Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/18/teen-working-at-walmart-quits.html
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“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”
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Kids these days and their idea of fairness and ethical working environment. In my day we worked 12 hours a day, 8 hours on the clock and 4 hours off. Every employee was company property, just as the founding fathers intended.
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Had a friend that worked for Walmart, she struggled with health issues and her boss gave her such a hard time about taking time off. She later started suffering from poor blood circulation, to the point where her extremities would swell up and get blue and she couldn’t handle being in the cold very well. They chastised her for not being able to keep up with stocking inventory in a cold warehouse. She later was able to get diagnosed with having lupus and still her boss gave her a hard time for her health issues.
I’ve had similar stories with friends that worked for Target, Kohls (where i also used to work at), etc. and the problem is not just Walmart but retail in general. They’d work people to death and pay them nothing if it was legal.
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Usually a bridge-burning ragequit is just funny. This kid obviously put a lot of thought into his grand exit. Nicely done.
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“The the cheers of shoppers” who continued to shop and spend money there lining the pockets of the Walton family who have collectively enough money to fund a full fledged UN nation for life.
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Walmart has made sure they own those shoppers lives just as much as they do the employees. Limited options are a corporate overlord’s substrate for dominance.
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Obligatory:
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"Fuck management, fuck this job and fuck Walmart," to cheers from the shoppers.
Santa is going to be very good to that kid.
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This goes well beyond retail.
Hell, I’ve been in meetings where this was essentially said by upper management when discussing hiring someone to replace another person who left.
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In the industry where I worked, many were tempted to do this, but no one wanted to be blackballed over poor treatment at one company. That was back when only word of mouth could be used against you. Today, this stuff lives on the Internet and will probably pop up when his future employers search for his name. I have to wonder if he thought about that first.
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I worked for a Wal-Mart in Calgary (a few hours from Edmonton where this story took place) when I was 17 and 18. I was a decent worker, for which I was “rewarded” by being given more hours than anyone else in my department. Normally that would be a good thing, but after I started university, it was more hours than I wanted or could manage. I asked my boss to reduce my hours to match what all the other part-timers were getting, but he insisted that he needed me there. I finally quit after I requested two weeks off to focus on exams, and he responded by scheduling me for more shifts than I had ever been scheduled on before. When I confronted him about it, he again said he needed me and suggested I needed to think about my priorities: work or school.
I only wish I’d had the guts to quit like this kid did.
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If his principles are sound (knowing Walmart, I think they are), then it’s actually saving him loads of wasted job-seeking time. Don’t you think?
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I would hire him If only to stop me getting lazy and complacent as a manager when I get old. But I am not in charge of hiring people. Never have been. I don’t think this will fix that, but bravo for trying. I would have totally done than when I was young. And probably failed horribly but, heck you tried…
raises hat
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I worked at Target when I was in my early 20s (stocking crew). An 8 hour shift was typically a 12 hour shift (first 9 hours, then 10.5, and ultimately 12), because all of the product had to shelved, and you couldn’t leave until the job was finished: “Oh gosh, so sorry, yeah, this is a drag, but nobody can leave until the pallets are empty… wish I could do something about it.” And you didn’t get overtime – they’d just cut your hours for the week. So 8 hours a day, five days a week usually turned into 12 hours a day, three days a week.
My dad got a job at Wal-Mart after the company he worked for folded (he was there for something like 25+ years). He was in his early 60s, and just needed to work for a few more years until Social Security kicked in. When he was about a year from retirement, Wal-Mart went on the offensive to get rid of him – closing shift (leave at midnight), followed by opening shift (8:00 AM); they’d assign heavy-lifting work that would be hard for a couple of young, in-really-good shape employees; and a bunch of other passive aggressive bullshit.
Going back to my days at Target, if you quit without giving two-weeks notice, you were black-listed for life. Company policy: you could never work for Target or a Target-owned company ever again. I did quit with no notice, and I did sweat the idea of being black-listed for life. But ultimately, I realized – “It’s Target. I’m okay with never working here again.”
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who continue to shop there…
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If Walmart, as par for the course, has driven most other businesses out of town, surprise factor zero Captain.
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