Wal-Mart Cutting the Number of Associates Daily

What is Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart is the happy face that we all see every time we go into pick up the common items, like milk and bread; never did it occur to us that the things that we so thoughtlessly set out of place on a distant shelf, or the few cans of tomato soup that we might dishevel along the way, may make a workers night just a little bit longer, stretching the already microscopically thin work force just a little thinner. As the giant struggles to keep it's standing in the world, it adapts and makes cuts to benefit it falling profits.

How big can Wal-Mart get? With annual sales topping out in the billons, they continue to grow, but at what cost? Profit seems to be the only force that has enabled this retail giant to take over the market, as we know it; gone are the days of quality, when a television would last for twenty or more years, when a refrigerator or electric stove bought at the beginning of a marriage would last past retirement. Blame it on China or Taiwan if one must, but it is Wal-Mart that wants it faster and cheaper; if it is made out of metal, make it out of plastic; if it requires cutting a step or two in quality control, or even safety, anything to keep the numbers that Wal-Mart is so obsessed with from dropping and the profits high.

Things are also changing on the inside of this super power; not only is it becoming more and more difficult for workers to get their jobs completed by the end of their shift, due to labor cuts and cross training in five or more departments at one time, but also a cyclone of new policies created to suite the company and not the families that depend on it for their livelihood. Tough it out for years and see where it gets you; a piece of paper telling you what a good worker you have been to the company, a good job pin to add to the other junk trinkets of appreciation collected over the years. But will anyone care when your body is broken from all the years of lifting and moving things by yourself, because the labor budget was more important than providing adequate staffing? Maybe a "Get Well" card in layaway and then all at once, you're forgotten. Then the long road of finding out that the health insurance you worked so hard to pay for throughout the years is just as worthless as the pep rallies management gives each and every day at their store meetings; the list goes on and on.

Wal-Mart has made the money, slain and beat down the mom and pop stores of yesterday leaving nothing left but themselves, changing their tide of retail from the low price leader, to the leader of high prices and low quality, both in the products they sell as well as in the life and environment they provide for their workers. Wal-mart is telling its once family oriented philosophy good-bye and its employees to make the choice. Family is no longer an option for wal-mart and they don't care if you have been there forever, they come first. Their attendance policy doesn't even excuse you if you're in the emergency room dying. Show up or risk your job and that is the end of it. A tornado could wipe out your house and you would still have to show up if it didn't affect more than three fourths of the county.Management is trained to handle each situation as if they could easily replace you. Sure they could, for less and still get by or maybe they just want to lower the number of paid employees all together to get the numbers up. That is the situation in most of their store. Work with what you have and enslave those already their. If you can run your store on a skeleton crew do it and don't worry about whom gets sick and tired have being your workhorse. They customers will understand and they profits will soar. So the next time you knock over a can of beanie weenies or a bottle of motor oil, make it neat, you never know who job you'll make easier.