12 ms·

A day in the life of a Walmart manager

146 points by impish9208 3y ago

alsetmusic 3y ago
> She passes a prominent display of Lume Whole Body Deodorant, a new product for the store priced at $14.97. > > “It’s interesting, but it’s too pricey for my customer,” says Hart. It isn’t selling that quickly. The whole thing reads as a horrible dystopia.
rderewianko 3y ago
https://archive.is/lk15F https://archive.is/lk15F
999900000999 3y ago
>Hart has seen that change firsthand. About 20 years ago, then 19 years old and a mother of two, she started part-time at the same Walmart she now runs. Her first job was cooking live lobsters pulled from a tank in the deli. Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail. She deserves every dime.
- dewey 3y ago
  This reminds me of a very interesting interview I've listened to a while ago (It was posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101): https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-of-a-hard-discounter https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-... There they talk about the Aldi culture and how "walking into management" isn't possible there, as everyone goes through the ranks of a store. That means of course that hiring someone from outside is almost not possible, but people there usually stay a very long time or even retire at the company.
  - Tostino 3y ago
    I honestly respect companies with that attitude way more than your standard American company culture.
    - geraldwhen 3y ago
      I wish more operated this way. No matter how well you do, or what you accomplish, you will never be as successful ($$$$) as someone who joined a women’s leadership club right after their MBA and never worked a real job in their life. Promoting from within forces you to actual reward value and understand the business.
      - dclowd9901 3y ago
        It has good and bad sides. Imagine working at a company for 10 years and you end up under some total knob as a manager. They don’t help you at all, they’re crap at their job, and you have no chance at moving up because you’ve basically reached a dead end. Hopefully you have some lateral move you can make but that’s going to cost you time as you endear yourself to another manager (who hopefully is not also a useless prick). And the only other options are bailing entirely and ending up starting over again somewhere else or just sucking it up and staying in that position for who knows how long.
  - troad 3y ago
    So the main qualification for being an Aldi executive is years of experience throwing people's groceries from one side to the other, never making eye-contact? And this translates to the skills required to run a multi-national business how exactly? Don't get me wrong, sounds like a great deal for mediocre 'lifer' employees, but seems like a terrible deal for anyone bright (years stuck 'waiting the ranks' - or more realistically a massive brain drain for places that do let them 'walk into management'), or just corporate strategy in general (the skills required to run international JIT food logistics and the skills required to mop a spill in aisle 12 don't exactly have the greatest overlap.)
    - 3y ago
- dec0dedab0de 3y ago
  When I worked at best buy we called them “lifers.” Last time I was in there I noticed one of the managers was a guy I worked with when we were teenagers. I’m still kinda mad he got picked to be the idea box over me, but in retrospect it looks like they picked the team player.
- blackhawkC17 3y ago
  Walmart’s current CEO, Doug McMillon, also began working there as a high schooler unloading trucks (before completing college and returning to a corporate role). https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-profile-2019-1?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-pr...
- paulpauper 3y ago
  It's inspiring because it's in large part an outlier and not applicable to the vast majority of people who lack college degrees. It would not be remarkable it it were common or realistic.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail. Some huge percentage of Americans's first job is at McDonald's (another business that has historically found management talent in-house). They learn the importance of cleanliness, customer service, accuracy.
- hx8 3y ago
  A lot of Walmart management are promoted into it. While certainly not a great job, it's not too bad to make a career out of it. The average Walmart location will see about $70M/yr in revenue, so her responsibility is fairly high.
olddustytrail 3y ago
> Near the cereal aisle, a customer walks up to Hart while recording on his cellphone. >“Hi! Can we get some Snoop Cereal here on the shelf?” asks the man. Earlier that month the rapper Snoop Dogg sued Walmart, claiming the retailer, along with Post Consumer Brands, had worked to suppress sales of Snoop Cereal. Some fans were recording videos related to the dispute for social media. It's like you think you know America because you see it on TV and film so much, and then you read something that makes it sound so weirdly foreign.
- svnt 3y ago
  There are few things more American than the passage you just quoted. It is about a fan of an aging stoner/rapper talking to a Wal-Mart employee about the fact that he wants cereal.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Indeed, but it's an example of the kind of real America that doesn't feature in Hollywood scripts very much.
    - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
      It would seem too banal to most Americans
- quantumfissure 3y ago
