Life at Wal-Mart | Hacker News Reader

Life at Wal-Mart

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125 pointslackbeard55 comments

Its so annoying to me that many people (esp in Bay Area) loath Wal-Mart, and then turn around and gush over how cheap they got this or that crappy chinese made product for at Target.

Both are massive big box retailers, both threaten smaller businesses by discounts and volume. Both pay their employees entry level low wages.

Target def has better marketing and gives money to school. But that hardly accounts for the difference in opinions people hold for the two companies. Its nice to see some other opinions about these companies.

Agreed. And I'd say this thing about WalMart is better: I think there is more of a path at WalMart for people moving from the floor, to management, to corporate. Target doesn't seem to intend any floor jobs to lead to anything. They seem to court part-time people, be it part-time students, senior citizens, etc.

I prefer products from Target over Walmart because they tend to be better designed and higher quality. Walmart is great when you want something really cheap, though, and quality isn't really a concern.

Seems more like Target has better looking products, especially home decor stuff, but it breaks just as much. Walmart has stuff of fine quality if you don't buy the absolute cheapest coffeemaker they sell.

def agree, I prefer Target because they seem to have better designed products and a sense of style. However, I'm fully aware that both companies operate a ruthlessly efficient business focused on maximum volume to drive down costs, and beneath the marketing they are very similar.

for the purposes of a conversation about loathing, i think you're presenting a false equivalence here. in such subjective terms it's hard not to admit that despite whatever flaws it may have, target has at least not had books written and movies made [1] about their misdeeds.

[1] on amazon, "target" had one result on the first page related to the company that was positive, whereas with walmart the second result is " How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It" and it doesn't really improve from there

Target isn't as big as Walmart. When making a book or movie I expect a person to attack the largest company to make their point.

People attack the giant and the giant is Wal-Mart. They are bad because they are golliath.

The truth is, they provide one stop shopping for millions of customers who previously had to drive to many different stores to buy groceries, clothes and other household items -- and gas too!

In this way, not only does wal-mart save customers money, but they also save them time. This is true of Target, et al as well, but my point is that Wal-Mart does good things for a lot of people.

Exactly, everyone with their knives out end up going for the biggest target. Same story with McDonald's, which gets dissed at every turn [1] while Burger King doesn't have to deal with any of that baggage and can happily, you know, sell burgers.

1 - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28967905/

MCD is still doing really well for itself despite the critics. The food there now is much better than I remember it being in years past. I have a lot of respect for how they handled the whole Super Size Me thing.

It's kind of sad that people would break up that statue like that. Regardless of your opinion of MCD, the Ronald McDonald house does a lot of good things for a lot of people.

My main beef with Walmart is the service. Fry's and Walmart are the only 2 big stores in America I frequent where service is this bad.

Target is much better. Compare returning an item or disputing the scanned price with Walmart; it's night and day.

I've been defending Wal-Mart (not that they need my help) against idiots ever since I work there. People never consider the alternative. Wal-Mart may pay little, but the stores they replaced pay less. One Wal-Mart may use a lot of electricity, but the 20 stores they replace would have used more. And so on and so forth.

It's very easy to look at Wal-Mart in a vacuum and call it an atrocity, but when you compare it to the real world alternatives, it's one of the best things to ever happen to America.

This is partly based on stuff said in the BB thread:

Wal-mart might treat it's employees better, but it's cut-throat treatment of suppliers forces them to cut their (the suppliers') employee treatment to the bone. When walmart might jump ship on sourcing from you (their purchasers are known to have zero loyalty) because it costs you $0.25 more per decorative lamp than the guy using questionable labor practices, you don't really have a choice on what to do. That $0.25 might mean very little to a small main-street (to beat the dead-horse) store, but to a company that does billions of decorative lamp sales a year, that's a ton of money.

So, sure, Walmart employees might be treated fine, but the people actually producing the goods walmart sells (their non-service, indirectly employeed workers) are hurting.

In theory, if that becomes a big enough hole, the market should rectify it on its own.

You can already go to Starbucks and buy $10/lb 'Fair Trade' coffee, and many 'hip' brands (American Apparel comes to mind) trade on their humane wages and treatment of workers.

I'm not saying it's a complete solution (some of the costs are still likely being externalized, although that's more a problem in the case of pollution than labor), but in general when a savings is made because of a negative externality (it's 'costing' others, instead of the just the buyers), a 'non-negative' version will spring up, and sell for a handy markup.

