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Old 10-20-2010, 07:38 AM   #12 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights
will always be an Alyson Hanniganite
 
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Location: In the dust of the archives
<sigh>...I find myself in the unenviable position to offer the obverse to this little discussion. Having weathered a rather lengthy period of unemployment, I took a part time position at my local Wal-Mart in the electronics department. 97% of all Wal-Mart employees are part time. It is that way by design. It keeps costs down, so that you can save $5.00 on your new digital camera.

This is one of the very few times that I find myself in complete agreement with Baraka Guru. He is absolutely correct when he said; "When you pay somewhere between minimum wage and one or two dollars above that, what kind of talent do you hope to attract?" We are not trained in product knowledge and, no, I guarantee you that I most certainly do not know all of the specific features (beyond the product spec sheet that you just read)on all of the 40-50 digital cameras that we have on prominent display. I know enough about the HD televisions (from having done my own research, when buying my own) to at least sound like I know what I'm talking about. Although I was a Purchasing Agent for most of my professional life, I am not privy to the buying practices of Wal-Mart. I do not know why we no longer carry digital converter boxes. I only know that we do not. That knowledge is several layers above my meager pay grade. No, I do not know why the laptop, that I rang up for you yesterday, will not connect to your ISP. Nor, frankly, do I really care. I have 1 customer wanting me to unlock the video game cabinet for them, I have another that wants me to check in the back for a specific HDTV, another that wants me to repair the broken USB port on her 5 year old laptap, another that wants to know if we have the I-Pod Nano in purple, another that's pissed because the netbook that she bought yesterday has no optical drive (duh), and another that's interrupting all of the above to ask me when the 2nd season of Sponge Bob Squarepants is going to be re-released. I make less than ¼ of what I made 2 years ago, and I make just under ½ of what I made on unemployment insurance. Should I care? Maybe…but I really don’t.

I do know that our particular store looses 100s of thousands of dollars per day to theft. On busy weekend day, it can approach the $1,000,000.00 mark. Per DAY. I doubted that myself, until I saw the rows of shopping carts, overflowing with empty packages, lined up in the back. And that’s just the items in evidence. In Wal-Mart’s defense, (God, I never, ever, thought I'd do that) the only time that we check receipts is when you set the alarm off at the front door. Usually just a cursory check, and a "Have a good day.".

So...consider it the high cost of "Everyday Low Prices".
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