  This is not a normal human, less then probably .5% of 340 million Americans are like this. It's called being an attention-whore and hoping to strike it big by filming a non-controversy and making it into one on Tik-Tok. You can thank social media (and regular media) for the profiting off clicks/algorithms/non-controversies and driving this nonsense. This isn't filming a cop making an arrest to keep them accountable, it's filming a store manager hoping to create controversy and rid her of her job because she 'said or did the wrong thing' on film. It's no different then filming a fat/alt-lifestyle/whomever person on the bus without them knowing and then making fun of them to drive clicks to your video.
avalys 3y ago
$120k base and $120k bonus, but okay. I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart but you have to respect a company that's operating a real business at massive scale and about a 2% -3% profit margin. And Nichole seems to be good at her job. It's interesting how the bulk of the decisions about displays, ordering, stocking, are apparently made in each store and not centrally.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Having worked around a particular system of Walmart I have to say they are brutally efficient and typically hire good people to run their internal systems. This would be at the corporate level and not store level, can't say much about that myself. When working with them in measuring the efficiency of the software they were using they were getting significantly higher throughput at significantly lower hardware cost than the average large customer that uses this software. All of it because just a few well learned employees understand how the all systems work together in this workflow and optimize the process.
  - 4star3star 3y ago
    Walmart is a well oiled machine. Not saying there's nothing to improve, but in the context of the overall system in which it operates, it's crushing it.
ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
Unpopular opinion, more people are capable of doing well at higher level jobs than they are at low level grunt working jobs.
- doytch 3y ago
  Time-management is probably the single most important skill in these higher-paying jobs and...well...given the amount of self-help books there are on this topic, I'm not so sure I'd agree. People who do well in higher-level jobs know /exactly/ what they're best at or uniquely positioned to do, and do that. Meanwhile, you need to delegate the rest to whoever's in the best position to do so (growing people if there aren't enough) which is itself a tricky calculus.
  - switch007 3y ago
    I'd say it's people skills and marketing/PR. Everyone I've seen rise through the ranks has absolutely nailed communication, self-promotion, parroting the party-line, moderating their words, adapting to their audience, improving their speech techniques, giving excellent presentations etc.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Disagree. The most important skill as you go up higher in the ranks is emotional regulation. Many, many people simply aren’t able to do that. You can’t manage complex organizations that include people without that ability.
    - doytch 3y ago
      That's a really good point. After reading your profile, I'm tempted to ask if you've bookmarked any articles/books about that topic?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Many, many people simply aren’t able to do that. You can’t manage complex organizations that include people without that ability Never thought about it that way, but I think you're correct. The number of adults who cannot hold their cool in the face of a perceived slight or setback is shocking.
doytch 3y ago
She runs a shop that employs 300 people; needs to worry about short-term and long-term logistics and planning; works cross-functionally with the trades; probably frequently needs to manage upwards; interacts directly with customers; etc etc... Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job.
- varispeed 3y ago
  > Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job. Wow, this is such a nonsense view. Software development may seem easy to you, because you know how to do it and probably have been doing it for a long time. But I can assure you, software development is a hard job. If it was easy, everyone and their dog could do it. Have some respect to your profession!
  - heisenbit 3y ago
    Yes SW development is a hard job but she is doing a lot more than one job and the skill set required (not just knowledge but also behavior) to cover so many roles is a lot broader than most developers and also many managers in the software industry require to do their job.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      On the other hand, there are a lot of Walmarts and similar stores, and a lot of people who have managed these in the past. There are many people who she can turn to for reliable advice. I'm assuming one Walmart is not fundamentally different from another. It's hard work, but it's essentially predictable. Software developers are often called to do work that's not predictable. At the top of the pay grade we're generally asked to design something novel, because it's obviously not worth paying $240k / year for a developer whose work could be replaced by off-the-shelf software. (Sure, there are many exceptions and cushy jobs where people are raking in the cash with few risks. I'm thinking there are probably less of these around than a few years ago, though.)
    - varispeed 3y ago
havaloc 3y ago
