‘Living wage’ bill will nix plans for DC

[Merc14]

Living wage is lieral bunk at it worst. They don't understand basic economics and then proceed to destroy jobs while supposedly fixing a problem. Raise wages, less people will work. Period. the fact is a cashier's job at Wal-Mart is not supposed to provide for a family of four, it is a supplemental income at best.

The second part of this is the democrats HATE Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart refuses to allow unions, a huge source of income for the democrats. They have been at war with Wal-Mart for years and will never stop.

[Jeremiah65]

As I said earlier, it is all about choices and the freedom to make those choices.

If a person does not feel they are being paid well enough, they can choose to do something about it.

If a consumer does not like the policy or philosophy of an establishment, they are free to choose to take their money somewhere else.

We like to make excuses though...

"Wal Mart is the only store around and the prices are so cheap some folks can't afford to shop elsewhere"...bunk...

There are always other stores to get your needs from. In fact, choosing to patronize them will insure their continual existence. Yes, you might spend a few cents...maybe even a dollar more for something...but it is...a choice you "can" make...you simply choose not to do that....and find easy excuses for it.

"Wal Mart is the only place I can get a job"...again...bunk

It was prob the easiest and most convenient...or the first one to respond to your job application. Another excuse for the choices made.

Wal Mart is not responsible for the choices you make...you are. Yes, they might have tilted the table to their favor in some locations...but that still does not free you of the responsibility for your own decisions.

All that being said...I hate Wal Mart...I really try to avoid that place...and generally do avoid it. Yep...I might spend $0.19 per item more and at the end of the shopping have either spent 5 to 10 bucks more...or maybe my shopping cart is light a handful of items...but I can live with that to avoid the madness of interacting with the general public "MARTians" that patronize Wally World...see?...a choice.

Learn to vote and have a voice with your hard earned money....it is the only thing that business or this government listen to. It has more power than you think.

ETA:

Reminds me of the South park Episode about Wal Mart. The whole town was mad cause "Wally World" was destroying their small businesses so they all swore to boycott it...yet they all kept finding excuses to keep working and shopping there...if you have never watched that episode...it's hysterical actually...and so spot on to the mindset of consumers in general.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e09-something-wall-mart-this-way-comes

Edited July 12, 2013 by Jeremiah65

[F3SS]

Okay then, tell you what. I'll give you at least a lead person/supervisor, but not for each dept, they can supervise at least two departments, if not more. For example; electronics and toys, it doesn't take a genius to help run those two departments. Even an employee has knowledge of the products in both of those departments, just as much as a supervisor would. That's of course, after the employee has been there a while; usually between 3 to 6 months. I know this, specifically, Mr. Fess, because I worked for Wal-Mart once upon-a-time, which you probably figured that out at some point during our previous discussions about Wal-Mart. Furthermore, they don't need another manager, especially two managers, one over the other, as I've seen in other departments, over a department supervisor. It's overkill and frankly a waste of company money. That department lead/supervisor can report directly to the Store Manager and that's all the lower management there should be.

Scheduling, payroll and training are handled by a in store Human Resources Specialist, which they do with the help of a computers and computer programs, who also handle most of the employee Health Benefits. You don't see these guys, actually I've only seen one for each store, because they sit in a office all day in the back working on the computer assigning new employees to training computers. They type in the schedules with lunch times with the same times for each employee every week, unless a Assistant Manger tells them to change a employee's schedule otherwise, and employees are responsible for their own break times; at least it was that way when I worked there.

As far as monies handling goes, mostly the Store Manager, who sits in another office, along with the Assistant Managers sometimes, handles most of that along with the visit from the vendors. Specifically Wells Fargo. They do have a floor lead (forgot what they use to call them now) who stands at a podium all day assisting with change and cash register assignments for the checkout lanes. They could just as well have him/her do the same for the customer department, which I think they do now in some stores.

BTW, I started out in Produce. Every employee including the department manager sometimes new more about the produce than the Assistant Manager did, that was probably because the Assistant Manager never worked in produce. There again is another example, where one lead person could supervise the produce department, deli department and the meat department. I say this because I had to work in all three at times, even though I was assigned only to the produce department. Didn't know anything at first about the other two departments, but I learned quickly and managed pretty well. And I know I could've run all three departments, with the help of a few more employees of course; felt like I was sometimes because of the high employee turnover we had at one point.

Wal-mart follows a para-military chain of command, while that's fine to a certain degree, there are too many middlemen they don't need. Waste of money, waste of training expenses because they send "would be" Assistant Managers to a school for several weeks, which Wal-Mart owns and operates. Don't need all that, the money would be better used for paying for other needs and the regular employees more who do most of the work anyway.

