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Post Info TOPIC: Thinking about jumping ship to Wal-Mart


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Thinking about jumping ship to Wal-Mart
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With the seasonal needs here, my local Wal-Mart may or may not need additional workers.
Since I have been a courtesy clerk with Kroger for nearly ten months, and had to be on parking lot duty at least once per day on average per shift, I am thinking about seeing if they need help with Lot areas. I think they have a Lot Attendant (unlike Kroger which takes advantage of us CCs to do the job with no extra pay or thanks). And a Lot Supervisor or whatever, I really don't know the hierarchy.

I make $7.25 an hour. This week I had 19.75 hours. I pulled $112 last week and am praying I make at least $100 this week.
Surely Wal-Mart can offer me a higher salary (not much more but still higher), a more specific job, better hours and better respect.

Has anyone worked for Wal-Mart before?
I read so many horror stories online...but then again I was ignorant and clueless of Kroger and how screwed up IT is before I applied.
Now I know how they really work and that, in my local store at least, Front End runs more on ignorance than logic.

All I want is to make at least a lousy $600 - $800 a month, and anything higher would be welcomed.
With Kroger I am lucky if I make $500 a month. I don't even bother adding up my paychecks because it would make me too damned depressed, and I get that enough from this company already.

Even if I don't go into their parking lot duty, at least I may have a chance of better pay, hours, respect and sanity...



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FrontEndSlave wrote:

With the seasonal needs here, my local Wal-Mart may or may not need additional workers.
Since I have been a courtesy clerk with Kroger for nearly ten months, and had to be on parking lot duty at least once per day on average per shift, I am thinking about seeing if they need help with Lot areas. I think they have a Lot Attendant (unlike Kroger which takes advantage of us CCs to do the job with no extra pay or thanks). And a Lot Supervisor or whatever, I really don't know the hierarchy.

I make $7.25 an hour. This week I had 19.75 hours. I pulled $112 last week and am praying I make at least $100 this week.
Surely Wal-Mart can offer me a higher salary (not much more but still higher), a more specific job, better hours and better respect.

Has anyone worked for Wal-Mart before?
I read so many horror stories online...but then again I was ignorant and clueless of Kroger and how screwed up IT is before I applied.
Now I know how they really work and that, in my local store at least, Front End runs more on ignorance than logic.

All I want is to make at least a lousy $600 - $800 a month, and anything higher would be welcomed.
With Kroger I am lucky if I make $500 a month. I don't even bother adding up my paychecks because it would make me too damned depressed, and I get that enough from this company already.

Even if I don't go into their parking lot duty, at least I may have a chance of better pay, hours, respect and sanity...


 If you want more than $100-150 a week then leave retail altogether and get a job in a factory, a warehouse, or an office. You MIGHT be able to be a general custodian for an office. Take out trash, sweep floors, clean the breakroom. And they usually pay decent non-hourly money for this. Think a fixed income of about $200 a week. Factory jobs... Well you hear people whine about how they all disappeared, but there's still a lot of them. They're very simple, boring, long hour jobs that pay in the $8-12 in my area at least. Don't be afraid of fancy words like "CNC" or "fabricator apprentice." Factory jobs are rarely posted online or in papers because they get filled easily. Lots of potential to move up in a factory. Last is warehouse work. Think about what your DSD clerk does, multiply it by 4, and that's about what a warehouse job is. Throwing boxes onto pallets, loading pallets onto trailers, unloading pallets, storing them inna certain place. Warehouse jobs pay about the same as basic factory jobs. They are in high demand as Christmas is coming soon. Lots of staffing agencies will offer temp warehouse positions like 3 months/6 months/12 months. Go in and apply, but beware that you're basically useless if you can't drive a forklift.



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Anonymous

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do it. your current coworkers would be so happy



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I'm with Lord UBoat on this. There is absolutely nothing I can recommend about retail work of any kind, any where, these days. Walmart? Up until, I'd say maybe three years ago.....sure. It was still a potentially good deal. But now----like so many other jobs----it's only suited for school kids and retirees.