"Walking every aisle is a new practice for store bosses in her area, implemented by their regional manager. It helps managers “see what your customers see,” says Hart, and pay attention to details. It also keeps her employees on their toes." I can't believe this wasn't policy already. Seems like good practice.
- newsclues 3y ago
  I had a great manager that did similar things. His education was the navy and he ran a store like a ship, and everyone loved it.
  - damidekronik 3y ago
    Would honestly love to know more. What activities which are not common for a store did he bring from the navy?
    - insensible 3y ago
      You’d probably enjoy the book Turn the Ship Around about a Navy submarine captain who transformed a low-performing crew into a strong, cohesive, autonomous crew.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
        Company I worked for gave us all a copy of the book and made us go to a 3-hour presentation by the guy. I was not impressed!
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - newsclues 3y ago
      His style of leadership was what a good captain should be. Kind, caring, patient with everyone but also personally set and expected a higher standard. Mistakes were opportunities to learn, and you never felt belittled. He was the kind of person that was the first to show up and the last to leave and knew every part of the business as if he had done it, and was busy but always had time for people and knew there names. He was a leader not a manager or supervisor, a trait I’ve found common among military people. He took cleanliness and safety seriously from the navy and applied that to the store, the store staff vacuumed and cleaned the store as it was his and we took pride in it from top to bottom and he lead workplace safety efforts very early on. He ran the store like a family, and he shined his boots every morning.
switch007 3y ago
She's giving CEO/COO vibes. I bet she would crush it in either of those roles. It would be amazing if this article catapulted her towards running her own business. Loved this: > Hart gets to the front of the store, a product-display area in between banks of registers known as the horseshoe. “So what are you thinking here?” she asks Wright. “Easter or summer toys?” > Wright suggests summer toys and T-shirts. > “I think we should go after the eclipse,” says Hart, filling the section with eclipse-themed gear, as well as outdoor chairs and coolers. Micro teaching opportunity and giving the employee an opportunity to have input, rather than just "put eclipse-themed gear here"
- notdang 3y ago
  That was a trap, she, as a boss gave 2 options for the answer: "easter or summer toys" then she proceeded with the 3rd option: eclipse. That gives bad vibes.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    In some contexts yes but I think the idea is to teach the employee that they can answer with a different option. But it does depend on their relationship and personality.
    - qup 3y ago
      They already did answer with a different option (T-shirts)
    - giantg2 3y ago
      If their answer is anything other than "eclipse", then they failed. There was no follow-up question to see why theh felt that way. There was no real discussion on strategy or reasoning. This is a trap.
      - hx8 3y ago
        Eclipse is obviously the best possible answer. You don't need to spend 15 minutes deliberating on this. This is a teaching moment to encourage staff to give great ideas by demonstrating how to communicate great ideas.
listenallyall 3y ago
Quite a difference from all of those "my day as a <cool tech company> employee" TikTok videos, such as https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/7171572776258604331?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/717157277625860... https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143342 https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143... https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/7083958340455386411 https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/708395834045538641...
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  Do any of these social media department idiots actually do any work?
  - dewey 3y ago
    You can only put so much "person staring at screen" clips into a 15 second short video.
devdiary 3y ago
How come a paywalled content gets to the top of the HN front-page?
- switch007 3y ago
  90% of the time someone posts an archive URL. I wish they would get pinned to the top (@dang :)
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    That the archive URL is some generally accepted thing here seems bizarre to me. I mean, taking the text and hosting it elsewhere—that’s just an unauthorized copy, just like if somebody had posted a torrent of a new popular movie so we could discuss it. Or links to cracked software (how else could those of us who don’t want to pay for it discuss it, right?) I respond to the headline/other discussion in the thread if it is interesting. IMO, the publisher’s decision of how they want their work distributed and discussed should be respected. That includes not making unauthorized copies, and also the fact that that constrains conversation about their work. I’m surprised that we seem to understand this for software but not written word. And we mostly act accordingly: lots of discussion of open source works, not so much on “paywalled” proprietary software.
- ergonaught 3y ago
  It happens nearly daily, and so do variations of this question. The “This doesn't align with my expectations so it must be wrong” response is fascinating.
