Walmart just screwed us scheduly, now financially screwed up

As much as I want to say which company this is, which everyone knows of this company and their bad rep for multiple issues, I feel like I've been bending backwards more often than I'd like. I have debated in the last few days of posting this in it's respective subreddit, but I probably wouldn't see much in a serious response as I would here.

I have shown backbone many times, and in the end, I feel like they sometimes tell me what I want to hear, correct the mistake if it's easy to fix, or they "actually" contact who needs to be contacted, but never hear or see the issue completed.

I've worked at this store, off and on, for over 6 years, with a one year, at most, gaps between rehiring. The reason I've quit and returned a few times, was due to college scheduling and the store's policies/guidelines driving me up the wall. Either that was poor coverage, trying to attend to customers with limited resources and tools, or most management don't know the equipment or resources when I have a question or concern.

Putting this in a simple phrase, the store, referring to policies and HQ, sees themselves more important than their customers and associates in most cases.

**My Department minor issues**

Most people can relate to phone contract setups or photolab, as it takes a knack to understand the computers and experience in how things are ran. But if you are stuck somewhere, and none of the schedule management knows the system, it looks bad to the customers, and another sale most likely lost. Even worse, at my store, the only wired phone we have in the connection center, it can't call outside the store. If we need to call ATT or TMobile, we have to use another department's phone or our cell phone. Nine times out of ten, they want the three authentication codes generated by the kiosk. If we're on our phone, no problem, as long as our cell signal is strong (I've dropped so many calls either waiting in line, or during a talk with the rep on the other end, it's not funny!). If we're on another department's phone, we have to step away to get the codes and return. If I was the rep, this would seem very suspicious. I've had reps hang up on me twice in the last couple or so years.

A lot has bothered me, and I have brought it up to management multiple times, with some things changing then fading away, or I don't see anything happening in the end. I have bold the categories of concern to help keep things in some kind of order.


**Scheduling.** Biggest area of complaints I have, I swear! I might post the other two general topics in another post later.

As long as the following will turn out, my first question here is: Should I split this up into separate reddit posts to help keep things organized?

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Everyone has this issue. We give our "Availability" and they schedule us "Three Weeks In *Advanced*".

Notice, I said Availability. If you are in College, they will manipulate it to their liking if there is a week off from college. I'm sorry, I could have sworn I filled out an availability, not a "When college is in session, this is when I'm available." No where does it say college students will be working outside their availability during college down time. Even worse during holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I'll be referring to Thanksgiving and Black Friday/"The Event" later.

If you are in sports or academics such as band or choir, you have to show the schedule. My college has a habit of telling the band and/or choir students that something is happening following week and that you are required to be there. My store doesn't care, if you didn't place a request more than three weeks in advance. You better off switching up with someone, or hope there will be enough coverage that they can take you off that day or period of time.

Associates can only see the current week and the following two weeks, starting on Saturdays. If something comes up at a last moment's notice, such as event three weeks or less out, you are screwed. You can't see the week they working on or have submitted, just to see if you were scheduled during that time or day. Sometimes it's like pulling nails if you want to ask a manager to see what has at least been submitted to plan ahead. If you try to switch days up with someone, the managers don't have a problem as long as it's more than a day out, unless your department has very few people and no one can cover your shift.

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If you place a request time off, it's not always viewed by your department manager, sometimes it's someone else. When it is viewed, it's usually weeks after you submitted it.

If you requested a day or more off, just a few (3-5) weeks away from now, it's usually overlooked and not approved/denied, you get scheduled, and you have to request a manager to fix your schedule. At my location, if this happens, they say the schedule was already submitted before your request was submitted, if it was a short time out from now, or that they just don't have the coverage, which I understand in most cases. Problem is, if you request Months in advance, it takes weeks usually, and still overlooked.

My most annoying issue is requesting multiple back-to-back days. Let's say you request five days. You check daily/weekly if it's been approved or denied. It takes a while, depending on how far out the request is. Some days are approved, while others are still pending. This doesn't make sense me. When it finally comes down to the schedule coming out, either the requests have been changed or some are still pending, or even denied. You could wind up with a week of hit and miss days of work days off. You'd think if you request back-to-back days, they would think you have a long term event going on. They don't bother to even ask you why you need multiple days off. I usually let my department manager know before I place the request. However, the other managers get to it, or the store manager changes it.

I've had family visit trips that take time to travel. I could not simply travel out to family, spend a few hours, then come back the same day. My request for 5 days related to seeing family for a normal visit, next day visiting another family for a graduation, then the next visiting my SO's family for a couple days, followed by heading home the last day. The best I could describe this trip, it was a diamond like route (Crows Path) on the map. I had every other day off. After about a week of talking to different managers, I managed to get the remaining days off.

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If you worked for the company for over a year, you get X number of paid for time off for vacation. Requesting days for this off is treated as the mentioned above. Even after working for two or more years, it was like pulling nails to use the paid time leave.

