, but the biggest consequence was that any unauthorized overtime you received resulted in that amount of time being pulled from your holiday pay. If you got five minutes of overtime prior to the next paid holiday, you only got 7 hours and 55 minutes of holiday pay. One hour of unauthorized overtime? Just 7 hours of holiday pay. If you managed to rack up eight hours or more of overtime, you got NO holiday pay.

And this happened so often to me that it was more than a year before I found out that we received holiday pay. How did this happen? The first year I worked as a cashier, I was usually either scheduled to work 3pm - 12am or 4pm - 1am. Anytime I worked from 12am - 1am, it went on the next day's pay. If I happened to work 3pm to 12am the next day, that caused me to receive one hour of unauthorized overtime. If that happened eight times before the next paid holiday, I wouldn't get that extra pay. No one told us that we needed to get that time authorized or how to get management to authorize it.

(I did work positions in Walmart later on in which ALL overtime was automatically authorized. Did they have a problem with people staying clocked in and racking up overtime? It seemed kind of petty to take it out of the holiday pay regardless of the reason.)

3. Walmart tried to be cheap on that Holiday Pay

Anytime we had a paid holiday, the schedule for every department in the store would go up on the bulletin board in the back. Soon after, we would all see that everyone had an "X" through one of the days they were scheduled. This meant that while we got Holiday Pay, we lost a day of work and weren't going to receive extra pay. This created all sorts of problems because it meant that we were short-staffed the entire week because we were missing 1/7th of our employees every single day.

But there was a rule. If the schedule at the CSM station showed that we were scheduled to work, we were supposed to work. The last 4th of July I worked in San Diego, the main schedule gave me the day off that day. But the CSM schedule hadn't been adjusted. I showed up, checked the schedule at the CSM station and then clocked in. I REALLY needed that extra pay. And there wasn't a thing they could do about it.

(And it should be noted that some of those employees who had been given extra days off probably didn't have Holiday Pay coming to them because they racked up unauthorized overtime.)

4. Consistent staff shortages

This had more of an impact on our sales floor associates. The cashiers typically make up 1/3 of the total staff for any Walmart. (At least, when I worked there.) I could see Assistant Managers who oversaw the departments look at the schedule on the wall and think, "If we could get all those cashiers on the sales floor, we could really run our departments well." And they definitely tried. Anytime there was any kind of slowdown in activity at the checkouts, Assistant Managers would go up to the CSMs and have them start pulling cashiers to go zone the other departments. The problem was that within minutes, the lines would get long again and the cashiers would all get called back. The Assistant Managers would then angrily demand to know why all the cashiers left the other departments.

Staff shortages on the floor affected our ability to provide customer service when the customers needed it. There were certain departments that required properly trained associates to be available. And if an associate wasn't able to assist the customer, people would yell and scream non-stop until someone finally took some action.

My thinking went like this: If we can't have someone always available in the Pet department to get live fish for the customers, maybe we shouldn't sell live fish. If we can't have someone available to mix paint, maybe we shouldn't sell paint. If we couldn't always have someone available to cut fabric, maybe we shouldn't sell bolt fabric. If we couldn't have someone always available to sell fishing licenses, maybe we shouldn't sell fishing licenses. If we can't have associates in the Toy department always be there to help get bicycles down from the rack, maybe we shouldn't be selling bicycles. Of course, all of this flies in the face of the image that Walmart wants to present in terms of them being a one-stop shop.

But the worst part about floor staff shortages is if we needed someone from a department to come up to the register for a price check, NO ONE would come.

5. The mysterious attendance policy

Almost every place I've worked had an official attendance policy. Walmart didn't seem to have one. At the very least, I never knew what the attendance policy was. And I had no idea whether or not I was violating it. There would be a few times that I would clock in late, but no one ever spoke to me about it. It made me nervous because if I had to call in sick (which didn't happen very often), I did not know how many more times I could do that without getting into trouble. Was anybody tracking attendance? I know I heard an Assistant Manager get upset at an employee who decided to come to work early because he didn't have anything better to do and he wanted to leave early.

6. Grass Roots Meetings

One of the videos we watched during Orientation explained how the Grass Roots meetings were very important to Walmart management to get feedback from the associates. Everyone in the store was expected to take part. I never got to take part in a Grass Roots meeting. In San Diego, they would schedule a few small groups of about 10 people each. They never announced when these were taking place. They would just announce that one was taking place and people could show up for the limited number of seats available. Once those seats were filled, associates who didn't make it would have to wait for the next meeting. In San Jose, they would just schedule one big one-hour meeting with the entire store only one time. If you weren't there that day, you missed it. And if you were a cashier, you missed it because no one could be spared at the Front End. And one hour was simply not enough time to get feedback from everyone who attended.

I did overhear part of a Grass Roots meeting while I was taking my break. I remember the Toy Department Manager suggesting that we should close the store at 10pm. He said that if the store closed then and had all the customers out, the overnight crew would be able to put more stock on the floor. When I heard that, I knew that wasn't going to fly. I guess that guy had never been in the store after 10pm, otherwise, he would have known how futile that was. The Store Manager didn't say anything in response at the time, but when he publicly posted the follow up notes, he came down pretty hard on that suggestion. Even if the guy was hoping to get a compromise to 11pm, it still would have resulted in our store losing thousands of dollars every night. He should be glad we weren't a 24-hour store. Imagine NEVER having customers out of the store.

7. Locking in the overnight crews

They didn't do this at the San Diego store. Even though our front doors were locked after closing, anyone could leave because one of the doors at the entrance had a panic bar. But in San Jose, Assistant Managers were the only people who could open those doors. Once the last customer left at 11pm, no one could leave. This caused a BIG problem when cashiers and other floor associates tried to leave at midnight. We had to wait for an Assistant Manager to come up to the front. Sometimes, it would take 15 or 20 minutes for someone to finally come to the front and let us out. That was time we were not getting paid. And I guess the Assistant Managers who were there always thought the other person was going to do it. WHY COULDN'T THEY ORGANIZE THIS SIMPLE RESPONSIBILITY?

