# We are not smart/savvy enough to work at a Walmart **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 21, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189 "2010-03-21T01:40:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/41 "2010-03-22T15:20:15Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > You should see the online application in general. I have to help patrons with it all the time - there’s a _bajillion_ security questions, for one thing. It’s very difficult - essentially impossible - for people without computer skills if there isn’t a friendly librarian with forty five minutes to kill hanging over your shoulder. On a busy day, forget it. Oh, I saw it. It took 5 tries to get a login and password that was acceptable - all attempts used 7+ letters, numbers, upper & lowercase, etc. No hints were given as to why attempts failed. There were 5 security questions that had to be answered: Favorite food cuisine, how many siblings, what type of pet you have (heaven forbid you should forget which pet you listed, dog, cat or fish), what shoe size, and favorite school subject. Then a PIN# (yeah, I know that’s a redundant phrase). Then, on to the questionaire! Lord knows what would have come after the questionaire had it not been failed. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/42 "2010-03-22T15:36:41Z")
It was a little unclear to me if this test was designed for entry-level grunts. It seems a little more designed for management. Assuming the former, I guess I’d pick the “I get a manager” answers straight down the line. Many years ago I applied for a job at McDonalds. There were at least two interviews involved, the first of which was with a guy in a suit. I think he was from someplace like Creative Resource Solutions, Inc. He asked questions like “Why do you want to work at McDonalds?” My answer of “Because I need the money” was not acceptable. I think he wanted to hear how Ray Kroc was my personal hero, how Micky D’s was the only place with superior burgers, and that I wanted to enrich my life by being a team player and flourish in an environment where I could contribute to the greater greater good of the corporate vision. Or some bullshit like that. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/43 "2010-03-22T17:08:21Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I didn’t mean it to sound like I think all Walmart employees are losers. Some of them are perfectly normal, friendly people. But none of them look like they are better qualified to not completely fail an initial psych evaluation test than my daughter with my (evidently inept) input. So what would such a person look like?😕 > [@tdn](#): > > Many years ago I applied for a job at McDonalds. There were at least two interviews involved, the first of which was with a guy in a suit. I think he was from someplace like Creative Resource Solutions, Inc. He asked questions like “Why do you want to work at McDonalds?” My answer of “Because I need the money” was not acceptable. Why would you think that is an acceptable answer? At best it’s uselessly vague and at worst it comes across as arrogant and entitled. The company gets that you want a paycheck. What they want to know is why you want this particular job instead of any of a million other potential jobs. For example, an appropriate (and reasonably truthful) answer would be “it’s a well established and respected brand, you like working with people, and you want to work in a place where there are opportunities to advance”. Your answer makes you sound like you think it’s a job for idiots that anyone can do and actually wanting to work there is beneath you. If I’m trying to pick between you and [this guy](http://www.mcstate.com/careers/?search=careers), who should I hire? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/44 "2010-03-22T17:15:11Z")
[This](http://www.theonion.com/articles/developmentally-disabled-burger-king-employee-only,462/) one, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/45 "2010-03-22T17:30:30Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Why would you think that is an acceptable answer? At best it’s uselessly vague and at worst it comes across as arrogant and entitled. Because I was young, uselessly vague, arrogant, and entitled. And honest. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/46 "2010-03-22T19:51:20Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’ve never worked retail, but if the register is balanced only once, at the end of the day, then wouldn’t it suck to be the closing cashier? I was a grocery store cashier in high school. For the most part, we shared drawers, and they weren’t counted after every cashier change on a given register. However, they \*did \*keep track of who was on which drawers over the course of a day, and compare that to the final drawer counts. You’d cross-reference List of Cashiers A with List of Drawers B, and if any cashier appeared disproportionately on registers that were light on cash, that person would be given their own, separate drawer, which they and their supervisor would count at the beginning and end of their shift. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/47 "2010-03-22T19:59:54Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Why would you think that is an acceptable answer? At best it’s uselessly vague and at worst it comes across as arrogant and entitled. The company gets that you want a paycheck. What they want to know is why you want this particular job instead of any of a million other potential jobs. For example, an appropriate (and reasonably truthful) answer would be “it’s a well established and respected brand, you like working with people, and you want to work in a place where there are opportunities to advance”. Your answer makes you sound like you think it’s a job for idiots that anyone can do and actually wanting to work there is beneath you. If I’m trying to pick between you and [this guy](http://www.mcstate.com/careers/?search=careers), who should I hire? I would never want to pick someone who is so clearly brown-nosing. People who say what I want to hear are the last people I would want working under me, as I can never really trust anything they tell me. I have never known any teen that goes for an entry level position at McDonald’s who really cares at all about the place. If they could get a better job, they would in a heartbeat. The turnover is extremely high, and very few people, as long as they meet the hygiene guidelines, are ever turned away from working there. Plus, the one in our town has a lot of perks, like free movie tickets, free movie rentals, discounts on amusement parks, etc. And they get a discount on their food. And still you can’t count on the same person working there by the next month. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/48 "2010-03-22T20:17:58Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I would never want to pick someone who is so clearly brown-nosing. People who say what I want to hear are the last people I would want working under me, as I can never really trust anything they tell me. Congratulations. You’re in the 99th percentile of managers. ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/49 "2010-03-22T20:37:36Z")
I’ve never worked at WallyWorld, but I know people who have. She should have answered every question with ‘ask the supervisor’. They do NOT want creative people who will handle problems on their own. They want drones who don’t even breathe without express permission. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/50 "2010-03-23T00:25:28Z")
> [@redtail23](#): > > They do NOT want creative people who will handle problems on their own. They want drones who don’t even breathe without express permission. The thing is, they might _actually_ want mindless drones, but for corporate image reasons, they’re required to _pretend_ they want creative independent thinkers who might be capable of running the entire store on their own if needs be. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/51 "2010-03-23T01:04:42Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > I’ve applied at tons of places online. Blockbuster, Fry’s, Target, Walgreens, etc. They’re all like that. If you were to apply to those places online, you’d think the same person wrote the questions for all of them. That’s because they **are** all written by the same person/company. I was prepping for an internal interview a couple of years ago, and I learned that it was going to be a “Behaviorial Interview” which is a term I’d never heard of before, so I looked up websites with sample questions. Not only were all the sample questions the same, they were the exact questions, word for word, that were asked in my interview! ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/52 "2010-03-23T16:56:42Z")
The title of this thread reminds me of that scene in “Office Space” where Michael Bolton says, “How is it that all these stupid, Neanderthal mafia guys can be so good at crime, and smart guys like us can suck so badly?” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/53 "2010-03-23T22:08:34Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I would never want to pick someone who is so clearly brown-nosing. People who say what I want to hear are the last people I would want working under me, as I can never really trust anything they tell me. Who would you hire? Some jerk with a chip on their shoulder? It’s a service business. You are supposed to brown-nose. They don’t care if you care about the place. They care that you can pretend to care about the place. ---
**Author:** ![Success20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Success20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Success20)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189/54 "2010-03-24T19:42:22Z")
miss smith and redtail have it right. management wants you to be part of the borg. This is part of the reason for uniforms and flexible scheduling and rah rah meetings and keeping you poor and underfed - keeps you in their control. the way to get hired in retail is to know someone or date someone or be related to someone - or all of the above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-not-smart-savvy-enough-to-work-at-a-walmart/533189.md?page=2)