Sometimes the invisible hand gives you the finger; I'm willing to wager that in a lot of these cases you end up with massive barriers to entry, and so once a company gets shuttered or pushed out competitively it will take years and years before a suitable replacement appears.

Not that I have any good ideas on how to make the subject better.

on the flipside, you also have access to a company with many multiples the distribution than your average mom and pop, so while they may not care about $0.25, you're also not going to be selling a lot to them. closing a wal-mart purchase, though, means you are going to be selling a lot of whatever it is that you make.

But did all the 20 stores they replaced bash workers' unions? (Downmod me for asking - like I care).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallmart#Employee_and_labor_rel...

Probably not, but they were also too small to be effectively unionized in the first place.

The only conclusion I would take from this article is that a dull and low paying Wal-Mart job is not too bad when you're there mainly to satisfy your curiosity about the place and you can go back to your regular job as the section editor of a magazine whenever you feel like.

Adam Shepard is mentioned casually at the end. Adam voluntarily placed himself in a homeless shelter and 'made' it out.

Old and good thread about Adam Shepard: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116079

Of course. If you're not a felon, you're not a drug addict, and you're in good health, escaping a homeless shelter is pretty easy. [1] There are people (some of whom are my friends) who have full-time jobs trying to help people get out! [2] And there are a lot of incentives to leave. Nobody enjoys the homeless-shelter experience.

Almost all of the people who are chronic residents of homeless shelters have health problems (often, specifically, mental health problems), are current or former drug addicts, or have spent time in prison.

These problems tend to feed on each other. Mentally ill people often manifest erratic behavior that gets them sent to prison. Drug addicts get arrested and sent to prison. Prisons are a great place to be introduced to life as a drug addict, and can exacerbate certain mental illnesses. And sick people often attempt to relieve their own symptoms with drugs (a popular choice: alcohol). The technical term for the latter behavior is "self-medication", and it's a classic route by which an otherwise well-off person can get sucked into the poverty spiral.

Meanwhile, it also doesn't surprise me that a white, male, healthy, educated person with independent means and an active online life can really enjoy working at Wal-Mart. Slumming can be fun. Every grad student knows that. I'm told by reliable witnesses, however, that actual chronic poverty is an entirely different ball of wax.

---

[1] Note, of course, that "escaping a homeless shelter" is not at all the same thing as "escaping poverty". Being homeless is only one of the more desperate forms of poverty. There are many others.

[2] One of the key skills for escaping homelessness: The ability to fill out forms. Social workers spend a lot of their time just helping people stay patient while sitting on hold, send in applications, get to appointments on time... It's easy to forget, from our perspective as high-end employees of the knowledge economy, that not all of our fellow humans are born with the requisite knowledge and patience to do these things. And that you and I are exactly one stroke or car accident away from losing those skills.

Great post.

I think one of the few possible solutions to crime and poverty problems is having more volunteers doing exactly what you noted - helping fill out forms, getting people to appointments, etc. Unfortunately currently a lot of the load is taken by emergency services dealing with issues arising from these people not having the help they need.

Another point about homeless shelters is that it is only a small percentage of the homeless that stayed in them.

I know that when I was homeless, I stayed away from homeless shelters for the vast majority of my time in any city, except for when I was entirely new to the city. I opted for staying in abandoned places and couch-surfing, as staying in the shelters is really hit-and-miss. Your few (and important) possessions are not safe,they often try to shove religion down your throat, and a lot of the people staying at the shelter are the mentally-unstable type of homeless.

You were homeless? What's your story (if you don't mind sharing)?

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich was first published in 2001 so presumably she worked at Walmart sometime before that.

So life at Wal-Mart may have changed since then. Also, he should have worked at the same Wal-Mart to help control for location.

Also, Ehrenreich didn't just work at a Wal-Mart - her focus was on trying to make ends meet on a minumum wage. She tried finding an apartment and a lifestyle that she could afford on a Wal-Mart paycheck.

Since this blogger talks about going home from work and looking some things up on his computer, I'm guessing that he didn't try to replicate her experiment faithfully.

I worked for Wal-Mart (via Sam's Club) from 98-2001, and it was certainly like this that entire time. And from what I knew from the friends who worked there from the late '80s, it hadn't changed much.

