Let's talk about things at work!

I think I messed up with my walmart application. I think I should have applied for the Team Lead position because everybody acts like I am one. I work in the front end and according to my associates, I’m the experienced one. They love to ask questions to me about everything, day to day activities, what to do if a customer is being rude, even life advice. They seem to trust my wisdom I guess. It’s like I’m the work mother to them. The responsibility on my shoulders increased ever since they fired our Team Lead and they hired a new one. In fact, I applied to be the new one but got rejected, and they hired someone else. Some people thought it should have been me but I disagree. I don’t want to be someone who stabs people in the back. That’s something I never did in my life and I’m not planning to do so. If he got the job, he got the job and everybody should adapt, but nobody does. Even the new Team Lead who was hired recently. He asked me a question the other day (I won’t say the question because it’s kinda embarrassing) and I asked him how did he apply for this job, he said he did his walmart job application online and I told him well, you just need to open the description of your walmart job application and the answer of your question should be there. He seemed offended by the way I responded, but I don’t care anymore. Management made a choice by hiring him and everybody needs to live with that. Including him. I’m not going to do his job for him and get paid as a front end associate. No, that’s not going to happen. But it seems like they won’t let me go off these responsibilities and duties that are not in my job description. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and I also love the people who I’m working with but I’m also tired of this. Because it feels like a daily reminder of what I’ve missed. And just like I said having the same paycheck is not helping either. I genuinely don’t know what to do except one thing, I definitely don’t want to leave this store. Not in a transfer or by leaving permanently. So what should I do? What would you do if you were in my shoes? I don’t want to break my associate's hearts and I also don’t want to offend the managers because I don’t want to get fired. It’s like I want to stand up for myself, but the weight on my shoulders won’t let me do so.

So I work overnight stocking and what started as a normal shift ended in complete madness around 3:45AM. I hear someone on the walkie say, “We’ve got water coming in under the receiving doors.” I figured it was just some light seepage. Nope. By 4AM, it’s coming fast. Turns out a pipe burst behind the backroom wall. Within 20 minutes, the backroom was an ankle-deep pool. No one from maintenance was there, and management didn’t answer calls. So we’re out there in the dark, using boxes of old clearance items to try and dam the flow like it’s a warehouse version of The Day After Tomorrow. Then someone panics and says it’s near the electrical panel. Cue immediate freakout. We shut off what we could, started moving pallets, and eventually one of the team leads shows up looking like they just woke up (probably did). It was controlled by around 6AM, but by then everyone’s soaked, freezing, and behind on freight. I’ve had wild shifts, but this one? This one felt like it needed a FEMA response. Anyone else ever had an overnight just go completely sideways like that? #OvernightCrew #WalmartDisasters

The communication between managers and associates at Sam’s Club is so bad that it’s actually the number one factor that hurts the company the most (in my humble opinion). I can give you so many examples, but I will give just one. I’m a meat cutter at Sam’s Club, and I love my job. I think it’s one of the best Sam’s Club jobs if it’s not the best. It doesn’t feel like a burden to me that I have to go to Sam’s Club six days a week. The associates that I’m working with are the best and I fortunately haven’t had any problems with members so far. So, it sounds all good right? But no. At the beginning of the last week, I cut my finger a little bit and I couldn’t hold the kn^^e properly as a result of it. So as you can imagine it affected my performance and the meats that I cut looked slightly different than usual, because you know, it’s not easy when you can’t hold the kn^^e properly with your preferred hand. Anyway, the club manager at my club loves to just inspect different areas around the club, and boy does he love to talk. He can talk to you for minutes, and those minutes can become hours easily. He doesn’t even have to know you, you just need to exist and act like you listen. That would be more than enough for him. As you can imagine, when someone loves talking this much, gossip comes with it automatically. He is the type of person who would talk about a problem with everyone but the source of the problem. I’m telling all of this because this time, I was his victim. He saw the meat that I cut and didn’t say anything to me, but he walked around the entire club talking bad about me. Complaining about the shapes of the meat, saying that we need high quality people who know how to do their job etc. He was also kind enough to complain to my meat lead about me. Thank God that my meat lead is actually a decent human being who already knows all the stuff that I just told you about, but still, he had to come up and check me out. At first, he didn’t see my finger and he said I should be more careful with cutting because recently I didn’t cut properly, and he continued with me not being in any trouble, he just wanted to give me a heads up about it. Then I showed him the status of my finger and he spilled the tea. He said he mostly doesn’t care about what the club manager says but this time he also noticed a difference, that’s why he needed to come talk to me. But I kinda disagree. Because no matter how much you don’t care about what someone says about your associate or your friend, you are eventually influenced by the negative words. Anyway, he apologized, and he said I should have just used PTO. So the moral of the story is, just talk to the person that you think causes the problem, and your problem will stay much smaller.

