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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

#251
post #164
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help." -Jean Kerr

Complete anti-scientific hogwash only rich people would repeat, again.

I agree with and appreciate that saying, while not being rich.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#252
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their answer is anything other than "eclipse", then they failed. There was no follow-up question to see why theh felt that way. There was no real discussion on strategy or reasoning. This is a trap.

Eclipse is obviously the best possible answer. You don't need to spend 15 minutes deliberating on this. This is a teaching moment to encourage staff to give great ideas by demonstrating how to communicate great ideas.

If they're teaching, they should vlbe guiding or explaining. This is a trap... or a terrible mentor/teacher.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course 2 years of stress can lead to otherwise-good marriages breaking up. Didn't you know happy couples who divorced during COVID lockdowns? It was common.

To me, those seem like fragile marriages. If it wasn't covid, then it'd be an illness or disability. If covid unearthed ideological differences, then it's likely that would have surfaced during other poticial events. If it was the financial hardship, that may have struck at another time. It's not that 2 years of stress can't destroy a marriage, it's just that it tends to destroy the weak ones.

I also didn't know any couples to divorce during lockdown.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you to clarify. Then why did you write "just"? In one reading, this is slightly dismissive. In retail spaces, cleanliness and tidiness is very important for the shopping experience.

I disagree that it matters beyond sanitation, although I admit that’s a matter of preference. In any case, it isn’t life-or-death, environmental catastrophe level stuff.

I both A) don't believe you at all (would you rather shop somewhere you can easily find and access the product you're looking for, or where you have to track down an employee to dig through the clutter to find each item?) and B) feel we should note that Walmart's "ideal shopping experience" is not the same as the customer's. They want you (in the amalgamated, averaged sense) to traverse the store in a certain way, to select the right items, to be enticed to buy the other right items, and to leave without encountering so much friction that you decide to go to Target next time; those subtler effects are absolutely affected by organization and aesthetics.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#256

> 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.

The chant is absolutely real. I don’t know how frequently they do it in retail, but it was pretty infrequent in the software engineer positions. Source: I was a software engineer for Jet.com for two years after the Walmart acquisition, and then another year separately.

Ross Perot/EDS and I think IBM used to do the cheers..

EDS would also interview you wife (if you had one) to make sure she fit in with the EDS family.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#257

> 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.

oh bud I worked in e-commerce for Walmart Labs and we did the cheer at every large meeting (think townhall, not every stand up).

Give me a squiggly!

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would honestly love to know more. What activities which are not common for a store did he bring from the navy?

You’d probably enjoy the book Turn the Ship Around about a Navy submarine captain who transformed a low-performing crew into a strong, cohesive, autonomous crew.

Company I worked for gave us all a copy of the book and made us go to a 3-hour presentation by the guy. I was not impressed!

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a normal human, less then probably .5% of 340 million Americans are like this. It's called being an attention-whore and hoping to strike it big by filming a non-controversy and making it into one on Tik-Tok. You can thank social media (and regular media) for the profiting off clicks/algorithms/non-controversies and driving this nonsense. This isn't filming a cop making an arrest to keep them accountable,…

The guy filming is not the weird part. You don't think the fact Snoop Dogg has a cereal and is suing Walmart for not carrying it is strange? Perhaps I missed the evolution of Gansta Rap and that's the main lyrical content these days...

I think the evolution happened when Snoop and Martha Stewart started doing shows together.

Re: A day in the life of a Walmart manager

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you to clarify. Then why did you write "just"? In one reading, this is slightly dismissive. In retail spaces, cleanliness and tidiness is very important for the shopping experience.

I disagree that it matters beyond sanitation, although I admit that’s a matter of preference. In any case, it isn’t life-or-death, environmental catastrophe level stuff.

You apparently didn't live in the U.S. during the late stages of K-Mart's existence. K-Mart was a major discount retailer, locked in a years-long battle with Walmart. But in the years before it finally went under, many stores (maybe all?) were plagued by messily stocked shelves, unattractive merchandising, stock pulled onto the floor and not picked up, dingy flooring and poor lighting. I'm not talking just the toy section, but the linens and other dry goods. The stores in my area were simply unpleasant to shop in, so people stayed away, and the whole company went out of business. There are certainly issues with Walmart as a company and employer, but in my experience their stores are well-maintained, the merchandising is decent, and the shelves are neat.
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