Ask Lemmy

Ooh, I have two.

Once I was in a Walmart that had some open wiring in some ceiling panels catch fire. Management posted up loss prevention at the entrance and tried to prevent employees and even customers from leaving.

Another time like a couple years later in the same Walmart I saw a manager strike an employee during an argument in the stockrooms.

american culture

X-worker from when we were a teenager. This lady came up to us and constantly talking to us about aliens and Russian hackers in her computer. We thought it may be some scammers tricking her, but no she kept asking us to come to her house and fix her stuff for her. She asked if we could atleast call the police for her and we weren’t really sure if we could do that so we went to get a manager to help with the situation. By the time we brought the manager to where she was, she disappeared. Our manager thought we were making stuff up to get out of work and we said no we’re not so he checked the cameras. And while the cameras caught like her shoulder or shoe while walking around/talking to us; she somehow avoided all the cameras in the store including the front of the store by either being behind someone else or behind shelves. She knew every camera blind spot and honestly while the manager was annoyed we were really impressed from the determination / sheer luck.

A huddle they were doing soon after a shift change. They were chanting, and I found it so creepy and unsettling. The last thing we need is a Walmart cult.

Every Walmart I have worked in has had hella illegal anti-union propaganda plastered over the walls and playing on TVs in the employee only areas.

Not technically IN a Walmart, but definitely Walmart adjacent.

Had lunch with a few regional directors or whatever they call themselves. Topic of wages and strikes came up, they said Walmart already has contingencies in place for when people "get too uppity."

Walmart feels that they're in a strength position due to being the last leg in the supply chain, sitting between food storage/distribution and the general population. When the conditions are right, they will stop delivering from the distribution centers, and will starve out strikers for a month or two, and then "they'll work for whatever we pay."

The Walmart command center in Arkansas keeps track of populations and food deserts around the US, they've got estimates for how many cities and citizens Walmart has a stranglehold on for food delivery and can be decimated by corporate suddenly closing the stores. That was about 6 years ago tho.

I occasionally find myself in this one near where I work, in a very ass-backwards red county. Saw a guy strapped - open carrying his pistols (yes, plural) while wearing clothing with just about all the 2A shit you can think of.

Found myself wondering…what mindset leads you to believe you need to present yourself like that in a fucking Walmart of all places?

The ceo getting bonus due to higher then expected profits when they pay employees so little they struggle to survive even with food stamps.

Guy talking to the whole bathroom while blowing up a stall. It wasn't creepy as much as it was cursed. He let a big one rip and said "ooh, sorry yall"

It was very peoply

(I've only been to WalMart three times in my entire life)

I worked in a suburban shopping mall back at the turn of the millennium. One of the big anchor stores shut down, and the space was taken by a Walmart. Over the coming months and years, one by one, the smaller shops in the mall began disappearing as they couldn't compete; whatever that store sold, the Walmart had a cheaper and crappier version of it. Bigger and bigger stores began suffering and shutting down, and within a handful of years even the huge corporate department stores were flagging.

The mall itself died completely within the next twenty years. However much of the responsibility Walmart itself bears for that is uncertain, but it's certainly some.