Can we please get a consistent policy on how to check Walmart+ digital receipts at the door? Every other day we’ve got a customer waving their phone around while AP or a greeter is trying to figure out if it’s legit. Some don’t want to hand over their phones (understandable), others think we should just “know” they paid. It's a mess, and we’re caught in the middle.

We need a test for customers that would determine their fussiness level because I’m done picking up the most random things from the most random places. Bro, why on earth would you leave the t-shirt you tried in the drink aisle? Are you d^mb? I wish I never catch someone doing this kinda bullsh^t because I cannot even imagine the thing I would say to those guys man. I don’t want to think about what their own home looks like because I bet it’s even worse. People are so spoiled that they think someone else will always be there to clean up their mess.

There is this dude who gives smiles to our faces literally every day. He's super funny, talkative and intelligent and he always cracks the best jokes, while also making sure he offends no one. So basically most of the time he just makes jokes on his own expense. My colleague associates and I are really enjoying his energy but there are a few associates who are bitter from their life sucking so much and one day just bursted on him all angry and type shi and it just made me feel bad for him. He didn't really know how to take it as he isn't the person to fight back and I really wonder how to make this right because the last thing I want is not to have him or hist positive energy around anymore.

By posting this I want to remind associates that we are not human beings. We are just robots who have the duty of smiling no matter what. The reason for me to say something like this is the fact that I got coached this morning for not saying welcome to a customer. I'm dead serious. I was zoning and pi^^^d at the reckless associate who left this area like this and that was the moment that I saw this customer walking past me. I said nothing she said nothing and I moved on with my day. After 2 hours my TL called me to see him at the break room and I realized something was wrong. I went there and I felt like I was in an interrogation room and I was interrigated because of a mu^^^r or something. He sat me down and told me that there was a complaint about me. I was like oh sh^t here we go again. He told me that the reason he told me to meet him here was the fact that I didn't say welcome to the customer who walked past me. My crime was making eye contact with her and saying nothing apparently. He told me and I stayed silent for about 5 seconds. In that 5 seconds I thought about every wrong decision that I took in my life and realized that I shouldn't add another one to those wrong decisions by screaming "WHAT THE ACTUAL fu^k?" to this guys face. Then he continued with how it's important for walmart to make its customers welcome. I almost burst out laughing and almost told him that maybe he should try to be friendly to the people who treat him like a piece of garbage. Then he pulled out a coaching form and at that moment I felt like I robbed the store or something. All I did was not clowning for a customer while being in the middle of something. Don't get me wrong I agree that customer service is an important aspect of my job as a front end associate but getting coached for not smiling at a customer while I was doing ANOTHER thing is nasty work. I mean I wish there was an option for me to coach both customers and managers on how to be a better human being. Especially the customers because they really need it. I didn't moan about the problems that I have in the store and the stuff that I have to do because of short staffing until now. The first time I did something "wrong" I got coached. Walmart and its stupid managers did a lot of wrongs to me and I kept my head down and worked. I feel like there is tons of problems at walmart that comes before an associate not smiling at a customer. Fix the management and short staffing problems before you come to me about this nonsense. I don't even talk about the rude customers because it is a known fact that you do nothing about them. You do nothing about protecting your associates from these rude people.

Can we all agree the printer in the backroom is the real villain? I’ve lost so many label sheets to that thing. You feed it in straight, it still finds a way to jam.

I’ve seen tons of posts online where people say Walmart is terrible, but most of them don’t even explain why. I’m just curious what exactly do theydislike about it. I don’t feel the same way and would like to understand where all the hate is coming from.