  - devdiary 3y ago
    Do not understand your comment. What are you trying to say?
- nfriedly 3y ago
  Presumably because the paywall is very porus. And, I suppose, there are a few HN people who have subscriptions. And probably a few who just upvote based on the title. (I think it only takes 4 up votes to hit the front page if they happen quickly enough.)
karaterobot 3y ago
> “I love my job,” says Hart, but “it doesn’t turn off. That is one of the hard things about it.” I'm lucky that in my industry I can make a good living as an individual contributor, because having to actually think about my job when I'm not at my job sounds like a living nightmare.
- applied_heat 3y ago
  There are a lot of jobs that are 24/7/365 without proper coverage from coworkers so people are always available and can’t turn off. Other jobs won’t call you off shift but if you just had to deal with something traumatic like a car wreck it’s hard to leave that at work as well.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > There are a lot of jobs that are 24/7/365 without proper coverage from coworkers so people are always available and can’t turn off. This comment is oddly specific. It reads like you are writing from personal experience. Besides emergency medicine, what else qualifies?
    - riahi 3y ago
      It describes almost every role in the field of medicine.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwaway2037 3y ago
        I don't hear these complaints from nurses during HN discussions. Only doctors.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  If you're in SW, you probably will need to think about your job off work: They usually don't work in shifts, and will have deliverables in a timeline of months. They need to plan the work, and always adjust to hit the deadlines. If you're a doctor, then you probably don't have to think about your job off work.
mvkel 3y ago
Credit to Walmart for creating an environment where a person can still love their job after years of service. That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose. To create a scaled corp structure where a person can ascend from the bottom is also tough to do.
- kotaKat 3y ago
  The other interesting effect I notice is that in rural communities especially, you find a lot more long-term employees that have just stayed because it was the solidest employer of the time. Between jobs and before I launched into my current IT position I had a small stint at my local Walmart just to make ends meet -- MANY of the staff had 5, 10, 15, and even 20+ year service badges. Many of those 20+ year employees were there as the concrete was being poured and have been here since that store first opened in the community.
- bicx 3y ago
  Yeah, after a certain amount (like enough to cover expenses, have a little fun, and build savings) and a certain amount of time, your income stops being something that makes you excited. This is especially true if you’re around other people who make the same as you do. If becomes normalized in your mind. Everyone needs a challenge and some goals. Something to look forward to.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    I'm looking forward to retirement. I'm not interested in professional challenges anymore. In my experience they're usually BS and you don't get rewarded.
- BLanen 3y ago
  > That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose. Something only someone with a high income would say. Contrary to all data and research and evidence.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tennisflyi 3y ago
Thread reeks of intellectualism. > Me SWE/work at FAANG, so smart More realistically, you’ll seem very, very surprised that someone not at corporate would be CEO level “smart” or even smart
bandyaboot 3y ago
> To end the meeting, Michael Cole, 66, a maintenance worker, leads the group in the Walmart Cheer, a chant workers throughout the company do to start and end meetings. This can’t be real.
- mech422 3y ago
  ross perot - EDS and I think IBM did the same...
- kevstev 3y ago
  oh bud I worked in e-commerce for Walmart Labs and we did the cheer at every large meeting (think townhall, not every stand up). Give me a squiggly!
- tombert 3y ago
  The chant is absolutely real. I don’t know how frequently they do it in retail, but it was pretty infrequent in the software engineer positions. Source: I was a software engineer for Jet.com for two years after the Walmart acquisition, and then another year separately.
  - mech422 3y ago
    Ross Perot/EDS and I think IBM used to do the cheers.. EDS would also interview you wife (if you had one) to make sure she fit in with the EDS family.
  - zhivota 3y ago
    Wait, so you're saying you had to do a chant as a SWE? That's wild. I'm really glad I never took up the recruiters for Walmart Labs now, that would have been a disaster for me.
    - sib 3y ago
      For those groups, typically at things like quarterly all-hands, etc. Not on a daily basis as they do in the retail side.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Jakesben101 3y ago
[flagged]
bunabhucan 3y ago
I bumped into their manager AGM (well, quarter of it, they did 4 separate ones consecutively) in Kansas City one year. My employer had booked the hotel months previously. I think I was the only non walmart person. They had four lines at check in, men smoking, women smoking, men non-smoking, women non-smoking. You shared a room with whoever you got in line with. Lots of shop talk, no juicy secrets, silence when they found out I was not one of them.