It's not impossible, Mr. Fess...it can be done, as noted above. My experience as an employee at Wal-Mart and a Manager on another job showed me that I could do scheduling, payroll, assignments and even training when I needed to, with the help of one supervisor under me; which I had at that time with that particular job.

Even if middle management aren't making bukoos of money today, the expense all adds up with too many managers than what is needed in one store. Again...it's ridiculous and the money they pay for those unneeded middle management, specifically the Assistant Managers, not to mention those type of managers get sale bonuses and extra company stock as well, so there not doing too bad, could go to paying the employees a little more and help them from getting on food stamp assistance.

It just makes good business sense, Mr. Fess. Why waste money like that, money wise it's unefficient.

We can go back and forth about this. You sound like a great employee but you also sound like you think you're know it all super employee.

Scheduling/payroll... Isn't as easy as hitting print on a standard schedule. You've got to consider shift/time off requests, call offs, vacations, holiday reconfiguration of schedules to account for busier times and many other things when you've got dozens or hundreds of employees. Employees responsible for their own break times?! Crazy. There has to be structure and control or you have cliques going on break together at the same time all the time and people just leaving registers at random times or all at once. Order is a must.

Store managers have other things to deal with that I'm sure you and I don't know of. There is usually one and they can't be there 24 hours a day. But whatever. Human resources is there to handle payroll, employee issues, accounting perhaps. But whatever again. This all plays into the bigger theme of this conversation.

I never said all middle management is great but there are those who take their job seriously and really do make the department a more efficient one. Working in three departments is not the same as managing three departments. Seriously superman, I'd like to see you try.

Skip to your last sentence... Do you really think Walmart would be doing things inefficiently? They aren't the worlds largest employer for nothing and it's kind of funny of you to think they haphazardly use a business model designed to waste money. They are the most successful retail business ever. I think they know a thing or two about money management.

Don't take my jabs at you personal. They're lighthearted.

Edited July 12, 2013 by F3SS

[Gunn]

We can go back and forth about this. You sound like a great employee but you also sound like you think you're know it all super employee.

Scheduling/payroll... Isn't as easy as hitting print on a standard schedule. You've got to consider shift/time off requests, call offs, vacations, holiday reconfiguration of schedules to account for busier times and many other things when you've got dozens or hundreds of employees. Employees responsible for their own break times?! Crazy. There has to be structure and control or you have cliques going on break together at the same time all the time and people just leaving registers at random times or all at once. Order is a must.

Store managers have other things to deal with that I'm sure you and I don't know of. There is usually one and they can't be there 24 hours a day. But whatever. Human resources is there to handle payroll, employee issues, accounting perhaps. But whatever again. This all plays into the bigger theme of this conversation.

I never said all middle management is great but there are those who take their job seriously and really do make the department a more efficient one. Working in three departments is not the same as managing three departments. Seriously superman, I'd like to see you try.

Skip to your last sentence... Do you really think Walmart would be doing things inefficiently? They aren't the worlds largest employer for nothing and it's kind of funny of you to think they haphazardly use a business model designed to waste money. They are the most successful retail business ever. I think they know a thing or two about money management.

Don't take my jabs at you personal. They're lighthearted.

Hey thanks for the compliments, Mr. Fess. Means a lot to me, really does! And your right...I mean about the going back an forth bit.

But you know what, after reading Jeremiah's post above (post 27), I'm total convinced that he's right overall (btw, damn good post Jeremiah ). So what we were talking about doesn't much matter to me anymore. Because after all, like Jeremiah said I have the power to vote with my money. Money talks and everything else walks.

BTW, I'm not a (super) employee for old Wally World anymore, left on good terms, and well...not for anybody else either as a matter of fact. I'm a small time operator now, I run a local business in my area. Haven't hit the big time yet, but it pays the bills.

Anyway, Wal-Mart can do what they like. It's up to the customers and employees to do what they need to do for their own self and take command of their problems with Wal-Mart. Action speaks louder than words and words are useless anyway. So I think I'm gonna go to my new chosen store, definitely not Wal - Fart, and shop with my latest earned dollar.

Later, Mr. Fess........

[Frank Merton]

What is it they say, "You get what you pay for."

[Gunn]

What is it they say, "You get what you pay for."

Ooooh you just made me think of a new name for them "WAL-CRAP!"

Wife: We're you going?

Husband: To Wal-Crap. Got to buy some cheap crap for the other cheap made crap that I bought last week, which broke, so as I can fix that...crap.

Wife: Well...have a crappy time at WaI-Crap then. And could you pick up some more crappy hamburger meat while your there, dear. We're having Crap Value hamburger helper for dinner tonight.

Husband: Will do. Oh joy........

WAL_CRAP!

Bringing you low prices everyday, so we can sell you even worse crap than before.