Hi guys. I just finished my shift and I’m posting this while I’m going home in my fiance’s car. I work at Walmart as a front end associate and I remember coming to this company HYPED. Because it’s my first job, and I’m excited to start my life, you know? I remember feeling like having a party after completing my walmart application. But that changed after 2 weeks on the job. As you can guess or imagine, I went back and forth with a customer and I don’t know if you know this but if you’re a front end associate, talking back to a customer is like talking back to your parent. It’s basically a sin at our store. I don’t know if it’s the same for you guys, I hope not. Because it’s a huge pressure for me not to call out someone for their stupidity. Especially when their stupidity affects my life, at least I need to have the right to complain and stand up for myself a little, you know? And dealing with this on a day to day, feeling restricted on my freedom of speech, that’s not what I signed up for. As a result of all this, whenever I go back home after my shift, I feel like it’s my first day out of prison. Whenever I get to work I have my eyes on the clock. As soon as my shift ends I want to get out of here. I wouldn’t even want to stay if they offered me 3 times more than my salary. As a result, after noticing all of this about my work life, I feel depressed. Let me also add the fact that I spoke to people who worked at different jobs (including walmart) about what to expect as a 9-5 worker, but still, part of me didn't want to believe what they told me. Because I always believed life has to offer us a lot more and we need to take as much as we can. That's just how I feel. Starting this journey of 'living life' is really hard for me and I'm starting to lose hope and change my view as to what life should be, or if we want to be more accurate, what life already is. I mean I don't even know if I expressed myself properly, I just wanted to have a little therapy session online while I'm going home because I had a lot to get off my chest. Anyway, thanks for reading, and good luck

Working OGP Walmart is the most unbalanced job you can find at Walmart. Sometimes you start your shift with a positive atmosphere in the store where almost everyone is energic and in a good mood because they have nothing to stress about. No crazy number of orders in the first hour, everyone is working carefully and helping each other perfectly. Ideal OGP Walmart world where everyone lives happily and easily. There is unfortunately a flip side to that coin. And I lived through the chaos of OGP Walmart once again and I realized that no matter how much I work for this place in this department, I never get used to it. It's a low budget, high affect horror film in 4k. You start your shift with 30 orders in the first hour and you already know it's a sh^t show. Associates fighting and yelling over some bullsh^t, Team Lead demanding more and more, and in the middle of all of this, imagine the poor you just got your first order and trying to find the specific brand of yogurt that no one in the store knows where it is while trying to escape absurd questions from both the customers and fellow associates. That was me yesterday. I was the 'poor you' in this story. I don't know if you know this but there is an unwritten rule at OGP Walmart that I bet almost every associate knows: once you get an order on your device, the time clock starts ticking faster and faster for no fu^^ing reason and yesterday was no different for me. While I was on the search for the stupid yogurt that was ordered by a stupid customer, I was racing against the time, and as you can imagine I was in an extreme hurry. I didn't know what I was seeing, doing, saying, or anything, I was just looking for that damn yogurt and when you are focused on this one thing when you are in a panic mode, you know nothing good will come out. So nothing good came out. I hit the damn stocker who was moving a pallet of milk and I literally thought I broke my fu^^ing knee. As if that wasn't enough, the pr^^k that I hit was screaming on top of me while I was in pain saying that I almost knocked down the entire pallet of milk, I almost got him in trouble, I almost did this did that bla bla. First off, I don't know why the fu^k would someone get mad over something that would have been happened. It didn't happen you fu^^ing id^^t, move on with your life. Isn't it a good thing for you that I actually didn't get you in trouble by knocking down a pallet of milk? Instead, I almost broke my knee. So why are you screaming like a baby? Anyway. This happened yesterday and I can tell you my knee still hurts from that and I carried on like a fu^^ing gladiator like anyone would give me a medal or something. This morning, it was another chaotic time and nature was not on my side either. I was loading up an order to a customer's car and a type of rain that I have never ever and I mean EVER seen in my life started to fall down from the sky all of a sudden. Do you know what the customer did? She just got into her car and left me with all of her groceries. While I was loading sh^t tons of items into her trunk and also trying not to get wet in the rain that was abnormal, she was telling me what item I should be putting, like in what order. I finished loading the items of her majesty and she left. I ran back to the warehouse but it was too fu^^ing late. I was like I went into a pool with my clothes on. I just hope I don't get sick because of this bi^^h. I mean, when I think about it again as I write this post, it was insane. I came across a lot of bi^^hy customers but this one was another level. This was topnotch. This was the Michael Jordan of Karens. I guess it's better to call her the Michelle Jordan of Karens. Anyways folks. As you can see it's NOT easy to be an OGP Walmart associate. May God help all of the Walmart associates but I just hope that he helps the ones who are working at OGP Walmart a little more.

