Live data from Hacker News

A day in the life of a Walmart manager

wsj.com

11–20 of 266 posts

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#11

> Near the cereal aisle, a customer walks up to Hart while recording on his cellphone. >“Hi! Can we get some Snoop Cereal here on the shelf?” asks the man. Earlier that month the rapper Snoop Dogg sued Walmart, claiming the retailer, along with Post Consumer Brands, had worked to suppress sales of Snoop Cereal. Some fans were recording videos related to the dispute for social media. It's like you think you know Ameri…

There are few things more American than the passage you just quoted. It is about a fan of an aging stoner/rapper talking to a Wal-Mart employee about the fact that he wants cereal.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#12

Unpopular opinion, more people are capable of doing well at higher level jobs than they are at low level grunt working jobs.

Time-management is probably the single most important skill in these higher-paying jobs and...well...given the amount of self-help books there are on this topic, I'm not so sure I'd agree.

People who do well in higher-level jobs know /exactly/ what they're best at or uniquely positioned to do, and do that. Meanwhile, you need to delegate the rest to whoever's in the best position to do so (growing people if there aren't enough) which is itself a tricky calculus.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#13
post #9

She runs a shop that employs 300 people; needs to worry about short-term and long-term logistics and planning; works cross-functionally with the trades; probably frequently needs to manage upwards; interacts directly with customers; etc etc... Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job.

> Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job.

Wow, this is such a nonsense view. Software development may seem easy to you, because you know how to do it and probably have been doing it for a long time. But I can assure you, software development is a hard job. If it was easy, everyone and their dog could do it. Have some respect to your profession!

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#14
She's giving CEO/COO vibes. I bet she would crush it in either of those roles. It would be amazing if this article catapulted her towards running her own business.

Loved this:

> Hart gets to the front of the store, a product-display area in between banks of registers known as the horseshoe. “So what are you thinking here?” she asks Wright. “Easter or summer toys?”

> Wright suggests summer toys and T-shirts.

> “I think we should go after the eclipse,” says Hart, filling the section with eclipse-themed gear, as well as outdoor chairs and coolers.

Micro teaching opportunity and giving the employee an opportunity to have input, rather than just "put eclipse-themed gear here"

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#15
post #5

>Hart has seen that change firsthand. About 20 years ago, then 19 years old and a mother of two, she started part-time at the same Walmart she now runs. Her first job was cooking live lobsters pulled from a tank in the deli. Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail. She deserves every…

This reminds me of a very interesting interview I've listened to a while ago (It was posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101 ): https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-... There they talk about the Aldi culture and how "walking into management" isn't possible there, as everyone goes through the ranks of a store. That means of course that hiring someone from outside is almost no…

I honestly respect companies with that attitude way more than your standard American company culture.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#17
Quite a difference from all of those "my day as a employee" TikTok videos, such as

https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/717157277625860...

https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143...

https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/708395834045538641...

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#19
post #9

She runs a shop that employs 300 people; needs to worry about short-term and long-term logistics and planning; works cross-functionally with the trades; probably frequently needs to manage upwards; interacts directly with customers; etc etc... Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job.

No doubt she earns it.

But, we're probably all doing some form of the above in one way or another. A few minor edits may make the list a little more familiar to more software folks:

>worry about short-term and long-term [...] planning; works cross-functionally...;... manage upwards; interacts directly with customers

Post reply on HN