And it was just as bad in the morning. We had about 15 floor associates scheduled to start work every day at 5am. Again, the Assistant Managers on duty couldn't get their act together so that everyone could clock in on time. We often had to wait 15 minutes or more before they let us in. I recall a couple of times that I was able to get in early because another Assistant Manager arrived at 4:45am and let me in. The other Assistants thought everyone was able to come in and didn't show up to open the door until 5:30. EVERYBODY asked for time adjustments. And still, they never could coordinate that.

8. Some employees did not want to work

I may not have loved working at Walmart, but I tried my best to treat the customers the way I wanted to be treated if I was a customer. This meant trying to ring items up quickly and accurately, asking the customers how they were doing and thanking them for shopping at the store. Other cashiers didn't seem to have any interest in getting their lines to move faster. I know we weren't getting paid a lot of money, but everyone should have a little pride in their work.

And that's just a FEW things I didn't like. Trust me, there's a lot more and I'll be going into more detail throughout the next several posts.

A few things I liked about working at Walmart

I know that the way I've been writing about Walmart, it would appear that my experience with the company was negative. I should state that my negativity had more to do with my frustration with certain aspects of how business was handled with regard to the employees. I never felt like I was being verbally abused, like I had been at previous jobs. There seemed to be a culture of respect between management and employees that didn't exist in my previous occupations.

So, I'm taking this opportunity to write about some of the good things I felt during the time I worked at the two locations. I should add that these things were true for that period, but some of these may have changed in the 14 years since I last worked there.

1. The employee discount

All the employees received discount cards which would cut 10% off regularly-priced items at the register. They could be used for almost everything in the store, including clothing, electronics, household supplies and non-perishable food items. There was no discount for items placed on clearance, promotional prices or dairy. (And there may have been no discount on tobacco products.) In addition, all the employees could get 20% off one item for Christmas. My final Christmas at Walmart, I was able to get 20% off a widescreen TV. That knocked $120 off the price. I still have that TV (but it's not HDMI compatible).

The bad thing was that this was around the time that I was starting to collect DVDs and I would spend so much of my money on them because I got that discount. It was almost like being a comic book store employee. I understand that before I started working there, the discount was actually reported as income on the W-2. It's a good thing that went away, because I don't know that they pulled enough taxes out of the paycheck to cover that.

One great thing about the discount was that I could use it at ANY Walmart store. So if I went to visit my parents in New Mexico, it was valid there if my Dad wanted to buy some hardware or something. (We weren't supposed to do that if we weren't paying, though. And I'd heard of instances in which someone would let friends and neighbors borrow their discount cards to buy stuff for themselves. I never did that.)

And we got a 20% discount at the McDonald's inside the store. But I have to tell you, the first few weeks I was there, I couldn't even afford that. My work lunches consisted of me making sandwiches using the Spam Turkey and Velveeta cheese that I bought at a discount at the store. (And I could never get those slices thin enough!)

2. We got certain holidays off

We got all day Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter off. In addition, we got off early Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and July 4th. We also got paid extra for New Year's Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day.

It looks like Walmart no longer closes for Easter. (At least, the one in the town where I currently live doesn't.) But I'll bet when they did, there were always Department Managers just begging to be let in the store that day. "PLEASE! If I can just have one day in the store without any customers, I can completely straighten up my department!"

3. Supervisors were fairly flexible with the schedule

Now, this only applied when you asked for time off in advance. You pretty much had to count on working both days of the weekend, but if you needed your two days off to be on particular days or if you needed to work a specific shift and get out at a certain time, Supervisors tried to be as accommodating as possible. I remember requesting Labor Day off so I could go out of town and my Supervisor actually gave me all three days of the weekend off.

4. The general feeling of camaraderie among co-workers

For the most part, I got along pretty well with almost everyone who worked at Walmart. (There are a couple of exceptions who I will get to later.) It seemed like almost everyone had come to Walmart out of a sense of desperation and were somewhat pleased to find a work home. Everyone was doing what they could to make the best of it. Several others came to the job after being laid off from their former employers as well. While we all acknowledged that we were making much less than at our previous jobs, we all admitted it was much better than being on unemployment and definitely better than not having any source for income.

5. Promotions within the company were posted

If you were looking to move up the ranks within Walmart, they made it easy to know what positions were available. It was nice to see that they made an effort to promote from within. However, if you were looking to move up, you had to go take a test on the computer. The first time I did this, I got stumped by the first question. It was "Choose the letter that starts a word that means 'fake.'" I stared at the screen for at least 10 minutes trying to think of words that meant "fake." I remember thinking of "bogus," "counterfeit" and "fraud," but none of those letters were choices. I picked some letter at random and moved on. After the test, I realized that the word was "phony." I did not pick "p." I hoped that the test hadn't been timed, because I'm certain I looked like a real idiot spending 10 minutes on the first question and still getting it wrong. Fortunately, the rest of the questions were easier for me to answer. I did get called in for that interview. I didn't get the job, but the next time I had to take that test for another promotion, I was ready.

6. Food for special occasions

Walmart had an employee Christmas party every year. And if you couldn't make the party because you were working, they had a special celebration there at the store with great food and a few presents. (My first year, I got a free round of golf at a nearby golf course. I don't play golf, but I have to admit that was a nice gesture. I wound up giving that as my white elephant at the cashier Secret Santa. I'll bet the recipient couldn't use it, either.) They also had special meals a few other times throughout the year, but nothing as fancy as the Christmas meal.

7. Walmart Radio

The music that was piped in had a wide variety that ranged from the 50s to the present day. It was mostly pop music with some country/western. At night time, they would get a little radical with the mix and you would hear stuff like Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train." And it was always great around the holidays when they would play Christmas music. But probably the best part was during the early morning times, when they featured a live DJ doing shout-outs to all the stores. It kind of made me feel sorry that I didn't get to work every morning to listen to that. I wondered how I could go about getting that job. (I probably would have had to wait several more years. The DJs always seemed to be in their 60s.)

