Wal-Mart Is A Better Place to Work Than Both Target and The Small Mom-and-Pop Stores

Charles Platt (picture above) is a journalist, computer programmer and author of over 40 fiction and nonfiction books and was a senior writer at Wired magazine.

Charles moved recently from being a senior writer at Wired magazine to an entry-level position at Wal-Mart, "a company reviled by almost all living journalists," after he read the book "Nickel and Dimed," in which Atlantic contributor Barbara Ehrenreich denounces the exploitation of minimum-wage workers in America. According to Charles, "Somehow her book didn’t ring true to me, and I wondered to what extent a preconceived agenda might have biased her reporting. Hence my application for a job at the nearest Wal-Mart."

Here are some excerpts from his BoingBoing blog post "Life at Wal-Mart":

The job was as dull as I expected, but I was stunned to discover how benign the workplace turned out to be. My supervisor was friendly, decent, and treated me as an equal. Wal-Mart allowed a liberal dress code. The company explained precisely what it expected from its employees, and adhered to this policy in every detail. I was unfailingly reminded to take paid rest breaks, and was also encouraged to take fully paid time, whenever I felt like it, to study topics such as job safety and customer relations via a series of well-produced interactive courses on computers in a room at the back of the store. Each successfully completed course added an increment to my hourly wage, a policy which Barbara Ehrenreich somehow forgot to mention in her book.

My standard equipment included a handheld bar-code scanner which revealed the in-store stock and nearest warehouse stock of every item on the shelves, and its profit margin. At the branch where I worked, all the lowest-level employees were allowed this information and were encouraged to make individual decisions about inventory. One of the secrets to Wal-Mart’s success is that it delegates many judgment calls to the sales-floor level, where employees know first-hand what sells, what doesn’t, and (most important) what customers are asking for.

And here's Charles' most interesting and amazing observation (to me):

Several of my co-workers had relocated from other areas, where they had worked at other Wal-Marts. They wanted more of the same. Everyone agreed that Wal-Mart was preferable to the local Target, where the hourly pay was lower and workers were said to be treated with less respect (an opinion which I was unable to verify). Most of all, my coworkers wanted to avoid those “mom-and-pop” stores beloved by social commentators where, I was told, employees had to deal with quixotic management policies, while lacking the opportunities for promotion that exist in a large corporation.

MP: Isn't it interesting that Target escapes most of the vilification and attacks that Wal-Mart regularly receives, and yet workers seem to prefer working at Wal-Mart over Target. And the small downtown merchants that Wal-Mart (but never Target) is routinely accused of destroying, also seem to offer inferior employment opportunities compared to Wal-Mart.

HT: Newmark's Door