Equal opportunity hiring at Wal-Mart has got to have its limits

The BBQ Pit
1

I just came back from Wal-Mart. What I saw disturbed me.

Wal-Mart has a policy (in my city at least) of hiring almost anyone, regardless of sex, handicap, color, you name it. THIS IS A GOOD, NICE THING. The local store has probably, 10 or so different people that are physcially handicapped. I think two are confined to a wheelchair. As mentioned, this is OK since they seem to be able to do there job.

HOWEVER,

Earlier this AM, I needed to pick up some stationary supplies for the office. A young lady was down the aisle from me and was having trouble finding what she was looking for. She snagged a “Sales Associate.” She asked him where she could find a paper shredder. What followed disturbed me. The Associate, quite literally, could not speak. He was making sounds, but they sure as heck had no intelligible English in it. She said pardon, and he said the same thing… I had no idea what he was saying and neither did she. There was another tense, uncomfortable moment and she said “I am sorry, but I don’t understand you” and he made the same noises again. At that point I walked the few steps over and told the lady where they were as I bought one last week.

Now, stepping back, lets pretend I wasn’t there. What should a person have done? It was obviously very uncomfortable for both parties at that moment. The fellow (the sales associate) was likely doing his best, but he literally, could not communicate. She couldn’t understand a “word” he said. Do you say “Sorry, I’ll find someone else” and walk away from him?

Why in the hell would Wal-Mart put a person that can’t talk in a position like that? Isn’t there a warehouse job or something else that they could have put the young man in? I’m all for giving people work, but cripes! They’ve got to be able to communicate if you are in a position where you have to deal with the public?! All that is going to do is either make the guy mad or sad and more likely than not hurt his feelings. If you get a real ignorrant customer, they’d probably get worse.

What is up with that, really? Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

2

Every Walmart employee that I’ve ever dealt with who was able to communicate was also completely unwilling to do so. At least this guy was trying. For some reason, I think I would prefer that to the eye-rolling, sighs, and incoherent mumbles I get on the rare occasions I’ve be able to corner an employee and ask for assistance.

But then again, I hate Walmart and never shop there, so I’m probably biased. Carry on.

3

Reminds me of this dude who worked at a fast-food place where I used to live. I wont go into details, but lets say his physical “abnormalities” pretty much guarenteed you were not going to enjoy the food he just handed you. The place hid this guy at the drive-thru window, so by the time you saw him, it was too late.

Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.

4

Hey Gato, “Do spew want fries with spat?”

5

gatopescado, is it all right if I ask what was wrong with the guy?

6

:stuck_out_tongue:

Didn’t you mean shat?

7

I was at Wal-Mart one day searching for some item, I forget what, but it was something on the paper towel and plastic silverware aisle. I knew it was near, but I just couldn’t find it. I asked one of the nice people in the blue vests for help, and he looked blankly at me, then started signing. He was deaf, didn’t read lips well, and had totally missed what I said.

Now, I could be here ranting about the same thing, that those bastards at Wal-Mart hired someone who can’t stop their job as a stocker and help me find my item. But I’m not, because I pulled out a pencil and paper, and wrote down what I was looking for, then handed it to the guy. He led me right down the aisle and handed the item to me.

Communication is a two-way street and a two-way responsibility. I’m certain that this employee was well aware that his speech is hard to understand, and it wouldn’t be embarrassing to him to say “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” All you have to add then is “Here, could you write that down?” or “If you know where it is, can you show me?” or “If you don’t know, is there someone else that might?”

Frankly, in this little tale here, between the guy who isn’t ABLE to speak clearly and the customer who isn’t WILLING to try something else, I think I might have a slightly different take on where the “disability” lies. It’s not up to people who are less than usually “perfect” to hide themselves from society, it’s up to all of us to recognize the differences and make an effort to overcome our embarrassment or awkwardness in order to find some common ground.

I wouldn’t worry about it, though, if this guy’s actually trying to help people, he’s too good for Wal-Mart and won’t be there long. :wink:

Corr

8

The same thing happened to me at Target, except the deaf sales associate had his own pen and pad ready to go. He made some motions to indicate he was deaf and handed me the pad. I wrote down what I needed, he wrote down he’d check in back and was out five minutes later with a cart of diapers to restock.

The difference between Wal-Mart and Target - at Wal-Mart if you want to communicate with the deaf SA, bring your own pad and paper, at Target, someone has already figured this out and gave the SA a nice Target notepad and Target pen (yep, both were branded).