(I should note there was one Christmas season in which the store's PA system shut down. THAT made things SO stressful. I was glad when we got the music back.)

8. Walmart pays by the minute

Some companies (like the one I work for now) pay based on the quarter hour. If your shift begins at 9am and you clock in at 8:53am, it is counted like you clocked in at 9am. If you clock in at 8:52am, it's counted as 8:45am. If your shift ends at 5pm and you clock out at 5:07pm, it counts as 5pm. At 5:08pm, it becomes 5:15pm. It's entirely possible to clock in at 8:53am, clock out at 5:07pm and only get paid for 8 hours (assuming you took a 60-minute lunch). You get nothing extra for that 14 minutes you were on the clock. At Walmart, if you clocked in at 8:59am and out at 5:01pm, you would get overtime pay for those two extra minutes. Clock in a minute late and leave a minute early? You get paid for working 7 hours and 58 minutes.

(However, this created a different set of problems, which I'll get into tomorrow.)

9. Knowing the company wasn't going anywhere

I have to admit that it was nice to be secure in the future of Walmart. After working at Aradiant, I didn't need to work for another company that was starting to find itself phased out because of emerging technology. There would always be a need for people to go out and buy products. Even today, people cannot get everything over the internet. Although it appears that cashiers are being phased out. Even my local Walmart eliminated 2/3 of their check stands in favor of self check-out. I don't know how they're going to handle Black Friday this year with people making major purchases. (However, my next door neighbor, who works there, says Black Friday wasn't really that busy this year because everyone now buys all the good stuff online.)

So this constitutes the things I liked. Tomorrow, it will be the things I didn't like. Somehow, I expect that list to be a lot longer.

Walmart Culture

I'm going to start doing a deeper dive into my experience working for Walmart in the next few posts. But there's a few things you need to know about Walmart before I get into all that.

The first thing is that Walmart is different in every location across the US. You'll see regular Walmart stores, Walmart SuperCenters, Sam's Clubs and Walmart Neighborhood Markets. How do you tell them apart?

1. Regular Walmart

(Personal note: This was the type of store I worked in.) These were just general department stores. Every department has its own section on the floor plan. While there is a Food department and has dairy items like milk, cheese and eggs, they don't have groceries per se, because they don't have produce on a regular basis. (Sometimes, there would be bananas and they always sold pumpkins before Halloween.) They have services that don't exist at other department stores, like fabric cutting, paint mixing, key cutting, fishing licenses and live fish. You can't get those things at your average grocery store or Sears. Some of them also included garden centers, oil and tire service, portrait studios and an optometry and eyeglass service. Many had a McDonald's or an in-store "Radio Grill."

I remember the older versions of Walmart that were a part of shopping malls in Roswell and Clovis. They were practically K-mart. At the time, I never expected Walmart to become the behemoth it is now known as being. When I started hearing grumblings about how Walmart was coming into small towns and wrecking the economy for Mom & Pop businesses, I had no idea how these stores were capable of doing that. Eventually, Walmart got too big for those mall locations. In Roswell, they built a new store right across the street. And it was a SuperCenter! (AND they built a Sam's Club right next to it!) While I was working at Walmart in San Diego, I went into the Roswell location while it was still part of the mall the week before the new store opened. I wondered how that was going to impact the other businesses at the mall. I guess that mall's still around, but I know I haven't gone in there since Walmart left.

2. Walmart SuperCenter

The big difference here is that these stores have an actual grocery section. I remember when I lived in Denver. They had opened up a Bigg's in Thornton. It was a European-style department store with a grocery section. This model served as the prototype for what Walmart SuperCenters were all about. Having groceries was a big part of turning Walmart into the titan of department stores. Supercenters also included hair and nail salons, video game arcades and a lot of other businesses that rented space at the stores. It's like you never need to go anywhere else to make your major purchases.

3. Sam's Club

This is Walmart's version of Costco. It's a membership store where you can buy items in bulk. My employment at Walmart allowed me to get a discounted membership, but I rarely used it, except to get lower prices on DVDs than what I could get in the Electronics department in my store.

4. Walmart Neighborhood Markets

These started out as smaller Walmart stores. They had the same departments as regular stores, but didn't carry as much stock. Eventually, Walmart used the name to indicate that these were grocery stores, often setting up shop in locations that were abandoned by larger chains, like Safeway, so as to serve a neighborhood need. They no longer have clothing, electronics or any of the other departments associated with the SuperCenters. You don't feel like you're in a Walmart when you walk into one of these.

A big difference that people will notice from one part of the country to another is the staffing situation. In the middle part of the U.S., the stores appear to be amply staffed, with plenty of associates working in all the departments and plenty of cashiers with short lines. At the stores I worked at and shopped in California, there never seemed to be anyone available when I needed help looking for something. And if I did find someone, they had a line of customers waiting and following them throughout the department while one customer was being helped. In addition, there were plenty of registers, but only a third of them may be open at any given time (except for Black Friday, for the first half of the day).

For a lot of businesses (not just Walmart), California is considered a "get well" economy. This means that companies expect a higher profit margin for selling products in California, which helps to pay for expenditures of other locations across the country. In California, we were always understaffed with a low customer service rating. Yet, people still came and shopped at our stores because we still offered the lowest prices on the items they needed.

Another thing that is different among the stores is the existence of what is referred to as "Walmart Culture." In the mid-U.S., people have a different attitude about Walmart. Customers love the store so much that they act like employees, particularly in the smaller towns where Walmart is the hub of commerce. Customers help straighten up items on store shelves. If something gets spilled on the floor, a customer will volunteer to stand guard while an employee goes to get someone to clean up the mess. If a price check is needed at a register with a long line, a customer will offer to go look for the price. If a customer sees a shopping cart on the outer rim of the parking lot, he'll go out of his way to move it over to the cart corral. And if someone from out of town loudly and unnecessarily berates one of the more popular cashiers, other customers will follow him out to the parking lot and beat him up. That's Walmart Culture.

In California, we didn't have Walmart culture. It was always funny when we got Assistant Managers who transferred from locations in Texas. It seemed like when they set foot in the store for the first time, they all immediately regretted the decision. Comparably speaking, our stores were a mess! Everything was out of place, there were clothes in piles on the floor, and the new Assistant Managers were being expected to get our stores up to Walmart standards, which had been easy to accomplish at their old stores. The big difference was our customers. The customers really didn't care about helping the store run efficiently. They just came in, browsed through our selections and left stuff all over the place. The Assistant Managers would ask about the shopping carts full of merchandise next to the Return desk. "Those are Go-Backs." "What are Go-Backs?" "Customers are always returning items that can be resold, so they have to Go Back on the sales floor. Often, customers bring stuff to the checkouts and then change their minds about buying them, so those have to ALSO Go Back." "What? We hardly ever have customers return purchases in Texas. And nobody puts stuff in their cart that they don't intend to buy! What the hell?"

And I'll bet those Assistant Managers got a bigger shock to their system when they were offered more money, only to find that California State taxes ate up the majority of that increase. They were not being properly compensated for having to work harder.

But if the stores in California were properly staffed and didn't treat customers like they were only good for giving us money, we could have Walmart Culture everywhere.

Returning to the Blog

For the time being, I am writing my blog again. When I started up at the beginning of the year, I had hoped that I would have been able to get through a few months before I took another break. But there was a major change in my life that took place during that time.

My Mom passed away.

She had been recovering from a hernia surgery. However, there were complications and she had to be incubated and put in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital in Las Cruces, NM. Her husband Dend tried his best to be optimistic about the outcome, but eventually, she had to be taken off the ventilator and she died soon after that.

I did get a chance to go see her one last time in the hospital. It wasn't a good visit because she wasn't able to communicate with me. I'm not going to go into full detail about my experience, but I'm glad I did go. I know I would have regretted not taking advantage of that opportunity. Even Loyd chastised me somewhat for not making any solid plans to come until after she died. If Dend had been more pessimistic about her recovery, I probably would have made an effort to see her while she could still talk. But I don't regret waiting.

This is likely going to impact how I write my blog. For the first few years after I began posting, Mom didn't know about the blog because I wasn't friends with her on Facebook. When I decided to send the friend request, I forgot about the material I was posting. She and her husband took great offense at some of the articles, so I had to write to avoid areas she was sensitive about. (And if it was something I absolutely had to write about and didn't want her to read it, I would exclude her, Dend and Aunt Cind from the Facebook postings.)

The hardest part is getting used to the fact that I don't need to go shopping for Mother's Day cards or birthday cards for her. I had to go through the same situation with my father when he died. I still think I need to get him cards from me and Boyd. Then I suddenly remember that I no longer have to do that and it makes me sad for a moment.

I knew the day was going to come that I would not have my parents around to help guide me in certain areas of my life. I wasn't expecting it this soon. My great-grandmother lived to be 96. Grandma Bend lived to be 88. I was expecting Mom to live at least that long. Even she thought she had more time. It was her goal to live long enough to see her grandson graduate from college.

The worst part of this is that she never became the grandmother she wanted to be. The distance between California and New Mexico kept us from seeing each other more often. The first year of Boyd's life, she and Dend were able to come out about three times. After that, Dend lost his job and they couldn't afford to come out as much as they wanted. And because of our work responsibilities, we couldn't go out there more than once a year. She also never got to spend alone time with Boyd. I remember several occasions when my brother and I would stay with our grandparents for days at a time without Mom and Dad around.

My biggest concern is how Boyd will remember her. He barely remembers his grandfather. I hope he can recall how he used to video chat with her once a week before she went into the hospital. Mom always expressed fear that Boyd wouldn't consider her an important part of his life. I'll do what I can to keep his memories of her alive and as long as he continues to connect with Dend as Granddad, that shouldn't be an issue.

One of my biggest fears growing up was worrying about how my parents would be taken care of once they had become unable to take care of themselves. Mom said she never wanted to go into a nursing home. A part of me is relieved that I won't have to deal with that situation, but it still hurts every day knowing they're not around for me to worry about.

As for the future of this blog, I'll probably have a few periods here and there in which I'll post for a few days in a row and then take frequent breaks until I build up a cache of articles that can be posted consecutively.

For the time being, expect a few posts for the next few days. Then there may be silence for a while. You'll just have to wonder where I am from time to time.

Apartment #13: 2973 Fir St., San Diego CA 2002 - 2003

I didn't realize it at the time, but this would be the 11th and final apartment I would have in San Diego. This meant I averaged one apartment for each year I lived there.

I was getting at the end of my rope in looking for a roommate to move in with. Abed and Pesd had already found their own place and were getting ready to move in at the end of February. After going through roommate ads and dealing with possible rents that started at $350 and then went all the way up to about $450, I decided my best course of action, if I was going to spend that much money every month, was to find my own place, probably a studio apartment.

I managed to find a listing at a property management company I had dealt with before. They had a studio for $500 a month in the South Park area. I went to check it out. It was part of a building that had been a duplex. It was renovated and split up into five units. there were two units downstairs and three upstairs. One unit had stairs leading up to it indoors from the front. The other two upper level units had external stairs.

When I first visited the apartment, I found the stairs were rather rickety at the top. There were two doors at the time, right next to each other. One door lead to the living room and the other to the kitchen, but they were right next to each other. (The photograph above shows that they replaced the kitchen door with a wall and a window. Also, the gate in the photo that leads to the stairs was not there before.) Inside, I saw there were two refrigerators, a large one and a small one. I wondered why anyone in a studio apartment would need two refrigerators.

The apartment had a rather large bathroom with a full tub. The tub had eagle claws on the bottom. But there was a large metal ring where I would need to put two shower curtains. That wasn't really a problem, but I knew it wasn't going to be very spacious in the shower.

