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A day in the life of a Walmart manager

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Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#201

Post by giantg2 »

ipaddr wrote: post #192
ryandrake wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, please. I think a lot of HN people have lost all sense of proportion. A 7 figure job is $1M plus--a year. That's financially life-changing, no matter how much you hate the content of the work. Grin and bear it for a couple of years, and then... do anything you like for the rest of your life. Maybe 0.1% of the population gets an opportunity like that.

Would you take it if it means a marriage breakup and illness?

Sure, those things are common in many jobs that pay much less. Many marriages can survive a year or two of hardship. If they can't, then perhaps it's not a good marriage and it will fall apart anyways at the next major event. Illnesses happen all the time, but I assume you mean stress-related. But there are many stressful jobs that pay much less and result in injury or disability.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#202

Post by macintux »

ipaddr wrote: post #192
ryandrake wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, please. I think a lot of HN people have lost all sense of proportion. A 7 figure job is $1M plus--a year. That's financially life-changing, no matter how much you hate the content of the work. Grin and bear it for a couple of years, and then... do anything you like for the rest of your life. Maybe 0.1% of the population gets an opportunity like that.

Would you take it if it means a marriage breakup and illness?

I think if a marriage breaks up after 2 years of one partner working 80+ hours a week to make enough money to have reasonable financial stability for the rest of their lives, the marriage probably had other issues.

Illness, well, that's a tougher call.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#203

Post by bunabhucan »

I bumped into their manager AGM (well, quarter of it, they did 4 separate ones consecutively) in Kansas City one year. My employer had booked the hotel months previously. I think I was the only non walmart person.

They had four lines at check in, men smoking, women smoking, men non-smoking, women non-smoking. You shared a room with whoever you got in line with.

Lots of shop talk, no juicy secrets, silence when they found out I was not one of them.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#204

Post by rhelz »

breck wrote: post #100
rhelz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just supply and demand, like anything else.

Are you sure there's no artificial government intervention?

There's much less government intervention in hiring programmers, than there is, in hiring teachers (you need a state certificate) or CPAs (same). Even if you want to be a hairdresser you need a state certificate.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#205

Post by sojournerc »

nexus2045 wrote: post #157
BLanen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose. Something only someone with a high income would say. Contrary to all data and research and evidence.

Making 500-700k at a FAANG right now. Money certainly makes me worry less, not complaining. I still feel like a cog in a machine. If anything, it further isolated all the problems in my life that money could never really solve. Meaningful friendships, dating, self-control and discipline, self-esteem. Before, I could go by telling myself the story that "if only I had X amount of income, I'd be happy". Now, I don't hav…

Make a change, it's never too late. And you certainly have the means

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#206

Post by thebrain »

bandyaboot wrote: post #163

> To end the meeting, Michael Cole, 66, a maintenance worker, leads the group in the Walmart Cheer, a chant workers throughout the company do to start and end meetings. This can’t be real.

It most certainly is.

I worked at Wal-Mart in Canada for seven years when I was younger and during the summer, when I worked more hours, I would see the department managers and the upper level store managers do it every morning during the week. Wal-mart really pushes the idea of winning. Everything is about being the best at generating profit and beating the local competition into submission. The location I worked at completely destroyed a Zellers, Eatons, Bi-Way and possibly others that I'm forgetting.

I worked in the electronics department and my manager had the discretion to price big new movie releases below the competition (he would actually check out the competition himself). We had a line that snaked through the entire store for days when Titanic came out since we had the best price for a large radius. Having the best price on an item would be something that would be mentioned during the morning meeting and would be something everyone in attendance would get excited about.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#207

Post by mvkel »

giantg2 wrote: post #201
ipaddr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you take it if it means a marriage breakup and illness?

Sure, those things are common in many jobs that pay much less. Many marriages can survive a year or two of hardship. If they can't, then perhaps it's not a good marriage and it will fall apart anyways at the next major event. Illnesses happen all the time, but I assume you mean stress-related. But there are many stressful jobs that pay much less and result in injury or disability.

"A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one."

AirPods.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#208

Post by troad »

dewey wrote: post #200
troad wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the main qualification for being an Aldi executive is years of experience throwing people's groceries from one side to the other, never making eye-contact? And this translates to the skills required to run a multi-national business how exactly? Don't get me wrong, sounds like a great deal for mediocre 'lifer' employees, but seems like a terrible deal for anyone bright (years stuck 'waiting the ranks' - or more rea…

I’d suggest you listen to the episode, and it’s obviously not about transferring grocery stacking skills to running a logistics company but steeping people on the culture of treating suppliers well, saving costs, paying above market salaries etc. I think their success speaks for itself and people who want a long term, stable job are not necessarily “mediocre lifers”, which is a pretty ignorant thing to say.

> I think their success speaks for itself and people who want a long term, stable job are not necessarily “mediocre lifers”, which is a pretty ignorant thing to say.

That's a pretty ungenerous micharacterisation of what I said, and a bit of a false dichotomy. It's entirely possible to have a long term stable job in a company that doesn't adopt any of Aldi's practices on hiring and promotion - and those practices are, as a matter of simple incentive logic, going to lead to brain drain and a senior management structure afflicted by the Peter principle. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#209

Post by BeetleB »

alwa wrote: post #187
BeetleB wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in SW, you probably will need to think about your job off work: They usually don't work in shifts, and will have deliverables in a timeline of months. They need to plan the work, and always adjust to hit the deadlines. If you're a doctor, then you probably don't have to think about your job off work.

Doesn’t a doctor tend to have deliverables in a timeline of minutes or hours, on the order of dozens such deliverables a day, often with health- or life-critical stakes attached? It seems like only yesterday that this counterpoint made the rounds here: “The darker side of being a doctor” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40025261

I'm not discounting the prior submission. The medical field is vast. Some jobs are a lot worse than others. Just as you can't generalize across all STEM jobs, you can't generalize across all medical jobs.

Yes, a lot of doctors have a high amount of stress. And a lot don't.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#210

Post by sgregnt »

hd55 wrote: post #148
chasd00 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue is we’re a couple generations in where kids were told over and over swe is what their passion is without it being a real reality. Eventually they get old enough to realize the lie but not young enough to take the risk of doing something about it.

According to systems theory (and karl marx?) purpose of the system is what the system does. Here system = person. And according to those who dont like that theory "The Protestant Ethic" is the reason for "The Spirit of Capitalism" or continuing to work/optimize/explore/exploit way past the point your Needs are meet.

IMHO This is like status. Sounds smart but not much behind it... How do you know what are someone needs, maybe they evlolve? Maybe your need is to try a FAANG job and have first hand expiring that will change your needs to less material. Maybe one of your needs is to satisfy protestant ethics? And your need is to go beyond the first level needs... So I'd say the same way system purposes I'd defined by what it does. Your needs are defined by what your do.

Having said that, this type of philosophizing is nothing but an empty exercise in confusion. Everyone one is an individual an has his one subjective epirience, a person aspires to live his life as he best understands it.. anything beyond that is just nonsensical.

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