If there was ever a time when Wal-Mart wasn't as good a place to work as it is now, it was before 99% of their current employees started.

I worked in the electronics department of the Walmart in Moscow, ID one summer during college. I liked it much better than my previous (and first) job as a box boy at Albertsons. The pay was reasonable for someone of my age and ability, and helped to fund my college education.

I was really surprised to read that every employee had access to profit margin data.

Kudos to Wal-Mart for a level of decentralization and transparency many startups and high tech companies don't even achieve!

Please elaborate on what you mean by decentralization.

I guess he means that Walmart floor employees can place products to maximize their local profit margin since they know what sells well at their store.

Not exactly. Most of the store layout comes down from corporate, where it is determined via a series of tests. They're truly amazing at optimizing sales by merchandising. Employees don't really choose what goes where.

Keeping score here: At the branch where I worked, all the lowest-level employees were allowed this information and were encouraged to make individual decisions about inventory.

I guess that means it's either a lie, a difference in local management, or true but misleading?

It's possible he meant they simply had the ability to control the number of items ordered for inventory, rather than their placement or marketing.

If the floor employee knows what is selling, it makes sense to let them hit the 'reorder this' button.

But this is entirely conjecture on my part.

Well, it's not even so much that. In general, corporate actually knows better than the local guy how many of an item are selling, they see it in the reports. Local guys don't have any better information.

Local guys don't control pricing either, in general. That too is set by corporate.

What was common, and I think what he may have been talking about, was employees discounting things for certain people. That's the only time I can think of when you'd look at profit margins. Maybe something placed in clearance, or resold open box after a return. Or, for instance, we'd give our bigger clients a discount on bulk orders of printer paper if they asked. Paper was pretty close to a loss leader anyway, so we'd sell it at "cost" or maybe even very slightly below.

The other thing that's ambiguous about what he said (and Wal-Mart's numbers in general) is exactly how they compute margins. Wal-Mart runs their own distribution chain, so unlike a mom and pop, who simply buys a product for a set price including delivery, Wal-Mart buys the product for a lower price and deals with getting it to the stores themselves.

So they pad their "cost" as seen by the employees by some amount to account for the supply chain, which can include a profit, or so I was told. Meaning that a store could still sell an item at what they consider cost, but corporate Wal-Mart might still make money on it.

Also, the lowest level employees are not empowered to change prices, though the supervisors (next to lowest level) generally can. However it's very common for the average floor person to ask the supervisor "hey can I sell this to this guy for $x because it's open box and I need that space for the new seasonal products tomorrow anyway" and the supervisor to simply approve it.

Wal-Mart pays generous bonuses to stores for achieving certain profit amounts, so employees, knowing the margin, are encouraged to not dip below it where possible. Otherwise for all an employee cared, he'd sell everything for $1.

This is so cool, and great to hear.

I've never quite understood the anti-Walmart sentiment. What do people have against low prices? Poorer people can afford to buy (or save) more if they are fortunate enough to have a Walmart nearby.

One reason to despise the retailer: Walmart has recently been lobbying congress to raise minimum wage.

If successful, this could force more small businesses to go under because they cannot afford to pay their employees more, but Walmart can. And they know it.

I hear this logic about low prices being good for poor people all the time, and I can never understand it. If prices are low because labor is cheap, then it seems that the employer/merchant will always make out. It's simple math. Try applying your logic to every wage earner in the world. If a price is reduced by 10% because wages are reduces by 20%, then the employee loses 10%. Sure they can buy everything they need 10% cheaper, but they lost 20% of their pay check. This only helps two types of consumers, investors and people on welfare.

You're assuming that prices are lower because somebody lowered the wages of his employees. Generally speaking, prices go lower because someone finds a way to optimize his supply chain, or a more efficient way to build a product, or by investing in automation. Lowering your prices by giving your employees a pay cut just makes the employees look for new jobs.

You could also argue that that's merely cutthroat business. If Walmart gets its way, small businesses suffer, but employees are suddenly at an advantage. And Walmart, which is large enough to afford that, is fine with helping its employees when it also means removing competition.

Manufacturing is not much better. I worked in a lot of mfg companies during college. Starting pay with either at or a little above minimum wage.

There is no easy fix. Companies don't stay in business by paying people more than they are "worth" in economic terms.

Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for every other one.

It surprised me at how many college grads were working in a mfg plant (on the floor, not in management, engineering, etc). However, a lot had history, poli sci, or econ degrees. It was a short term job that turned into a long term one because of kids, marriage, etc.