I went back to the property management company and asked a couple of questions. I asked if they were going to fix the stairs. He said they would. I also asked about the two refrigerators. He said he had just been informed about that. I told him I only needed one and he could take the large one away. He said it would be gone before I moved in. I still had to go through the credit check process and provide him with my latest two pay stubs. My monthly pay needed to be three times the amount of the rent. Fortunately, I had worked four forty-hour weeks in a row, so my paystubs actually reflected that amount. I would also need to pay the $500 rent and the $500 deposit. I had just received the cashout of my 401(k) plan from my old job, so I had the funds for that. This was one of the few times in my life that things went my way.

I moved in about a week later. They had indeed fixed the stairs, but there there still two refrigerators in the kitchen. I would have to wait another two weeks before they finally came and took the big one away.

When Fraz came to see the apartment for the first time, she saw the eagle claws and thought the place was too cool for me. She also chastised my description of the area as South Park. She said, "Fayd! You live in Golden Hill! Stop trying to sound like you live someplace hip!" However, there were banners on the next street over indicating that this was indeed South Park. I'd always expected to find the South Park signs with bumper stickers of the TV show characters on them, but I guess that was a joke that got old real quick at the time.

This was one of the best locations I'd lived in during my time in San Diego. Even though there were three liquor stores in the area, I was across the street from a church, so I wasn't concerned about crime. I actually felt like my car was safe on the street. There were also a lot of cool places to eat, including a Mexican restaurant and a couple of pizza restaurants, one of which sold giants slices for $1 each. I ate there quite often. There was also a 7-Eleven and a laundromat close-by. In addition, I was just around the corner from the famed Big Kitchen.

I only ever met two of the other residents. I recognized the woman who lived below me as an employee of the Ken Cinema. She had a boyfriend who lived around the area where my postal mailbox was. He didn't have a car and would ride the bus. I would frequently see him at her place and then over by the postal convenience center. That was always awkward. The other guy I just saw one time, but he demonstrated how the garbage and recycling cans were supposed to be put in the street. It was no one's official duty, but someone had to do it. It usually wound up being me.

One interesting thing was that I had been warned by the property management company that the apartments had a tendency to have the main breaker switch shut down electricity to all the units. When that happened, someone just needed to go to the breaker box and turn it back on. But the whole time I lived there, that never happened. I'll bet it was because of the second refrigerator that had been in my unit.

Sometimes you just don't know that you can make a positive impact just by moving in.

Apink for another year!

2019 is officially off to a great start, now that I have gotten my Apink calendars in. Like I did two years ago, I purchased two for this year. The first one I received will be good for this year and 2020!



I also ordered the Season's Greeting "Eternal Jewels" calendar. I found out ahead of time that there was some sort of delay in getting them shipped, so I wasn't caught off guard when it took almost two weeks of the new year before I finally received it. It made me glad I ordered the other calendar.



The bad thing is knowing that Apink's contract expires in 2020, so I may only get one more Season's Greetings calendar. I hope that isn't the case.

Searching for a new roommate

Early in 2002, after I had become a lot more secure in my job at Walmart, Abed and Pesd decided they wanted to move into a new apartment. We had been having issues with mold and she felt like it was affecting her health. They wanted to get their own place. This meant I was going to have to find a new living situation.

I didn't think I was making enough money to get my own place, so I figured I would have to find a roommate situation. I remember how relatively easy it was to find roommates a little more than seven years earlier. However, that was when I was in my 20s. I would soon discover that it would be more difficult in my 30s. Making it more difficult was my work hours. At the time, I appeared to be on a permanent 4pm to 1am schedule. After work, I would come home and watch TV until 4am before falling asleep. I don't know how I got into that routine, but I didn't seem to be disturbing Abed and Pesd.

I combed through the roommate ads in the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Reader. I found a few prospects. I came across a couple of residences that catered to renting rooms to college students. I really felt like I didn't belong there and the vibe that I got from the current residents was that they felt uncomfortable having me there because I wasn't taking classes. I wasn't going through the same things they were going through. I was working and would be spending free time watching TV in my room. They were all (supposedly) going to be studying during their free time.

I recall one woman who had one rule: You could not go into the room of another resident, even if they invited you. I don't know what happened before that she had to pass that edict, but I'll bet there had been property damage.

I really didn't want to move in with a female roommate, but my options were becoming rather limited. I talked to this one woman who was 49 years old. She was an artist. (And I was surprised I'd never met her in my dealings with other artists that I knew in San Diego.) She had one room in a two-bedroom apartment that she used as a studio, but was going to have to rent it out because money had suddenly become tight for her. I thought we connected rather well and she even called Abed for a recommendation. He told her that they hardly ever saw me and that they never heard me coming home in the middle of the night. They also never heard me watching TV until 4am. He thought he talked me up pretty well. But she decided to go with someone else.

I went to another multi-room apartment to see about moving in. I met this woman. There were four bedrooms in this apartment that happened to be about a half-mile away from the Walmart where I worked. She appeared to be in her late 40s/early 50s. She was wearing a black and white uniform. It looked like she worked the front desk at a hotel. She appeared to be rather humorless and was all business. I really couldn't get a read on whether she could even tolerate me. But she told me that she called me in because I was 37 years old and they were looking for older roommates. However, I don't think she liked the part where I would be coming in the apartment in the middle of the night. I never did hear back from her. But a few months later, she came through my line at Walmart. I said to her, "Hey! I tried to become your roommate." She had a rather disturbed look on her face, similar to how she looked when I told her my hours. The man she was with said, "Well, it's a good thing you didn't start living with us, because we had to move out of there!" I never saw them again.

And as my deadline for finding a roommate was getting closer, I met with another woman in a four-bedroom apartment. She was in her late 40s and seemed rather friendly She didn't initially appear to have an issue with my hours. One of the other roommates called me up to have a chat to see if I would be suitable for living with them. He told me that he had applied for Walmart, too. He'd also recently lost a good-paying job and he was just looking for any kind of work.

The only problem was that it took a long time for them to get back to me. In the meantime, I had found my own apartment to move into. (I'll have an article about that on Monday.) After I had paid my deposit and rent, I left her a voice mail message telling her I'd found my own living arrangements and they no longer needed to consider me to be a roommate. It felt good to be the one making the rejection.