Halfway through my shift, the lights flicker, and then bo^m—total blackout. No emergency lights, no announcements, just darkness and dead silence. We stood in the breakroom with our phones as flashlights until someone finally got the generator running.

No registers, no scanners, and no customers willing to leave. People were wandering with carts like it was a haunted maze. One guy even asked if he could check out “manually.”

Eventually, power came back on, but every system had to be reset. Printers froze, handhelds desynced, and it took another hour just to figure out who clocked in or out.

I’ll never forget the look on the team lead’s face when the deli lights flicked back on like a horror movie jump scare.

Started with an average truck. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then OGP asked for help, three people called out, and the backroom was a war zone before 9PM. We had overstacked pallets that blocked the aisles, a broken jack battery, and the baler filled before midnight.

At one point, a soda pallet collapsed and rolled cans under every shelf. Took 40 minutes just to clean that up, and right after that I got pulled to backup. Came back and half my freight was gone—restocked by someone in the wrong aisles.

No one was communicating. Claims was short, apparel was behind, and every five minutes it was “hey can you check this real quick?”

By the end of the night I was dizzy, covered in dust, and still had to close out a damaged pallet report. Shift ended. Truck wasn’t done. Just another overnight where survival was the only goal.

There is this associate at my store who caught the flu last week and his a^s is so damn professional, he didn’t use any PTO or PPTO. I mean I don’t even know what is ppto at this point because nobody seems to use them anymore at my store. So anyway, that’s not my main problem, my main problem is that the sick associate who insisted on coming to work no matter what, eventually made other people sick. This mf started a mini pandemic at my store. Everybody started coughing and all that and as far as I know, 3 people had to leave early, other than me. I’m posting this from my bed rn and I feel terrible. I hate everyone who played a part in me to get sick. I cannot express with words how much I hate to get sick but here I am. I can’t even have the power to leave the fu^^ing bed because of the flu which had nothing to do with me. Brother, why was it so hard for you to use the damn PTO? Now you made us all sick because of your stupid obsession with work. I know you have enough PTO to just get the fu^k out of the store for 2 days. So my message is, if you are sick, even if it’s not too hard for you for now, PLEASE stay home. Just because you are having it easy doesn’t mean that other people will have it easy too. Don’t be a selfish fu^k, just stay in.

There was this guy at the register today who was clearly upset with his wife about something. He was insulting her from left to right for no obvious reason. I don't know what happened between them and at first, I didn't want to intervene because it's none of my business. After I finished packing their items, he made her carry the bags. That was the final point for me. I told him "Sir, do you think a gentleman would make his wife carry the bags?" and he said he didn't know and didn't care too. Then I told her "Ma'am, I'm sure there are a lot of men who would carry your bags and treat you way better than this guy" and then he freaked out and started a rant that took him a few minutes to finish. He kept yelling their relationship is none of my business. I didn't care for a minute. Then the TL heard what was happening and finally came in and tried to calm him down then made him leave the store. EVERYONE in the store was trying to understand what was happening. Normally I would feel embarrassed in these kinds of situations but this time, with the comfort of doing the right thing, I didn't care at all. After all of this, my TL pulled me to the side and gave me my first coaching at Walmart, talking about how we need to respect people's private lives even though we think it's inappropriate. I mean I don't even care if they fire me. I know that I did the right thing so it's all good.

There is this customer who seems to have not hit the adult status in his brain even tho he hit it in his body. He always comes 15 minutes before we close and tries to shop in the most isolated aisles. One time I caught him trying to sneak into some bottom shelf. We think that he is trying to stay in after we close and have a home alone experience or something. I don’t know what the he^l is wrong with him and I don’t know why he thinks that we don’t notice what he is up to even tho he uses the same playbook every single day.