Sorry for the delay – here is the promised third case of why “X”-Mart is a bad place to work:

I’ll call this relative “Y” to protect her identity. “Y” is a very shy, introverted person, who tries her best to be a team player and do her job to the best of her ability. She has worked for many years for several companies and every single job performance review she ever had was “glowing” and said that she was “the most valuable employee” in the office. She had a lot of experience in customer relations. She has two college degrees in Business. Many of her courses taught her that when you are not sure about something, that you ask for clarification.

She decided she wanted to get a job recently close to home and so she took a Pharmacy Technician course and then “Y” went to work at the “X”-Mart pharmacy a couple of months ago. She should have known from the start that she was doomed.

The lady who lined her up for orientation lied to her about how long orientation was going to take. During orientation she was forced to falsify company documents stating that she had received training that she had not received.

The human resources lady kept insisting that she complete CBLs (computer based learning) before they would release her to “the floor” but the CBLs insisted that she was given books and training before doing the CBLs, yet no books and no training had been given. She asked the human resources lady to please give her the books, and she was told that there were no books, and then the human resources lady wrote in her “file” that she was argumentative, contentious, and because she had asked for clarification, and the books that the CBLs said she was supposed to have, that she had “resisted” doing the CBLs. The CBLs included tests based on the non-existent training and she flunked a lot of the tests several times before she memorized the tests and then passed them. She still did not know what she was supposed to have learned!

The pharmacy manager had worked up the other employees in the pharmacy to hate her before she even walked in the door by telling them how smart she was. The other workers decided before she even walked in the door that they were going to hate her; they were intimidated and threatened by how much the pharmacy manager raved about how wonderful she was.

So when she finally got to go to work, when she walked in the door, no one wanted to help her learn her job, She was severely limited in her training because no one wanted to work with her, and they all complained to the manager that she had a “superior attitude.” Her “superior attitude” they were complaining about was their misinterpretation of her shyness. She was shy; they thought she was a “snob.” But the pharmacy manager did not give “Y” the benefit of the doubt and decided that she was being “aloof” and “superior.”

Even though she was entitled to two 15 minute breaks, and her “lunch” or “dinner” break, every time she asked for one of her breaks she was treated like she was a monster for asking for her break. Many of the other employees there said “I haven’t had a break in five years” and she would reply “well, I’m very sorry, but I need a break and I’m entitled to it, so I want to take it.” It was a huge deal to be granted a break!

In her first week of work, one of her customers said to her “you’re new here.” She said “yes, I am!” He said “you can tell you really care, you’re the nicest one here. I give you two months or less.” She thought that was a really odd statement!

After only two weeks at work the pharmacy manager pulled her aside and told her that she was one of the smartest people she had ever met, that none of the other techs liked her because she was too smart and learning her job too well and too fast and that her biggest problem was that she treated everyone else as if they were as smart as she was. She was told that she had to “dumb down” and stop treating everyone as if they were as smart as she was, without appearing to be condescending. They told her that the people (customers and other employees) were just “dumb farm people” and did not have the level of sophistication that “college educated people like us” have. She was told to treat everyone as if they were middle schoolers.

She was told that people were upset that when she asked for help that they thought she was being rude, even though she always asked politely. They thought she was “demanding” and treated them in a demeaning manner.

So “Y” took extra steps to make sure to say “Excuse me, I’m sorry for interrupting, would you please help me with this customer/situation?” when she needed help, and she tried as much as possible to act meek (as if being shy wasn’t meek enough!”) and always profusely thanked everyone when they helped.

Over the next couple of weeks there were several many times when she was told conflicting directions by different employees, sometimes techs, sometimes managers. When she was given an instruction that conflicted with what she had been told previously and asked for clarification she was told she was being argumentative.

A couple of days ago the same manager pulled her aside again to give her a “verbal coaching.” She was told again that no one liked her and that everyone was complaining all the time that she was acting “regally” and “rude” and that she was argumentative and contentious (when she was asking for clarification.) When “Y” tried to explain her side, she was told she was being argumentative again! When “Y” asked permission to speak without being perceived as being argumentative, she pointed out and said that she made a point to say “excuse me, I’m sorry for interrupting you, but can you please help me?” the manager said “That’s the problem, you shouldn’t say excuse me and you shouldn’t apologize, just say Hey XXXXX, can you help me?” The pharmacist said she was tired of listening to all of the complaints and she just wanted them to stop.

Now I happen to know “Y” very well and know that she does not have a rude bone in her body! And it seems to me that saying “Hey XXXX, can you help me?” when you are interrupting their work is very rude, and saying “excuse me, I’m sorry for interrupting you” happens to be NOT RUDE!

Yesterday “Y” ran into an irate and rude customer who complained to the pharmacy manager that “Y” was rude to her. “Y” was not rude to her at all, yet this morning the pharmacy manager used that complaint to fire her! So she was fired for being rude, when she is not rude at all! When “Y” was told that she was being fired for being rude to the customer, the incident was described (very distorted) and when “Y” asked if she could explain her side she was told she was being argumentative and contentious again!

So it is pretty obvious that “Y” was fired because the other techs were intimidated and jealous and just complained and backstabbed her so much that the pharmacist was looking for a way to stop the complaints and instead of telling the techs to grow up she took the easy way out and just fired “Y.”

So, my warning to all of you folks out there – you do NOT want to work for “X”-Mart if you have any dignity in your body. That is NOT a good place to work!

The second relative (I’ll call him “M”) worked at “X”-Mart in the Auto Services department as a support manager. He was promised by the general store manager a promotion into the manager’s job in Inventory Control department, but the hitch was that he had to transfer for a couple of weeks into a non-management position into Inventory Control. The logic behind this was theoretically that he would learn what the non-management parts of that department was, so he would be a better manager.

This meant a temporary cut in pay, but he was promised that after a couple of weeks of working as non-management, he would get promoted into management, which would be a raise in pay. So, “M” took the “temporary” demotion. Then the store manager that made that promise suddenly quit his job and the new store manager gave the job promised to “M” to another employee transferring into the store from another state. Now “M” was stuck in a non-management job at a lower pay rate and could not go back into the management job he had previously. Then “M” was involved in a bad car accident and was injured. “X”-Mart CLAIMS that they make “reasonable accommodations” for disabled people, but they refused to give “M” any reasonable accommodations for him to return to work, so he ended up having to quit his job completely.

He tells me that the turnover rate at his “X”-Mart is 58%. No wonder!

He was cheated.

As I stated in a previous post, “X”-Mart is a bad place to work. I have the stories of three relatives that worked there that I wanted to share with you.

The first relative (I’ll call him “C”) worked in the bakery of a Super “X”-Mart. He asked his boss to give him part time hours because he was looking for a different job in a different line of work, and was going to be taking college courses. His boss kept on giving him full-time hours anyway. After about six weeks of asking repeatedly to go onto part time hours, and being promised part time hours, and continuing to being assigned full-time hours, “C” finally quit in desperation after seeing ANOTHER week scheduled of full time hours.

This is a classic example of bad management.