However, a few days later, she called me up to tell me that they had decided not to choose me to be the new roommate. "What? I left a message telling you I'd found my own place." "Oh, I guess I never got that message." This made me mad. I wound up getting rejected anyway!

But I was glad to have my own place, so it was still worth it.

Walmart: How to Be an Employee

One interesting aspect of starting to work at Walmart is the training. There are two types of training: One that you receive on the floor while you're doing the job and the other is Computer-Based Learning (CBL) modules.

As I mentioned before, there were a few things missing from my training that I later learned were wrong. In a perfect world, I would have taken the CBLs first and then started my floor training. However, Black Friday was a little more than a week away, so they needed all the new cashiers up to speed. They'd probably had experiences with some employees taking longer than expected on the CBLs. I counted about ten that I had to do. At the end of each one, you had to take a test. If you didn't pass the test, you had to start the CBL over and take the test again. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that there were a number of new employees who would fail the CBLs on purpose so they could delay their floor training as long as possible.

The CBLs often included video clips of what things should be like on the job. In addition to the modules on how to be a cashier, they showed you how to work the sales floor, zone, be the door greeter, etc. There were also the legally-required safety and sexual harassment videos.

The funny thing about the videos is that they rarely showed things taking place with any customers around. If you weren't familiar with shopping at Walmart and watched these videos first, you would get the idea that nothing really happens in the stores except the employees interacting with each other. It looked like everyone was able to go about their business without frequent interruptions by customers.

Reality was never like that. Our store opened up at 7am every day. There were always around 30 people waiting outside at that time to come inside the store. This meant that once the doors opened, the customers already outnumbered the sales floor and cashier associates. If you were working the floor, there was going to be a customer looking for you. And as a cashier, you would be surprised at how quickly you could wind up with lines at your register.

There were other times that the videos did not reflect reality. In a cashiering video You were instructed to take the merchandise from the belt, one at a time, in the order it was presented to you. You were not to reach back on the belt to get other items. This was a safety issue. It could cause strain and repetitive motion syndrome. However, you were also instructed to put the merchandise in the bags in a certain order. You had to put the larger box items on the sides and then fill the middle with smaller items. However, you almost NEVER got the merchandise in this order and you'd have to switch back and forth between bags. Maybe they should have gotten the customers to take the CBLs so they know what order to put their stuff on the belt.

I remember getting scolded by a CBL that trained me how to enter currency. The total came to $10.26. It was a $10, a quarter and a penny. I was instructed to touch the buttons to complete the transaction. I manually entered in 1026 and "Cash." The next screen came back: "WRONG!" I was supposed to hit the "Cash" button because it was exact change. I didn't put in an incorrect response. It would have worked either way. Can you imagine checking out, giving exact change and hearing the register yell, "WRONG" at the cashier?

The sexual harassment module was amusing. I've never been subjected to sexual harassment at work and I would hope that no woman ever thought I was behaving in a harassing manner. But the examples they gave in the videos were so blatant, it made me wonder what the world used to be like before there were laws in place to try to prevent that. If anything, the modules sort of indicated that you needed to be subtle if you were going to engage in that type of thing. And there was only one example of same-gender harassment. They said that back massages were not allowed anywhere in the store. The image they showed was of one woman massaging another. But the photo didn't look like anyone was being forced to give or receive the massage as a form of harassment.

There was a module about inappropriate behavior that dealt with being sensitive to diversity and cultures. It was informative, but included a segment on telling jokes in the workplace. The example they showed was of some telling a lawyer joke. You were then asked if the joke was inappropriate. If you answered yes, you got a screen that said, "Let's not get carried away. It is okay to make fun of a profession." I thought, "Great, that means I can make Assistant Manager and Store Manager jokes." (But I never did that.)

Some modules didn't properly train you. There was a fishing license module you had to take if you worked in the Sporting Goods department. There were a lot of details. The only problem was that there was so much to know, I couldn't retain what I learned. The only way I learned how to sell licenses was by actually doing it a few times.

They would update the modules from time to time and I would HAVE to take them. (This stunk. We were required to do these modules, but we were also so busy in the store that it was always inconvenient to take time off the floor to do them.) A new module showed a typical day in the life of a cashier. You would see everything from the cashier's perspective, including interactions with the Customer Service Manager and customers. You had to make a series of choices in certain scenarios. If you made the correct choice, you would continue. If not, you'd get a strike. Three strikes and you had to do the module over. I remember one scenario in which a woman was buying groceries and mentioned that she was going to be paying with food stamps. Then she motioned toward a toy she'd placed on a belt, indicating that her daughter was going to love it. If you chose the option "Inform the customer that food stamps can't be used to buy the toy," you'd wind up with the woman getting on your case. "I KNOW THAT! HOW DARE YOU!" (I don't remember what the other options were, probably one to ring up without making any comments.) But I have to wonder why the woman would bring up the food stamps and then talk about the toy in the same breath.

Another choice you had to make came after the CSM told you to take your break. A woman walks up, says she's got only one item and asks you to ring it up. The correct choice was to go ahead and ring her up. But just as you're starting the transaction, a customer nearby slips and falls. You're then given options on how to take action. From my view, even though you made the correct choice in ringing up just "one more item," making that choice resulted in you having to deal with an injured customer. Even worse is that you're not going to be able to ring up that customer because you're tending to the injured one. It was Walmart's version of the Kobayashi Maru.

But in the end, me working at Walmart turned out to be a no-win situation anyway.

Walmart: The Christmas Shopping Season

I was aware that we were entering the busiest time of the year for Walmart in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We had survived Blitz, but that was just a steep hill we had to climb before reaching a brief summit. We had a much higher hill to climb, although the incline was a lot less severe.

While the lines never got to be as long as they were on Black Friday, there were very few times that I wasn't ringing up customers. It was a very steady flow that continued to get heavier as we got close to Christmas Eve.

When I looked at my schedule for the 24th, I saw that I was working 11am - 8pm. I thought, "Good! That means I won't be here when the store closes." A couple of days before, I found out that the store would close at 6pm. That meant I would be there at the close and have to stay two more hours having to help clean everything up. I was not looking forward to that.