"However, a lot had history, poli sci, or econ degrees."

It may turn out that history, political science, and economics degrees felt like investments but actually were consumption.

>Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for every other one.

"...that has been tried." This is a crucial part because, I am sure, you can devise a better system - in your head! In fact, it seems to be happening as we speak.

Unfortunately, It's hard to defend Wal-Mart for all the good they do when they insist on lobbying local councils for direct subsidies or tax breaks, often taking money from their small competitors.

Here's another vigorous refutation of Ehrenreich's 'Nickel and Dimed' mindset:

http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2004_07/lamon-poor.html

Yeah, 'vigorous' is about the nicest word I can think of to describe it... :)

People who can barely make ends meet should move to the sun belt to save on clothing? If you can't afford the deposit on an apartment, it's your own fault, because people have bailed on a lease before? Huh?

But if you get past the overall obnoxiousness, though, he does actually have some good points.

Migration has, over thousands of years, been the most effective antipoverty program.

So yes, if you "can barely make ends meet" in a cold expensive place with no jobs, you should move to a warmer cheaper place with jobs. Steal bus fare, if you must.

Yes, that would be a good argument, but that wasn't the one made in the article. Ehrenreich had a job in Minnesota, which is slightly cheaper to live in than Phoenix, by most standards. Should she still have moved?

It was not that Ehrenreich "had a job in Minnesota". She chose the twin cities for her experiment. Here's the passage where she describes the deep thinking of her selection process:

I had thought for months of going to Sacramento or somewhere else in California's Central Valley not far from Berkeley, where I'd spent the spring. But warnings about the heat and the allergies put me off, not to mention my worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves, as they so often do. Don't ask me why Minnesota came to mind, maybe I just had a yearning for deciduous trees. It's a relatively liberal state, I knew that, and more merciful than many to its welfare poor. A half and hour or so of Web research revealed an agreeably tight labor market, with entry-level jobs advertised at $8 an hour or more and studio apartments for $400 or less. If some enterprising journalist wants to test the low-wage way of lif if darkest Idaho or Louisiana, more power to her. Call me gutless, but what I was looking for this time around was a comfortable correspondence between income and rent, a few mild adventures, a soft landing.

At least she did 30 minutes of web research!

(If you read the chapter, you also see Ehrenreich chooses Wal-Mart at $7/hour over another retail job she was offered that paid at least $8.50 and perhaps $10/hour. It's page after page of her shooting herself in the foot so she has something to complain about.)

Also, the critique by Lamon does not suggest Phoenix but rather "the Sun Belt", which includes many of the cheapest places to live in the United States.

He has some good points, but not many. Mostly he tries to rebut the Ehrenreich book with dismissive language and vague, anecdotal experiences, including comparing war-torn Korea with a modern state. He has his own agenda-axe to grind.

While this is just one data point, it is refreshing to see a business journalist actually reporting based on first-hand experience.

I can speak from personal experience in a newsroom that surprisingly few business journalists have ever actually worked in business in any form.

Some of the things described in this article shows that wal-mart is implementing lean mfg ideas (or lean retail, rather).

You point out something that is incredibly interesting. Walmart is a juggernaut of capitalism, but all we generally hear about is how evil they are.

I bet they have some business practices that are worth learning about, other than the oft-heard about exploitation of their workers.

As an aside, I've known a few people who have worked at Walmart and they preferred it to a lot of jobs they'd held previously.

I wonder how much Walmart adjusts working conditions to the local job market. Things like high turnover have significant real costs and adjusting the the local job market could save them massive amounts of money. There also seems to be significant differences in the quality of the store depending on the local economy.

EX: I walked though a Wallmart in Arlington VA that seemed to be struggling where the Wallmart in Charles Town WV was thriving. I expect they lose out on the "high end" items like HDTV's and high quality items when people have more options and cash.

>> Most of all, my coworkers wanted to avoid those “mom-and-pop” stores beloved by social commentators

I am suspicious of this writer & his agenda & the possibility of confusing the fun of slumming it with the fun of feeling trapped in minimum paying jobs(mentioned here previously). But the above quote plays to my other suspicions. It goes also for McDonalds, Nestle, Nike & any other pet hate companies. They are under so much scrutiny, that they can't get away with what a lot of the small companies can get away with.

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