I’ve never been particularly a fan of Wal-Mart. There are a lot of problems I have with it, which I could honestly write a book about, but I want to focus on one specific problem I have with it: how it effectively “traps” lower socioeconomic status individuals as well as individuals from small towns, regardless of their educational background.
The “Wal-Mart Rut” as I call it, is when a person from a small town and/or lower socioeconomic status applies to Wal-Mart and then gets “stuck” working there, effectively becoming terrified in some shape or form to apply for a job with better benefits, one that benefits their degree (if they have some kind of post high school degree or certificate under their belt), or one where they are jsut overall more satisfied with their life and job.
I have seen this time and time again. I see so many people who have a lot of ambition, have advanced degrees (I’ve seen people with PHDs who work at Wal-Mart), or want to get out of the small town they are in (which they’ve likely been in since birth or a young age in general), but they get so attached to their job at Wal-Mart that the little string of hope of “Well maybe I’ll become a supervisor!” (or some other job title that’s higher than the one they have at the time with the company) keeps them working at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart batters its employees over their heads with “how they put their employees first” when in all honesty, they do not. Many Wal-Mart employees will relay this to people who don’t have any experience working at Wal-Mart. Not to mention, they have had 15+ employee disability lawsuits (effectively boiling down to the fact that Wal-Mart doesn’t treat them fairly). There’s also the problem of the CEO of Wal-Mart making 16k PER HOUR while that’s around what the lowest paid employee makes IN A YEAR. If Wal-Mart can afford to pay their CEO 16k per hour, they can afford to giving their employees (even those just starting or those on the lowest pay grade) a living wage.
The reality is more and more people are working at Wal-Mart form all educational backgrounds as well as ages. You have people still in high school (or fresh to college), all the way to the geriatric (60+) population. People are using Wal-Mart as their livlihood. Wal-Mart has effectively lured their employees into their grasp (espicially if lower socioeconomic status and/or small town) and then takes advantage of human nature with people being comfortable where they are.