6pm came around and I still had a long line of customers at my register. The line was almost as long as the one for Blitz, but I could see the end this time. I was close to the front door, which had been closed. I could see people outside banging on the door, begging to be let inside. This was one of the few times I didn't see any Door Greeters nearby. I wondered how many people would have rushed in if I had opened that door.

Around 6:30pm, I rang up my last customer and watched her walk out the door. I started putting the money from my till into a zipper bag. Suddenly, I realized that my last customer had left a lot of merchandise at the register. It was about ten items and one of them was a mop. (Who was she going to give that to for Christmas?)

When customers leave items at the register, we have to take them over to customer service and log them in. We have to enter in the bar code from each item. (This is so they can be matched to the receipt when the customer comes back.) I was going to have to spend the next 15 minutes logging this stuff in. I really didn't mind. That just meant 15 minutes less I would have to work on helping to clean up other departments.

In the middle of this, the customer returned to the front door. Fortunately, no other people were outside banging to be let in. I was able to give her the merchandise and send her on her way. I'll bet someone was glad to get that mop for Christmas.

I went to the back to find out which area I was going to have to go to. There were a crowd of other employees back there asking the Assistant Manager if we could go ahead and go home. I guess this was something they did every year. They would schedule everyone to stay until 8pm, but let them go home early in case it took more than an hour to clear the lines out. The Assistant Manager agreed, and we all got to go home. It was rather nice. I didn't mind losing an hour's wages not to clean up someone else's mess.

The day after Christmas was also very interesting. Because this is when we get people returning stuff. In fact, there are so many returns, we had to use half the front end registers for returns. This meant that we couldn't use those registers for ring up customers buying new things. And those customers did not reduce by 50% just because it was the day after Christmas. This resulted in long lines AGAIN!

And I was looking forward to the whole shopping season being over. I expected that after January 1st, things would calm down and be a lot less stressful. I eventually found out how WRONG I WAS! It never really slowed down, at least at the store where I worked. We were consistently busy ALL THE TIME! It was not at the level it was at before Christmas, but there were very few times that I would reach a point in which I had cleared all my customers.

But we had good news as we entered the new year. All of the cashiers they had hired for Christmas were being retained and receiving raises because the California minimum wage had gone up. In a way, this was good. I didn't have to continue looking for a job for awhile. It looked like I was settling in.

But I did find out that the tree lot job I had been offered during the application process was the shaft position. The person I knew who had been hired for that was not asked to return as a regular employee. That could have been me.

Walmart: The Blitz

So all my training for the previous week was all leading up to this day: Black Friday. At Walmart, they call it "Blitz." And all the employees were buzzing about it. One of the things that helped with the hype was that we got the newspaper supplements that showed what all our specials were going to be that day. Everyone was pointing out what items were going to cause people to line up as early as midnight. The main item was a 26" TV. I can't remember the price, but it wasn't one of the main brands. I recalled that a year earlier, I had purchased a 19" TV at Walmart before Christmas because I had gotten a DVD. I saw a lot of the off-brand TVs, but decided to pay extra money for a name brand. It looked like those off-brand TVs were the Blitz item from the year before.

Up to this point, I'd never been shopping on a Black Friday before. I knew that people tended to rush the front door and tear each other apart trying to get to bargains, but I never felt the need to do my Christmas shopping that way. In my past jobs, I usually had to work that day anyway. So I was shocked at the number of people waiting in line outside the store.

In 2001, the Walmart store where I worked opened up at 5am, two hours earlier than normal. We were scheduled to arrive for our shifts at 4:45am. I didn't think that 15 minutes really gave us much time to prepare, but it looks like Ms. E was bound and determined to get the most amount of work out of us that day, and 15 minutes was being awful generous.

I walked around inside before I had to go to the front end. I saw that there were HUNDREDS of the 26" TVs. They were stacked up all over the store. I knew that every person in line who wanted one of these TVs was going to get one and there would be several left over like the 19" TVs the year before.

Just before the store opened, they had all the cashiers go up to the "red line" in front of the registers. This is something you're only going to see at the beginning of Black Friday and when a new Walmart store opens: All of the cashiers are lined up at attention and ready to take customers. Most people probably don't even notice this as they all rush to the Electronics and Toy departments, but it's a nice little touch everyone should try to appreciate.

Things did not go completely crazy when they started letting the customers in. There was a lot of noise from the crowd, but everyone appeared to act civilized. But I also didn't get to see what was happening in Electronics or any other departments with a limited supply of special items. All I had to worry about was ringing up customers.

I wound up getting the first customer. He just came in to buy a TV and was ready to leave. He was NOT going to stick around to shop some more. Years later, I would hear about people who make plans to hit up several retail stores on Black Friday and strategize to get the best deals. He must have been one of them. He was probably going to head out to another store that opened a little bit later.

Fairly soon, we started getting a steady stream of customers. For me, the day was a complete blur of customer after customer buying TVs and other merchandise. I remember looking up fairly regularly to see how far back my line stretched. Sometimes, I couldn't see the end.

But I do remember one unusual thing that happened. We had been told ahead of time that lunch would be provided for us. But when the first set of employees took their lunches, they found that there was no food available. This was because sandwiches had been ordered ahead of time at the Sam's Club in Lemon Grove. However, when the people picking up the food arrived at Sam's Club, they discovered that they hadn't made the sandwiches yet. They had to wait for them to make the sandwiches. It took almost an hour for them to get the food back to the store. This would mean that we would have employees who hadn't eaten because they didn't bring lunch since they were expecting to be fed. So the Store Manager decreed that everyone who didn't get food on their lunch could clock back in and eat while on the clock. This was even though they were needed on the floor to assist customers. Fortunately, I only had to wait 30 minutes for my lunch, so I wasn't impacted.

At the end of my shift, I was glad my part was over. But it didn't mean the end of the Christmas shopping season.

Action in the living room!