146 points by impish9208 3y ago

> She passes a prominent display of Lume Whole Body Deodorant, a new product for the store priced at $14.97. > > “It’s interesting, but it’s too pricey for my customer,” says Hart. It isn’t selling that quickly. The whole thing reads as a horrible dystopia.

rderewianko 3y ago

https://archive.is/lk15F https://archive.is/lk15F

999900000999 3y ago

>Hart has seen that change firsthand. About 20 years ago, then 19 years old and a mother of two, she started part-time at the same Walmart she now runs. Her first job was cooking live lobsters pulled from a tank in the deli. Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail. She deserves every dime.

dewey 3y ago
This reminds me of a very interesting interview I've listened to a while ago (It was posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38924101): https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-of-a-hard-discounter https://inpractise.com/articles/aldi-culture-and-operations-... There they talk about the Aldi culture and how "walking into management" isn't possible there, as everyone goes through the ranks of a store. That means of course that hiring someone from outside is almost not possible, but people there usually stay a very long time or even retire at the company.
- Tostino 3y ago
  I honestly respect companies with that attitude way more than your standard American company culture.
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    I wish more operated this way. No matter how well you do, or what you accomplish, you will never be as successful ($$$$) as someone who joined a women’s leadership club right after their MBA and never worked a real job in their life. Promoting from within forces you to actual reward value and understand the business.
    - dclowd9901 3y ago
      It has good and bad sides. Imagine working at a company for 10 years and you end up under some total knob as a manager. They don’t help you at all, they’re crap at their job, and you have no chance at moving up because you’ve basically reached a dead end. Hopefully you have some lateral move you can make but that’s going to cost you time as you endear yourself to another manager (who hopefully is not also a useless prick). And the only other options are bailing entirely and ending up starting over again somewhere else or just sucking it up and staying in that position for who knows how long.
- troad 3y ago
  So the main qualification for being an Aldi executive is years of experience throwing people's groceries from one side to the other, never making eye-contact? And this translates to the skills required to run a multi-national business how exactly? Don't get me wrong, sounds like a great deal for mediocre 'lifer' employees, but seems like a terrible deal for anyone bright (years stuck 'waiting the ranks' - or more realistically a massive brain drain for places that do let them 'walk into management'), or just corporate strategy in general (the skills required to run international JIT food logistics and the skills required to mop a spill in aisle 12 don't exactly have the greatest overlap.)
  - 3y ago
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
When I worked at best buy we called them “lifers.” Last time I was in there I noticed one of the managers was a guy I worked with when we were teenagers. I’m still kinda mad he got picked to be the idea box over me, but in retrospect it looks like they picked the team player.
blackhawkC17 3y ago
Walmart’s current CEO, Doug McMillon, also began working there as a high schooler unloading trucks (before completing college and returning to a corporate role). https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-profile-2019-1?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-pr...
paulpauper 3y ago
It's inspiring because it's in large part an outlier and not applicable to the vast majority of people who lack college degrees. It would not be remarkable it it were common or realistic.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TMWNN 3y ago
>Was definitely expecting this to be a story about someone who graduated college and walked into management. I have respect for anyone who could rise though the ranks of retail. Some huge percentage of Americans's first job is at McDonald's (another business that has historically found management talent in-house). They learn the importance of cleanliness, customer service, accuracy.
hx8 3y ago
A lot of Walmart management are promoted into it. While certainly not a great job, it's not too bad to make a career out of it. The average Walmart location will see about $70M/yr in revenue, so her responsibility is fairly high.

olddustytrail 3y ago

> Near the cereal aisle, a customer walks up to Hart while recording on his cellphone. >“Hi! Can we get some Snoop Cereal here on the shelf?” asks the man. Earlier that month the rapper Snoop Dogg sued Walmart, claiming the retailer, along with Post Consumer Brands, had worked to suppress sales of Snoop Cereal. Some fans were recording videos related to the dispute for social media. It's like you think you know America because you see it on TV and film so much, and then you read something that makes it sound so weirdly foreign.

svnt 3y ago
There are few things more American than the passage you just quoted. It is about a fan of an aging stoner/rapper talking to a Wal-Mart employee about the fact that he wants cereal.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Indeed, but it's an example of the kind of real America that doesn't feature in Hollywood scripts very much.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    It would seem too banal to most Americans
quantumfissure 3y ago
This is not a normal human, less then probably .5% of 340 million Americans are like this. It's called being an attention-whore and hoping to strike it big by filming a non-controversy and making it into one on Tik-Tok. You can thank social media (and regular media) for the profiting off clicks/algorithms/non-controversies and driving this nonsense. This isn't filming a cop making an arrest to keep them accountable, it's filming a store manager hoping to create controversy and rid her of her job because she 'said or did the wrong thing' on film. It's no different then filming a fat/alt-lifestyle/whomever person on the bus without them knowing and then making fun of them to drive clicks to your video.

avalys 3y ago

$120k base and $120k bonus, but okay. I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart but you have to respect a company that's operating a real business at massive scale and about a 2% -3% profit margin. And Nichole seems to be good at her job. It's interesting how the bulk of the decisions about displays, ordering, stocking, are apparently made in each store and not centrally.

pixl97 3y ago
Having worked around a particular system of Walmart I have to say they are brutally efficient and typically hire good people to run their internal systems. This would be at the corporate level and not store level, can't say much about that myself. When working with them in measuring the efficiency of the software they were using they were getting significantly higher throughput at significantly lower hardware cost than the average large customer that uses this software. All of it because just a few well learned employees understand how the all systems work together in this workflow and optimize the process.
- 4star3star 3y ago
  Walmart is a well oiled machine. Not saying there's nothing to improve, but in the context of the overall system in which it operates, it's crushing it.

ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago

Unpopular opinion, more people are capable of doing well at higher level jobs than they are at low level grunt working jobs.

doytch 3y ago
Time-management is probably the single most important skill in these higher-paying jobs and...well...given the amount of self-help books there are on this topic, I'm not so sure I'd agree. People who do well in higher-level jobs know /exactly/ what they're best at or uniquely positioned to do, and do that. Meanwhile, you need to delegate the rest to whoever's in the best position to do so (growing people if there aren't enough) which is itself a tricky calculus.
- switch007 3y ago
  I'd say it's people skills and marketing/PR. Everyone I've seen rise through the ranks has absolutely nailed communication, self-promotion, parroting the party-line, moderating their words, adapting to their audience, improving their speech techniques, giving excellent presentations etc.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Disagree. The most important skill as you go up higher in the ranks is emotional regulation. Many, many people simply aren’t able to do that. You can’t manage complex organizations that include people without that ability.
  - doytch 3y ago
    That's a really good point. After reading your profile, I'm tempted to ask if you've bookmarked any articles/books about that topic?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Many, many people simply aren’t able to do that. You can’t manage complex organizations that include people without that ability Never thought about it that way, but I think you're correct. The number of adults who cannot hold their cool in the face of a perceived slight or setback is shocking.

doytch 3y ago

She runs a shop that employs 300 people; needs to worry about short-term and long-term logistics and planning; works cross-functionally with the trades; probably frequently needs to manage upwards; interacts directly with customers; etc etc... Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job.

varispeed 3y ago
> Damn, she deserves that $240k more than a lot of us software developers. This is a hard job. Wow, this is such a nonsense view. Software development may seem easy to you, because you know how to do it and probably have been doing it for a long time. But I can assure you, software development is a hard job. If it was easy, everyone and their dog could do it. Have some respect to your profession!
- heisenbit 3y ago
  Yes SW development is a hard job but she is doing a lot more than one job and the skill set required (not just knowledge but also behavior) to cover so many roles is a lot broader than most developers and also many managers in the software industry require to do their job.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    On the other hand, there are a lot of Walmarts and similar stores, and a lot of people who have managed these in the past. There are many people who she can turn to for reliable advice. I'm assuming one Walmart is not fundamentally different from another. It's hard work, but it's essentially predictable. Software developers are often called to do work that's not predictable. At the top of the pay grade we're generally asked to design something novel, because it's obviously not worth paying $240k / year for a developer whose work could be replaced by off-the-shelf software. (Sure, there are many exceptions and cushy jobs where people are raking in the cash with few risks. I'm thinking there are probably less of these around than a few years ago, though.)
  - varispeed 3y ago

havaloc 3y ago

"Walking every aisle is a new practice for store bosses in her area, implemented by their regional manager. It helps managers “see what your customers see,” says Hart, and pay attention to details. It also keeps her employees on their toes." I can't believe this wasn't policy already. Seems like good practice.