The last time I returned to my store, months before graduating. I was lucky to have just the weekend off from graduation. I also requested for a week off the following month to sit down and clear up goals for the future, along with clearing out stuff I have gathered for college, basically house cleaning and spending much needed time with my SO and making plans to pop the question the following month. It was flat out denied. I asked around and found out the store manager herself denied it.

I requested the morning off from my other job to talk to my store manager, who is 95% not around when I'm on shift in the evenings. I went in to talk to my store manager, preferably alone, in an open door policy. I was cornered in the hallway with almost all the managers. I gave them the same info I just mentioned, my department manager and a couple others already knew what I had planned. The store manager blew it off as saying I was just screwing around, not their exact words, but that's what it sound to me. They even told me that I haven't been there long enough to build up enough "accrued time" off. I told them I was there last time for over two years, and still asking for time off had the same results. They just stood there for a moment and went back to saying that doesn't count for current hiring.

  After the store manager left, two of the night managers pulled me to the side, said they understood my goals and wanted me to meet up with them at the end of my next shift to accept my days off. When we met up, they noticed I asked for a calendar week off, not a work week. Some days one work week, and few another work week. On top of that, I only work three days a week. They asked why I asked for a full week. I responded that the first year I was there, I asked for specific days off during a week of college down time, got the days off, but was scheduled during the days I'm not available due to another job. They didn't say anything and moved forward.

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Coverage is always poor in our store. Schedule is first setup by a computer for the upcoming scheduling work week, then managers go in and make sure nothing odd or goofy happens. If there is some kind of conflict, management says the computer messed up and no one caught it. Each week has a "Forecast" based on data of that week from the last few years. I don't know the details, but after working here for 6 or so years, it's more like it's scheduling minimal associates as possible. There is no guarantee that each day there isn't a large spike of customers coming in, or a ton of freight that needs either pulled off the truck or stocked on the floor. It's even worse for the cashiers.

Any department, if one or more people has to call in for some reason, it's almost always a nightmare for the rest of the department, or even the store in all. Some deparements only have one associate scheduled at a time. If they don't show up for some reason, other departments have to cover, which is understandable. However when other departments are swamped with frieght and customers, calls for extra hands to help are either gone on deaf ears or told to manage it yourself. Most cases for the cashiers, if two or more people call in, generally due to college events or sickness going around, it terrible. People are pulled off the floor, leaving nearly no one to help customers, usually not enough people to cover the cashiers in the spikes either way. Sometimes management will will help, but usually the first people to leave the registers. I've had days before where management came up to help while I was also helping the cashiers. I'll have a line of more than three decent sized carts, and some managers would close down their line and head off. Some managers will stay and help until the spike dies down at least. For the last year, after some big events happened, I haven't had to cashier as my department only has a few associates and we are now required to have one associate in each department. Usually it's every other department or less that has an associate after 8pm.

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If your schedule is changed, you don't get notified. I've found a way on the companies site to email you when a change is made, but someone has to tell you or you stumble across it. If you know which company I've been referring to, and would like to know how to find and set this setting, I'm more willing to answer this in a pm. If common enough, I'll edit here with the details. Problem with this setting is, it emails you which days were changed, but not the before/after changes. You have to log into the site and see the current changes. I've caught my schedule being changed multiple times over the years. I've been keeping screenshots of the schedules every week when a new schedule comes out. I've mostly been able to have the schedule changed back to the original, rarely is there a good enough reason that I'll accept the change. Yes, sometimes it's a change I've requested, such as half-hour difference as my SO and I work the same hours on some days, it doesn't make sense I sit in the back waiting to clock in half an hour after my SO clocks in.

**Lastly**, something very recent that happened. What I've been able to find out is about 600+ hours were shaved off everyone's schedules for the next (now this and the following) work couple weeks. Though mine were not touched as of yet, my SO's were. I've told her to screenshot her schedule weekly to show proof. However her last screenshot was of last month. We know she was scheduled every day of her availability for the next two weeks, and now only two days a week. Even below the minimal hours allowed to work a week. She can't afford to have so many hours off. She usually works about 23-24 hours a week, now close to 10 or less.

> My solution to most of this:

Hire more, yes, that's a no-brainer, but when the store has a MAX number of hires, and only so many actually stay after a week or month, then something needs to change. Not just for certain departments, mostly floor associates. If there is a overabundance, shift them to other departments needing basic help, or send some to do the truck/freight or cashier when the spikes hit. This would help with finishing the trucks faster, freight on the shelves quicker along with zoning/organizing/cleaning, and coverage for the cashiers when surge of customers come in. I've been told this is a good idea, but HQ doesn't seem to get the idea. Even better, when you have more sales floor people cashiering, they have a better chance of helping a customer with a question than the cashiers who don't go on the floor much at all.

If you want to place someone outside their schedule, or make a change, please ask! Most people would be willing to. We don't like living our lives around or store's work schedule when they set it the way they see fit. It's disrespectful!


**Edit**: I know this is long, and more than likely disorganized. I'm due at work here shortly and took too much time to type this up. When I have time, I'll run back through and edit/reorganize the mess.