9

with Walmart employees who only mumble in “ebonics,” and are as incomprehensible to me as someone speaking Chinese. Consequently, I just don’t shop there anymore.

10

are you certain the person was a ‘sales associate’ (ie some one who was normally expected to communicate) vs. a ‘stock clerk’ (ie some one who normally is expected to do physical labor)?

Many stores I’ve been in (not necessarily Wal*marts) have most of their staff wearing the same vest or whatever, but some are specifically there to stock shelves and expected to have minimal contact, whereas others are specifically there to assist customers and are expected to communicate w/customers.

11

And that, quite frankly, is just another of the thousands of reasons why Target is better than Walmart (aka Satan’s tube sock source).

12

These people are paid a little more than twenty cents an hour to work there. What do you expect?

Wal-Mart and it’s ilk thrive off of human exploitation…theres not much chance that the exploited are going to be all that cheerful about that. The only way we are going to get reasonable service is if we start sending our business to places that treat their workers with dignanty and respect, even if it costs a little bit more.

13

Cite?

Even Sven, I hope you noticed that in your OP you just mentioned a reason for the superiority of the free market system in that consumers have the choice to patronize businesses that treat employees well. Glad to see you have embraced capitalism.

14

I hate it when my waiter or waitress can’t speak English. I’ve actually had to point at what I wanted on a menu. I guess the blame should fall on the idiot responsible for the hiring.

15

Oh my fucking Goddess.

You’ve had to point out what you wanted to the waitress.

You’ve had to take that extra second to reopen the menu, to scan it’s plastic pages rapidly, and to find what you wanted.

Then you expended that great amount of physical energy just to point at what you wanted!

You, sir, are my hero. I thought it was only myself, my husband, my parents, my best friends, their husbands…heck, my entire social circle, who pointed to the item on the menu.

We’re not alone! I’m so happy!

Now, tell me. When your keepers do let you go to Denny’s, and you do have to point to the item on the menu…do you actually manage to find the item you wanted, in text format? Or are you forced to point at the pretty pictures?

:rolleyes:

16

Home Depot experience here. The sales associate pointed to a button on his vest that said “I’m hearing impaired. Can you write your question down?”

Seemed reasonable to me. I did as instructed and he wrote the answer. (at Home Depot, I’m amazed by the fact that I’ve never been given incorrect directions ONCE.)
I love Home Depot.

17

I work at Wal-Mart. A front-line cashier starts at $8.00/hr. Seems like a good wage, and in South Bend, IN, it would be. Here in Vegas, apartment rents run two to three times what they were back east, utilities are outrageous, and in order for a single person with no children and a fairly modest lifestyle (my computer is five years old, and I’m not even thinking of buying a new one, I buy my clothes at a thrift store because I can’t even afford Wal-Mart), to be able to afford basic rent and utilities, roommates are necessary unless you want to live in a complex where personal safety is an issue if you want to, oh, say, be in your apartment.

Anyhoo, at the wages Wal-Mart pays, a lack of customer service perks, or even basic safety (I had to work standing in a puddle for over an hour after a gallon jug of water a customer had left behind tipped over and the cap snapped off, and since I had a line, I couldn’t shut down and go get paper towels to clean it up, so, paged maintainence- twice, and they never came to clean it up, and I’m not even going to talk about security) is going to be a given. Most of us try our best, but the store is understaffed, and if we’re really busy, sales associates will be pulled off the floor to man the cash registers, so no, they’re not hiding in the break room, unless they’re actually on break, which they probably took an hour late because there was nobody to relieve them.

I think Wal-Mart hires disabled people more as a show than anything. Here you have a class of people that is easily exploited since, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act, the disabled are still frequently discriminated against, and Wal-Mart gets to enjoy warm fuzzy feelings from a community that is, in large part, ignorant of how shabbily the employees are actually treated. “Oh, they provide jobs for the handicapped, aren’t they wonderful.” The unfortunate result is that there may be many people who are unable to perform the basic functions of the job.

Oh, BTW, it is easy to tell a sales associate from a stocker or cashier because our job titles are on our name tags, so it is unlikely that bernse made that mistake.

18

I asked the question, since it wasn’t clear from the OP. and I’m not going to assume that bernse did or didn’t notice the name tag.

19

Read Nickled and Dimed for an interesting take on making a “living” by working at Wal-Mart.

20

So Thea Logica, I can presume you’re not one of the smiling employees in those “Happy Face” TV ads? :wink: