Complaint Review: Wal Mart Store #3455 - RICHMOND California

I'm writing this letter today, to complain and to inform of what is going on in that store. The Richmond store is brand new, opened last April and I have been there since last February. I have never worked with Wal Mart before, and I was excited when I was hired. I started as a cashier and made CSS, Claims and Recieving and finally made my way to the Invoice office in 2 months, all before we opened. I considered all of the others associates like my family, my Wal Mart family. I loved my job, the people I work with, the general environment of the store.

WORK RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS

Until November that is, when I was taken to the emergency room from work. I was working in the office like any other day, and I blacked out, passed out, and fell onto the floor in the office while working. It felt as if my heart had stopped. My mother took me to the ER right away. When I got to the ER I was informed that I did not have the medical insurance with Kaiser, like I believed I did, like I should have had.

I went through the whole process with my personnel manager at the time, signed all the papers, picked my plan, and when I need it, I had none. Since then I have been in and out of the hospital, seeing my doctor weekly. I worked from 7am to 4pm. Some of my appointments I could not get around these hours, I was told that I could not take time during the day to go to my doctors appointments, and that I had to make my appointments around my work hours or be fired.

Well, my doctor is closed on the weekends, and the office closes at 3 p.m. Some of the tests would not allow me to go back to work for a couple of days after them, so I had to take a leave of absence from work as requested by my doctor. She said that the stress from work caused my problems and that everyday that I went in was making my problems worse.

When I returned to work, I had to wear a heart monitor, I've had EKG\'S stress tests performed, X rays, Echocardigrams, and many other tests performed on me due to these problems. My doctor is still confused on what is wrong. It wasn't impossible but hard to believe that somebody only of the age of 19 that was born with no heart problems was developing so many. That\'s when everything changed.

I got the heart monitor off and continued my everyday work, the stress from the associates at work not listening, not respecting me or my authority, the managers and all the extra tasks and duties put on me on top of my daily work was putting an extreme amount of stress on me each day and it really got to me. So I asked for another position. I'm not mad at all that I do not work in Invoicing anymore, that was my choice, but the way I have been treated throughout the whole process is very upsetting to me.

TRAINING

I couldn't take the attitude I was receiving and the way I was being treated in that office, and the way I was treated after I was asked to be taken out of the office. Especially since I have never been formally trained in the position. I was trained for a week, and then thrown into the position, and even with such little training I was still the youngest clerk in the region to process 48 MILLION DOLLARS in just 10 months.

I taught myself the position with no help from anyone. But because the managers put so much pressure on me, with all the extra things I would wake up in the morning dreading the thought of going to work and having to deal with other associates and managers being rude and giving me a hard time. I have complained about my pay as well, and one of my assistant managers, Loretta, told me "Its all about the money with you, isn\'t it."

Well, excuse me but nobody works for free, and I know for a fact that they would not be assistants if they were only making eleven dollars an hour. It sure is easy to talk down about only being given a raise of .60 cents, or a dollar when you have a salaried position starting at 60 thousand, but for us little people, that dollar is a BIG deal.

PERSONAL FORTITUDE

I have done so many things for the company I wouldn't know where to start naming them. For example, I worked 12 straight hours to prepare the companies Christmas party that was held upstairs on our third floor. I came in early that morning to wrap presents, I decorated the warehouse, picked up desserts from Costco, set up everything. I did this with only 3 other associates helping me, and I still did my daily work too.

I didn't hear one Thank you or not even one line of recognition from any member of the management team. I was left in charge and we transformed a dirty warehouse into the full Christmas spirit. I felt so used, I was even the DJ. I brought my own cd\'sand sat there all night playing music. I was made to clock out at my normal time, and was told I would receive reporting pay for the rest of the hours that I worked. I still have not received any payment for those hours.

My doctor has told me I need to take it easy, I have brought this up many times when there are certain tasks at hand that I cannot complete do to my health problems. Keep in mind that these examples are from the time that I was still in the office. I was on the safety team, I was helping to organize the safety fair, I baked and sold pastries out of the office to raise money for associate relations.

Every time there was a management meeting in the store I was made to set up tables and get everything ready for the meetings. I was made to get managers breakfast for all the meetings with my own money, and sometimes even when there wasn't meeting. I was made to get all the mail for the managers, and even to read Mike Lancaster his mail each day. Since I had a costco card, anytime there was a party, or the managers just wanted something from the store I was made to go to costco and get everything that was needed. I have told them that it was not my job to do these things, but agreed because I thought that I was helping the company, not just being the management's gopher girl.

NON-POSITION RELATED TASKS AND WORK

I have been asked to collect carts in skirts, and to people greet. I was asked to take the cans from the break room to the recycling center, which I did and came back filthy. The bags were mixed with garbage, cans and bottles. They had sat in the warehouse for a long time causing ants and maggots to live inside the bags. I was disgusted when I pulled the bags out of MY OWN truck to find that they were completely infested.

My store manager told me that I was in charge of keeping the break room and the department managers station clean and was yelled at everyday if it was not clean. No offense but isn\'t that why the store has maintenance? I was made to unload the trucks in skirts and high heals. not just pushing the line or something simple, I was made to go in the truck and throw it, besides the fact that I was in a skirt and not allowed to go home and change, they knew that I am not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds.

I have been called at home and made to go to the store on my day off to fix the elevators, I have been called at home and have been asked to come into the store to make a phone call for managers because they were to lazy to pick up the phone themselves. I also dressed up in the Coca-Cola Polar bear suit and walked around in it all day, on a Saturday (my day off) and did not receive reporting pay. I did ask to help, and I was the perfect height but I was also told that I would receive reporting pay. Which I thought was great.

I'm rambling on in this manner to try to explain that I think I am an asset to the company, trying to give examples of tasks I've performed without pay or even simple recognition. I was never allowed to get paid overtime, but they always wanted me to stay, and sometimes I was told that I had to stay. But I was always made to clock out and was told that I would get reporting pay, but like I have said many times already in this letter, and to the various managers, I HAVE YET TO SEE ANY PAYMENTS FOR MY HOURS. And things such as these were put on top of the responsibilities that I already had. Being in invoicing comes with a lot of reports, and time. I worked extra hard to juggle these tasks with my regular responsibilities as the invoice clerk. And still no appreciation.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

My assistant managers and fellow associates personalize comments towards me to attack me. Walmart is supposed to be a family store, and people have been fired for swearing on the sales floor, but for some reason many associates in the store thought that it was okay to speak to me, and say anything that they wanted to me. I have had comments about performing oral sex on me, oral sex on others, about how hard I make people dicks. EVERYDAY I was told that I have a "nice a*s", "nice t**s", and how much these people would like to have sex with me.

I have had my breasts grabbed, my butt grabbed, people constantly trying to hug me and trying to rub on my lower back and trying to grab my butt. I have been cornered coming out of the women\'s bathroom and kissed. ALL levels of associates have done this, from hourly associates, to assistant managers, to district managers. There is a small window looking into my office, and every time I looked up at the window while working there was someone trying to look down my shirt, or looking at my butt the whole time I was bent over.

I covered the window with paper so I wouldn\'t have to worry about people staring at me while I was working but Mike Lancaster made me take it down. The night manager Jeff would always come into my office when I came to work in the morning and would pretend to work, just to be in there alone with me. He would make dirty comments to me, try to brush up against my breasts and butt all the time. He told me one time that he wanted to stick his p***s up my shorts. I would have to deal with things like this for 2 whole hours before the UPC clerk came in, everyday. He would leave when another person came into the office.

My assistant manager Loretta would make comments about my face and skin in front of other associates and customers on the sales floor, really loud, and very mean about it. She was always telling me that my skin was very ugly, and that I was too WHITE! Loretta has made many references about white people, and stereotyping me and just white people in general. She would Make comments about my weight, tell me that I am too skinny.

The old personnel manager AL called me a homewrecking w***e right to my face, really loud, and in front of other associates just because he saw me speaking to one of our married male associates. I was having a friendly work related conversation with him, nothing flirtatious or inappropriate. I was never flirty with anyone. I was there to do a job and that\'s all I wanted to do, was my job. I wasn't there to flirt with men, or anything like that, all I wanted was to be the best at my position.

There was a picture on the wall in the personnel office at the Christmas party, and my face was scratched out and the word "C*NT" was written across the picture. I e-mailed and spoke to my store manager Mike Lancaster and asked him if he could have a talk at the next store meeting about respect, about having respect for the individual, about sexual harassment, but it never happen.

I have emails that I sent to Mike about other subjects as well, such as being sexually harassed by associates, assistant managers, and even district managers. Also about the rude and personal questions and comments that associates we saying to me. About how I was being treated in general, but their was either no response, or as in one email the response was "Good Job"!!. I have never been so upset or disrespected in my whole life.

UN-PROFESSIONALISM

I was called in April 20Th at 10 am to be fired by my Co-manager and assistant manager Loretta. My co-manager would not let me get one word in, I was being verbally attacked by them. She told me that she had text messages saved from an associate stating I was going to screw her over. That is not true, and even if I were to send anything along those lines its irrelevant.

She cannot use a personal conversation I had with an hourly associate against me, unless I said I was going to harm her or myself. She also told me that she spoke with Yvette Williams our HR manager and said that I told her I was wrongfully taken out of the office. Jeenu said that I had an open door with Yvette and that she had a written statement from Yvette saying that I was wrongfully taken out of the office and that I was going to screw over her and the company. Another lie, I have only spoken to Yvette twice, on two different meetings, about two completely different subjects.

Even if I were to have an open door with Yvette about Jeenu, which I did not, it cannot be held against me, and she definitely couldn't write a statement to Jeenu telling her anything about it. I had an open door once and my statement was found laying in the office for others to read. Not very smart, extremely unprofessional, and I'm pretty sure illegal to leave something like that laying around.

The associate that I had a open door about approached me and asked me why I used an open door against her. I was mortified, I was to understand that these matters were confidential. I'm not overreacting or exaggerating. Its extremely hard to work when you cannot trust your assistant managers or some of the other associates. I have tried to speak with certain individuals but they act oblivious to situations in this manner.

I can say for sure that I'm not the only one that feels this way. But, when I feel and know that people think I'm lying about the way I feel, about my work related injuries and health problems and think that all I am trying to do is get out of work, that\'s the straw that breaks the camels back. I'm now taking anti-depressant medication which I think has helped me to not let other people get to me as much.

I feel used, neglected as an associate and astonished that grown adults conduct themselves in this manner. I thought Wal Mart was a business, not High School. Since I have tried, and tried to have these problems resolved, I have been treated like I am less than a person. Nothing has been done about any of these problems. They are not small problems, they are very big problems.

All I ever wanted was to be the best in the country at my position, that\'s all. I wanted the sexual harassment to stop, I wanted to be treated with respect, to be treated like a human, for people to respect my position and my authority. To be paid the hours that I worked, for just a little recognition for going the extra mile to help the associates and make store 3455 a great place to work.

The simple things are all that I wanted, but seem as the associates, assistant managers, district managers, co-manager, and store manager, didn't care at all and insisted on making my life a LIVING HELL and doing things the hard way instead of the easy way, I have decided to hire a lawyer and do things the hard way too.

There will probably be a class action lawsuit seem as there have been so many people that have been wronged in serious ways at that store. for example, the former UPC clerk was diagnosed with CANCER, so she was replaced because she had become a LIABILITY. I was replaced and fired because I was a LIABILITY.

An associate was pregnant and working on the floor, she lifted something too heavy and started having serious pains in her stomach. She informed management about this and said that she needed to go to the HOSPITAL, but management told her that she could go, but she would be FIRED on the spot if she did go. The associate really needed the job because she was about to have a BABY, so she waited until her shift was over to go to the hospital. She MISCARRIED when she lifted the thing, and if she had went when she requested to the baby may have been SAVED.

DISABLED VETERANS, with very bad back problems being made to throw trucks, move pallets, and lift heavy objects because he is big. Even after he reminds management everyday that he can't perform the tasks. And many other associates that have been, and are still being seriously wronged at that store. Because of all of these reasons, I am, we are, going to fight back against these people that think they can do what they want to who they want. This has to be stopped and it will be stopped.

Katy

SAN PABLO, California

U.S.A.

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