Wal-Mart: I Am History, But Proud I Worked There

On Saturday, I worked my last shift at Wal-Mart. It was time. My body, working two physical jobs was giving out and I needed a break. Though, I am pretty sure, by summer time, I will be kicked out of the house by the wife and kids because I am home too much.
I am proud that I did work at Wal-Mart for two and half years. I learned a lot of private business and how a huge business works.
First, our store, at Boulder Hwy and Nellis, in Vegas, does over $60 million dollars business a year. That is more money than many companies on the nation's stock exchanges. For that, we have to be proud.
Second, it is not easy working at Wal-Mart. Whether you are a cashier, truck unloader, stocker or work in the various departments, it is a physical job. Not many people can work these jobs. Especially the truck unloaders. Most days, they have to unload between 1800 and 4000 cases of food and general merchandise products and at Christmas time, the number of cases increases up to 7000 cases a day. There are usually between 5-7 people unloading the truck. On the food side, the night shift stockers have to stock between 2000 and 3000 cases of food a night. It is back breaking work and a lot of repetition. But, somehow, the work gets done.
Yes, Wal-Mart employees at the store level do not get paid a lot of money. They do get reasonable health insurance, despite what the naysayers say. There are also other benefits that Wal-Mart offers, to numerous to mention.
Is Wal-Mart a perfect place, of course not. If you were interested in moving on up the company ladder, you have to impress people and when that happens, sometimes people act stupid. Everyone wants to impress the next level of management and sometimes they come up with stupid ideas. So many times, one supervisor would say one thing and the next shift supervisor would change it.
And the distribution centers are the worst, even though they have some of the highest paid laborers Wal-Mart has. The distribution centers in McCarren NV. and Apple Valley, CA. have to employ workers who flunked out of clown college. So many times a truck would pull into our store and the pallets would be tipped over, things would be leaking or other bad things. I have had tendons that were torn off my arms because of the distribution centers and I have hurt my back because of these idiots.
But the people I worked with at our store, for the most part are top notch, from the store manager, to the assistants to the janitors were great to work with. I feel more comfortable with them than with most of the teachers I work with at my teaching job. But I am more blue collar than white collar. Sometimes, you would see a friend taken out in handcuffs because they decided to steal from the store, but for the most part, the people were genuinely nice and honest.
So, good luck to my former colleagues and look forward to seeing you again.