Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it.
With more than 7,000 facilities worldwide, coordinating more than 2 million employees in its fanatical mission to maintain an inventory from more than 60,000 American suppliers, it has become a system containing more components than the Space Shuttle - yet it runs as reliably as a Timex watch.
Mr. Platt obviously didn't get the memo. Wal-Mart is supposed to be 100% evil, right?
....Considering this is a company that is helping families ride out the economic downturn, which is providing jobs and stimulus while Congress bickers, which had sales growth of 2% this last quarter while other companies struggled, you have to wonder why. At least, I wondered why. And in that spirit of curiosity, I applied for an entry-level position at my local Wal-Mart.
This will be the good part. Here come stories about employees being chained in the back rooms, forced to work off the clock while Simon Legree wannabes spit on their Bibles.
Getting hired turned out to be a challenge. The personnel manager told me she had received more than 100 applications during that month alone, chasing just a handful of jobs. Thus the mystery deepened. If Wal-Mart was such an exploiter of the working poor, why were the working poor so eager to be exploited? And after they were hired, why did they seem so happy to be there? Anytime I shopped at the store, blue-clad Walmartians encouraged me to "Have a nice day" with the sincerity of the pope issuing a benediction.
Yeah, well, in some places with new stores, there are more than 20 applicants for each job. But that's because the masses don't know better, and haven't been exposed to the blessings of giving their pay to union bosses.
.... I sat at a table that was covered in untrimmed fabric under a protective layer of sticky transparent vinyl, like a couch cover. I'd seen better-looking decor at firehouse bingo evenings. Was Wal-Mart going out of its way to emphasize its commitment to cost-cutting? I guessed that the utilitarian ethic was so deeply embedded, it was just taken for granted.
I've been to the Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas three or four times. I've been to the Canadian headquarters in Toronto about as many. This guy, Charles Platt, has definitely been in some Wal-Mart offices. The furniture makes the North Sunflower Academy cafeteria look like Tavern On The Green. If they had nicer furniture in their offices, I bet they'd be unprofitable enough to qualify for some bailout money. The Fools ! !
....A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same claustrophobic, windowless room. As we introduced ourselves, I discovered that more than half had already worked at other Wal-Marts. Having relocated to this area, they were eager for more of the same.
These employees simply don't know better. They've been brainwashed. They were graduates of the American school system, and of course weren't qualified for..... oh, never mind.
But I've got to include Platt's closing paragraph:
Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is not the enemy. It's the best friend we could ask for.
Charles Platt is a former senior writer for Wired magazine.
