10 YEARS......I Can't Believe It!

My trials and tribulations as a Wal-Mart Associate...
Today August 29,2007 marks my 10 year anniversary with Wal-Mart.Yep you read it right 10 years. I can hardly believe myself. When I started with Wal-Mart 10 years ago it was only a part time job to help me pay for my extras while I was in school. My mom and dad paid for my school, my books , my insurance on my car and most of my other expenses. I had to pay for my gas and well anything extra I wanted out of life. Basically my shopping addiction, that I still have. Which in turn meant my credit card bills, yes foolishly when I turned 18 I applied for not one but two credit cards and they both approved me. Now I didn't have a very high credit limit but it was still enough for me to want use them often. Getting back to Wal-Mart...

Some of you might say really Wal-Mart for 10 years. All in all it has been a very good company to work for. Yes Wal-Mart has gotten some really bad press over the past few years, but for me myself I have not experienced anything to terrible while working for this company. They really have been very accommodating when it comes to my schedule and my days off I couldn't ask for anything better. As far as extra time off and vacations that's also been good.But don't get me wrong I've had my fair share of bad days at work but I've also had a lot of really good days where I actually do like my job.

Tonight for instance it was one of the okay days. I managed to make it through the night only making two customers get upset with me. Now for those of you who don't know it but I am a CSM ie. Customer Service Manager, a front end supervisor if you will. One customer was trying to return a paper shredder with no receipt. She claimed she bought only a month ago and it just stopped working today. You should have seen this thing I mean it was obvious it was more than a month old. She had got too much paper jammed in it and used scissors to get it out well most of it. Doing this she managed to get huge scratches all over the top of it and on the inside of it near the blades. Also the trash can it came with looked like it had shredded about a million papers. This was not one of those heavy duty ones either. It was just a one of those ones that was supposed to be used not everyday and not for hundreds of papers at a time. The cost was $49.88. I told the woman I could not return it, without a receipt. She had to have proof of purchase, proof that it was in fact only a month old and not one year old like it looked.Now I didn't say those exact words to her but I was thinking all of this and the associate at the service desk was also thinking the same thing. Needless to say she was not happy with me. She told myself and the associate at customer service that we could just keep the piece of crap merchandise.

I know some of you will probably have different views on how I should or could have handled this situation, one of you being my husband. He seems have a different opinion on how I should have handle a lot of my customers. And that okay because every one's entitled to their own opinion. But in my 10 years at Wal-Mart I have been a CSM for about 4 of those years. In those four years I have had my fair share of customers who just use and abuse their merchandise and just try and bring it in to return, even though they've had it for like two years. And we all know Wal-Mart's return policy is 90 days just like Target's but some how it's just supposed to be different.

A journey through my career...

When I first started with the company in 1997 in Northern California I was a sales floor associate in the Men's Department. That only lasted through the Holidays, then I became a cashier. After being a cashier for about 5 months I was promoted to CSM. I did that for the next year and then that's when we moved across the country to Virginia. When I started in Sterling I was immediately promoted to the Head CSM position. I did that for a little over a year and at that point in my career I was ready to quit. I had had enough of the mean and nasty customers. I had been yelled at and cussed at enough.Then the position of Personnel Manager opened up so I applied for it and I got the job. I remained in that position for nearly four years. I ended having to leave that position because of our new district manager. I had been working at night for about nine months since I had returned from maternity leave after having Jacob. Our new district manager thought that I should be working during the day, only there was my training coordinator who was doing that. At that point I left Personnel and went to the one hour photo lab. I was really ready for something different. I was in the photo lab and absolutely loving it and after I was there for about nine months, we decided to move. This meant transferring again to another Wal-Mart. And this where I am now, for almost two years now I have been back in the CSM position. I can tell you that it's the same as it was nearly 5 years ago but it's also different in a lot of ways. One way that it's different in a good way is there are not as many mean and hateful customers out this way.

In the 10 years that I have been with Wal-Mart I have been through eight store managers. This is possibly one of the hardest things to adjust to. Sterling has the worst record of all. I was there just over six years and had five Store Managers. Right after I left there they got another Store Manager. From what I have been told by a friend who is still there, at this point and time they are again without a store manager.

I know that this is by far my longest blog yet and hopefully not my most boring. For those of you who did not know much about me now you know just a little bit more. Well about my last 10 years at Wal-Mart. I can't believe that I was 20 when I started there. Some days I feel like I have been with the company for 20 years,but that's not possible. I know that I will not make another 10. I hope to some day in the not so distant future be at home with my babies.But until then I will just keep working and trying to enjoy each day as much as I can.

I will say this about Wal-Mart I have met many,many wonderful people there. I have made some great friends and built some very special relationships, ones that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Thank You!