Sometimes, it's fun to just turn off all the lights and let the toys do their thing:



No real people were harmed during this scene, but there was a lot of yelling.

Walmart: The First Day of Training

In November of 2001, I showed up at Walmart in San Diego and started my training as a cashier. I'd run a cash register before when I worked for Landmark Theatres, but this was going to be a completely new experience. I had no idea what all it entailed.

After I clocked in using my badge, I reported to the store's Front End. Here is where I would find a Customer Service Manager, someone who supervised the cashiers. This person was responsible for assigning cashiers to registers and sending people to breaks and lunches. I would find out later there was a team of CSMs and there could be up to three of them working at any time.

She sent me to train with this one woman. She started by having me run merchandise across the scanner and using the gun to scan the larger items in the baskets. She demonstrated how to bag the items. She showed me how to collect payments in cash, ring up coupons, approve checks, credit card and debit transactions. I also got to learn how to remove the anti-theft tags from the clothes and other merchandise. This was of particular interest to me. The bad thing was that the device used to remove those tags was also embedded with the element that would make the alarm at the door go off, so there was no way I was going to be able to walk out with that.

For whatever reason, my trainer kept getting sent to other cashier locations in the store. She had to train me on how to do returns at the Customer Service desk and putting items on Layaway. My head was swimming at this point. It was a lot to take in. I was starting to understand why I would encounter really slow cashiers those times I shopped at Walmart.

Later in the day, I met Ms. E, the Front End Manager. I wasn't completely aware of where she stood in the hierarchy because that wasn't really explained. The whole day had been a collage of going this way and that and meeting and trying to remember everyone's names and positions. When she met me, she asked me if I would be interested in working in the Layaway department. I was so overcome with everything I was learning that I just couldn't respond. All I could think in my head was, "I'm just starting to learn all this and you want me to do something different?" I found out later that there were only two male cashiers on the staff, including me. She was looking for someone to help with the heavy lifting. She probably noticed the stunned expression on my face and told me not to worry about it.

After lunch, my trainer was told to go work the register at Electronics. She trained me how to work the register there. The main difference was that there was only a hand-held scanner there. While I was ringing up customers, Lilz from my old job happened to come up to buy something. It helped to see a friendly face on my first day of training. She had to write a check. I told her that even though I knew her, I still needed to see her ID. I would see Lilz in the store one more time and then never again after that.

At the end of the day, my trainer showed me how to dump all my cash into a zipper bag and turn it into the cash office. I was a little perplexed by this. I was surprised that we were not required to count the money in the drawer and try to balance. I guess they didn't give you time to do that. (And I found out it was a little impossible to do if you worked past midnight when the store closed. Anything you rang up after 12am went on the next day's count and you couldn't get an accurate amount.)

I came in the next two days and trained with the same woman. At the end of the third day, she said I was ready to be on my own and had Ms. E come up with a schedule for me. I would be working morning shifts the first couple of weeks, including on Black Friday. Everything we had been doing was leading up to that. This will be the topic of my next post on Monday.

But I would like to take this chance to address a shortcoming in my training. One of the things that was not explained directly to me was that I should avoid putting chemical products and foods in the same bag. I mean, yes, this is common sense. But when you're trying to take in all this information and properly execute it, you really aren't thinking about these aspects of bagging. (Not to mention that my trainer did most of the bagging while I was scanning and ringing up customers.) I had to have a customer yell at me before that common sense thing kicked in. Later, I took the Computer-Based Learning courses about how to cashier. One of them did explain that we were not to put the chemicals and food in the same bag. Well, I should have taken these courses before I started to train. Anytime I trained someone after that, I made sure that the first thing I told them was to not put chemicals and food in the same bag.

Walmart: The Orientation

When I was first hired at Walmart, I was asked to attend a new employee orientation session at the store. It was going to last a couple of hours. At that time, I would be given my work schedule for the next couple of weeks. I was instructed to bring my ID and my Social Security card.

I arrived and found there were about six people in the HR office. One of them I remembered seeing at the clinic where we did our drug tests. We were given several forms to fill out. Afterward, we watched a few company-produced videos. One extolled the virtues of choosing a career at Walmart. One of the things it stated was that the company would often implement employee ideas. As an example, they talked about the Door Greeter position. That started as an idea from a regular employee around 1973 and was spread out into every Walmart store. Me being the cynic, I noticed that they didn't give any more examples of employee ideas that have been utilized. If we went strictly by the video, it would appear that Walmart hadn't used any employee ideas in almost 30 years at that point.

The video also showed employees in various functions at stores across the country. It showed them in store meetings clapping and doing the Walmart "cheer." It also showed a large group at an employee convention. Everyone seemed so excited about working at Walmart. I knew I was never going to be that excited.

Another video downplayed the company's anti-union stance. The video claimed that "We are not anti-union. We are pro-associate." But it went out of its way to demonstrate that unions were less than reputable organizations and their only interest was in collecting dues from the thousands of people who worked for Walmart across the country. The message was to tell anyone who appeared to be from a union to go away and that we didn't need them. It didn't matter to me how Walmart portrayed unions. I'd never been in one, and any job I applied for that had a union showed no interest in hiring me. From my perspective, having a union wasn't going to help me at this juncture.

(And I should make it clear that I am not anti-union. It's really just something I don't feel would help me in the long run with regards to work.)

We spent the rest of the time filling out paperwork and agreeing to terms of employment. We each had to go to a computer, log in and read the conditions. We then chose the "Agree" option and the next person would go to the computer and do the same thing. After everyone cycled through this, the Store Manager came in. He appeared to be just a few years older than me, but he seemed to have a positive outlook on working for Walmart and was rather friendly and charming. I actually felt a little better just after he spoke to us. I got the idea he was able to sweet-talk his way past any customer complaint. He appeared to be friendly and approachable, unlike some other bosses I've had in the past.

We were all then given vests and told when to show up for our on-the-job training. My short period of unemployment was coming to an end. I almost hated to see that happen.

Job #19: Walmart-San Diego Era (2001 - 2003)

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.