Current mood:

aggravated

When Sam Walton Died So Did Wal Mart

I have been an associate at Wal Mart for almost 6 years.  Before I started working for the company I knew nothing about the internal problems it has,however I have since learned alot.  Through reading some of the book that Sam Walton wrote about the company he founded,I have learned that most of the problems with Wal Mart started after Mr. Walton passed away.  Sam built Wal Mart into a very successful company by paying attention to the needs of the people and taking care of his employees.  In return he got loyal customers and employees that were willing to give 110% to the company.  Sam was a hands on person who spent alot of time visiting his stores personally and listening to what his associates had to say about their place of employment.  He enjoyed meeting the associates and customers and was willing to go the distance to make sure that everyone was happy.  In the 80's and early 90's with sam at the helm Wal Mart really began to grow and stock prices soared.  Wal Mart was truly a place where you could start a career and actually make something out of it.  Now that Sam is gone,the last few people working for the company during that era are being phased out.  Sam's children now have control of the company and they aren't very hands on at all.  They want nothing to do with the every day goings on in the stores.  They would rather have some corporate asshole or CEO run the company for them. There is where your problem lies.  The Waltons give the CEO full control,and all he has to do is show them a big return on their money.  As long as the bottom line is more money for them,they don't care what he does.  These corporate dicks have gradually phased out just about all of Sam's beliefs and principles and what got this company where it was before they took over.  People like David Glass,Tom Coughlin(who stole the company blind before he was fired),and now Lee Scott don't care about what the customers or the associates think or want.  They could care less about meeting you or listening to what you have to say.  We are nothing more than a number to them.  Unfortunately that is the way they run this company now.  They figure as long as they can pressure their vendors and manufacturers to sell them their products for dirt cheap,they can keep people coming back by selling those same products lower than the competitors.  They also believe in cutting overhead by slashing the payroll at the ground levels and making the associates work twice as hard. They have also gotten rid of many of the incentive plans that Sam had in place to reward associates for hard work(good job pins,Christmas bonus,merit raises,etc.).  Now they have started screwing with the my share program which was started so that all associates could benefit from store profits. It seems that every year they come up with a new plan for how this bonus can be earned,and every year it gets harder and harder for ground level associates to earn anything.  Now  morale in the stores and distribution centers is at an all time low.  The Store Managers are like corporate robots.  They have prepared speeches and corporate responses to everything.  Hell,the company even sends people in management to schools to learn how to dodge issues, how to get around dealing with problems at the store level,and even how to lie when you need to.  This is called leadership Training(what a joke).  As long as the Walton's are getting theirs,they don't care.  Lee Scott will do whatever it takes to keep making his pockets fatter,and it trickles down from there.  The days when people like Sam Walton would run their own companies with their own beliefs are gone.  Corporate assholes or crooks or whatever else you want to call them,are the order of the day. These are the people whose heads we want on a platter,and they have done everything in their power to make sure that isn't going to happen.  They have politicians in their back pockets,and Lawyers to handle anything that comes their way.  They have built a brick wall around themselves to protect their money and their assets.  It's up to us,the common men and women to find a crack in that wall and chop these corporates moguls down to size and level the playing field.