One alternate trade I've been pushing for quite awhile is truck driving. I'f your DMV record is clean and you're in relatively good health, it is almost NOTHING to get a CDL. And jobs start out on an average of 45--50 K/yr, at least in the mid west.

Also, check your area for the local contractor's unions; plumbers/steam fitters, welders, roofers, masons, etc., all hold occasional testing for union apprentices.

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Anonymous wrote:

do it. your current coworkers would be so happy


 Wow anon you are such a happy little camper aren't you?



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nocturnia wrote:

I'm with Lord UBoat on this. There is absolutely nothing I can recommend about retail work of any kind, any where, these days. Walmart? Up until, I'd say maybe three years ago.....sure. It was still a potentially good deal. But now----like so many other jobs----it's only suited for school kids and retirees.

One alternate trade I've been pushing for quite awhile is truck driving. I'f your DMV record is clean and you're in relatively good health, it is almost NOTHING to get a CDL. And jobs start out on an average of 45--50 K/yr, at least in the mid west.

Also, check your area for the local contractor's unions; plumbers/steam fitters, welders, roofers, masons, etc., all hold occasional testing for union apprentices.


 See if your area has a decorators union.  I used to work for them and it's great if you can get in and get work, it's hard to get started here though. They set up trade shows on Thursday and Friday then break it down on Monday and Tuesday.  Part time work and it pays $25,000 a year here.  I'm thinking about getting back in. It's hard physical labor some days though.   



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Trucking?
Be careful just who you work for then. Some companies treat their drivers like absolute S H I T. I know that happens in every industry but still.

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Walmart pays more but if you need insurance or think you'll need insurance, then stay are Kroger or find another job with those benefits. Wal mart offered to pay me 4$ more an hour for a similar position, but I couldn't take it because that entire difference + some would be going to paying private insurance.

In fact, when the local walmart opened up about 5 years ago, they came scouting into our Kroger offering jobs with higher pay and more hours to virtually all current employees. We lost about 30 of them to their recruiting.


Is there a distribution center near you? Those jobs are hard physical work, but the pay and benefits are quite good. Here a picker starts at 14$ an hour with full benefits and full time, and within 5 years is making over 22 an hour with yearly bonuses.

We just had a bagger of 10 years quit & get a job at the DC.

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I don't think what you're looking for you're going to find at Walmart. Are there any other retail stores/chains within reasonable distance to you? Or any other Kroger stores? It might amaze you how different one Kroger store can be from another. If you can transfer to one with good people, both at the management level and hourly associate level, and you work hard, you can work your way up to cashier and from there, self check out and Customer Care, and from there, floor supervisor, and perhaps even bookkeeping. Do you really want to just continue to push carts, when you could be gaining valuable experience in other areas, that could be used to your advantage for future job opportunities?



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If you really wanted to make that much money, you'd be best working at the HIGHER end of retail, at the least.

A friend of mine works at Nordstrom and is paid $16/hour in floor sales. She also gets to keep commission ON TOP of that base pay. And with the upcoming shopping season, she'll be able to easily make $25 to $30.


But, the thing is, those often required some form of prior experience in retail (my friend used to be a cashier) and are often filled by women or those men with a lot of feminine side to them. The burly men people are often at the receiving dock unloading the stuff. xD

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NutritionWhore wrote:

If you really wanted to make that much money, you'd be best working at the HIGHER end of retail, at the least.

A friend of mine works at Nordstrom and is paid $16/hour in floor sales. She also gets to keep commission ON TOP of that base pay. And with the upcoming shopping season, she'll be able to easily make $25 to $30.


But, the thing is, those often required some form of prior experience in retail (my friend used to be a cashier) and are often filled by women or those men with a lot of feminine side to them. The burly men people are often at the receiving dock unloading the stuff. xD


 Thank you! Pretty much all the estrogen is on the sales floor and the testosterone is either in the receiving dock or acting as security.



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If you want to make the big bucks, though, you should look into bottom-side retail. By which I mean prostitution. Then you could call yourself BackEndSlave!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHAHAHAHAaaaaaAaa!

Okay but seriously though, pretty sure a life of crime and degradation is the way to go.

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Anonymous

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NutritionWhore wrote:

If you really wanted to make that much money, you'd be best working at the HIGHER end of retail, at the least.

A friend of mine works at Nordstrom and is paid $16/hour in floor sales. She also gets to keep commission ON TOP of that base pay. And with the upcoming shopping season, she'll be able to easily make $25 to $30.


But, the thing is, those often required some form of prior experience in retail (my friend used to be a cashier) and are often filled by women or those men with a lot of feminine side to them. The burly men people are often at the receiving dock unloading the stuff. xD


 If you're a dude working at Nordy's you need to be metro'd out.  My cousins (both female) worked there and made great money, but quit because of stress. 

If your only working twenty hours a week, get a second job. 

I've heard ok things about target.  Try to go for more than carts.  Cashier, stocker, whatever.



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Anonymous

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I worked at Walmart before I worked at Kroger; and from the description of your current state, it would be no improvement. When I worked at Walmart the "courtesy associates" (cart pushers) started at $7.25 too; they were under the supervision of the customer service managers/front end directly. It was very chaotic to work there and especially weekends were "pinball" days where I would end up in 6 or more departments or spots throughout the day sometime going back and forth within 5 minutes. Most of the days I could tell what I'd be doing by which managers were in that day, which is anything but my actual position. I was hired as a sporting goods sales associate and during my time there I unloaded those trucks and did inventory control for ~40% of the time, cashiering 40%, and grocery most of the rest. During my time there the only thing I didn't work was the deli. If you have a cash register operator number you will be cashiering most of your time. Also it was a somewhat hostile environment to work in, they have a lot of managers with equal authority over you and several times they would argue in front of me about where to have me and then how am I supposed to know which one to follow? I also had a particular manager lie to me over and over. On the positive side though, some of the managers are actually good and it was almost impossible to get fired. Many folks don't care at all how the store works, e.g. in inventory control if we couldn't find a case on the picklists we would enter the upc number manually to show that we did actually pick it so the store wouldn't get in trouble, but that would very much screw up the on-hands; but no one cared. You can leave 10 minutes early or come in 10 minutes late without consequence. I eventually left because I got sick of the bouncing around and when January comes they cut hours like crazy. December you might get 40+ hours a week, but once January came I was down to 4 hours a week for the whole month. What remaining full-time floor associates they have were at about 15 hours the whole month and didn't improve in February.

Now I work for Kroger and am much happier, but I work in the manufacturing division. The non-retail side of Kroger isn't actually too bad, like DeltaGrocery says. I don't know how the other plants operate so I'll use mine as an example. The bottom rate at our plant is $13.25 and every position is full-time w/benefits, and no customers. And for that bottom job, 75% of it is standing around twiddling your thumbs if you want to. The only thing is that sometimes the overtime requirements get people, so its not for people who want no more that 40 hrs/wk and always have free Saturdays. But most other positions pay $17/hr or more. E.g. at 57 hours last week I grossed $1066. Our plant's hours are very secure, I've been here about a year now and the only time I worked less than 40 hrs was for holidays, but I get holiday pay so don't care; so I've never grossed less than about $525 in a week. There are plenty of overtime opportunities so it is easy to make about $200 or more a day doing a 12 hr. shift, and a minimum of 1 hr those 12 hours are spent on break. There are no lunch breaks, even during 12 hrs. You get 2 20 min. breaks for 8 hrs and 3 20 min breaks plus 1 10 min break for 12 hrs. I like this as it means I don't have to be there 9 hrs or something and only get paid for 8. There are absolutely repercussions or hesitation about someone getting overtime. I don't get bounced around too much, you're not supposed to work another position if you aren't trained for it, but it still happens every now and then.

So maybe the manufacturing side of Kroger might be something to consider if you have one of their plants around.



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Anonymous

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Edit: There are absolutely no repercussions or hesitation about someone getting overtime.



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