newsclues 3y ago
I had a great manager that did similar things. His education was the navy and he ran a store like a ship, and everyone loved it.
- damidekronik 3y ago
  Would honestly love to know more. What activities which are not common for a store did he bring from the navy?
  - insensible 3y ago
    You’d probably enjoy the book Turn the Ship Around about a Navy submarine captain who transformed a low-performing crew into a strong, cohesive, autonomous crew.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      Company I worked for gave us all a copy of the book and made us go to a 3-hour presentation by the guy. I was not impressed!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - newsclues 3y ago
    His style of leadership was what a good captain should be. Kind, caring, patient with everyone but also personally set and expected a higher standard. Mistakes were opportunities to learn, and you never felt belittled. He was the kind of person that was the first to show up and the last to leave and knew every part of the business as if he had done it, and was busy but always had time for people and knew there names. He was a leader not a manager or supervisor, a trait I’ve found common among military people. He took cleanliness and safety seriously from the navy and applied that to the store, the store staff vacuumed and cleaned the store as it was his and we took pride in it from top to bottom and he lead workplace safety efforts very early on. He ran the store like a family, and he shined his boots every morning.

switch007 3y ago

She's giving CEO/COO vibes. I bet she would crush it in either of those roles. It would be amazing if this article catapulted her towards running her own business. Loved this: > Hart gets to the front of the store, a product-display area in between banks of registers known as the horseshoe. “So what are you thinking here?” she asks Wright. “Easter or summer toys?” > Wright suggests summer toys and T-shirts. > “I think we should go after the eclipse,” says Hart, filling the section with eclipse-themed gear, as well as outdoor chairs and coolers. Micro teaching opportunity and giving the employee an opportunity to have input, rather than just "put eclipse-themed gear here"

notdang 3y ago
That was a trap, she, as a boss gave 2 options for the answer: "easter or summer toys" then she proceeded with the 3rd option: eclipse. That gives bad vibes.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  In some contexts yes but I think the idea is to teach the employee that they can answer with a different option. But it does depend on their relationship and personality.
  - qup 3y ago
    They already did answer with a different option (T-shirts)
  - giantg2 3y ago
    If their answer is anything other than "eclipse", then they failed. There was no follow-up question to see why theh felt that way. There was no real discussion on strategy or reasoning. This is a trap.
    - hx8 3y ago
      Eclipse is obviously the best possible answer. You don't need to spend 15 minutes deliberating on this. This is a teaching moment to encourage staff to give great ideas by demonstrating how to communicate great ideas.

listenallyall 3y ago

Quite a difference from all of those "my day as a <cool tech company> employee" TikTok videos, such as https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/7171572776258604331?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/717157277625860... https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143342 https://www.tiktok.com/@miss_alexabel/video/7068404845325143... https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/7083958340455386411 https://www.tiktok.com/@suppgorjess/video/708395834045538641...

KennyBlanken 3y ago
Do any of these social media department idiots actually do any work?
- dewey 3y ago
  You can only put so much "person staring at screen" clips into a 15 second short video.

devdiary 3y ago

How come a paywalled content gets to the top of the HN front-page?

switch007 3y ago
90% of the time someone posts an archive URL. I wish they would get pinned to the top (@dang :)
- bee_rider 3y ago
  That the archive URL is some generally accepted thing here seems bizarre to me. I mean, taking the text and hosting it elsewhere—that’s just an unauthorized copy, just like if somebody had posted a torrent of a new popular movie so we could discuss it. Or links to cracked software (how else could those of us who don’t want to pay for it discuss it, right?) I respond to the headline/other discussion in the thread if it is interesting. IMO, the publisher’s decision of how they want their work distributed and discussed should be respected. That includes not making unauthorized copies, and also the fact that that constrains conversation about their work. I’m surprised that we seem to understand this for software but not written word. And we mostly act accordingly: lots of discussion of open source works, not so much on “paywalled” proprietary software.
ergonaught 3y ago
It happens nearly daily, and so do variations of this question. The “This doesn't align with my expectations so it must be wrong” response is fascinating.
- devdiary 3y ago
  Do not understand your comment. What are you trying to say?
nfriedly 3y ago
Presumably because the paywall is very porus. And, I suppose, there are a few HN people who have subscriptions. And probably a few who just upvote based on the title. (I think it only takes 4 up votes to hit the front page if they happen quickly enough.)

karaterobot 3y ago

> “I love my job,” says Hart, but “it doesn’t turn off. That is one of the hard things about it.” I'm lucky that in my industry I can make a good living as an individual contributor, because having to actually think about my job when I'm not at my job sounds like a living nightmare.

applied_heat 3y ago
There are a lot of jobs that are 24/7/365 without proper coverage from coworkers so people are always available and can’t turn off. Other jobs won’t call you off shift but if you just had to deal with something traumatic like a car wreck it’s hard to leave that at work as well.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  > There are a lot of jobs that are 24/7/365 without proper coverage from coworkers so people are always available and can’t turn off. This comment is oddly specific. It reads like you are writing from personal experience. Besides emergency medicine, what else qualifies?
  - riahi 3y ago
    It describes almost every role in the field of medicine.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      I don't hear these complaints from nurses during HN discussions. Only doctors.
BeetleB 3y ago
If you're in SW, you probably will need to think about your job off work: They usually don't work in shifts, and will have deliverables in a timeline of months. They need to plan the work, and always adjust to hit the deadlines. If you're a doctor, then you probably don't have to think about your job off work.

mvkel 3y ago

Credit to Walmart for creating an environment where a person can still love their job after years of service. That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose. To create a scaled corp structure where a person can ascend from the bottom is also tough to do.

kotaKat 3y ago
The other interesting effect I notice is that in rural communities especially, you find a lot more long-term employees that have just stayed because it was the solidest employer of the time. Between jobs and before I launched into my current IT position I had a small stint at my local Walmart just to make ends meet -- MANY of the staff had 5, 10, 15, and even 20+ year service badges. Many of those 20+ year employees were there as the concrete was being poured and have been here since that store first opened in the community.
bicx 3y ago
Yeah, after a certain amount (like enough to cover expenses, have a little fun, and build savings) and a certain amount of time, your income stops being something that makes you excited. This is especially true if you’re around other people who make the same as you do. If becomes normalized in your mind. Everyone needs a challenge and some goals. Something to look forward to.
- giantg2 3y ago
  I'm looking forward to retirement. I'm not interested in professional challenges anymore. In my experience they're usually BS and you don't get rewarded.
BLanen 3y ago
> That stuff can't be faked, even with a high salary. Before you say, "it's easy to say when you're getting paid $240K a year." Nah. A person needs challenge; a purpose. Lots of FANG ICs making $500K+ who hate their job. Why? No challenge or palpable purpose. Something only someone with a high income would say. Contrary to all data and research and evidence.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tennisflyi 3y ago

Thread reeks of intellectualism. > Me SWE/work at FAANG, so smart More realistically, you’ll seem very, very surprised that someone not at corporate would be CEO level “smart” or even smart

bandyaboot 3y ago

> To end the meeting, Michael Cole, 66, a maintenance worker, leads the group in the Walmart Cheer, a chant workers throughout the company do to start and end meetings. This can’t be real.

mech422 3y ago
ross perot - EDS and I think IBM did the same...
kevstev 3y ago
oh bud I worked in e-commerce for Walmart Labs and we did the cheer at every large meeting (think townhall, not every stand up). Give me a squiggly!
tombert 3y ago
The chant is absolutely real. I don’t know how frequently they do it in retail, but it was pretty infrequent in the software engineer positions. Source: I was a software engineer for Jet.com for two years after the Walmart acquisition, and then another year separately.
- mech422 3y ago
  Ross Perot/EDS and I think IBM used to do the cheers.. EDS would also interview you wife (if you had one) to make sure she fit in with the EDS family.
- zhivota 3y ago
  Wait, so you're saying you had to do a chant as a SWE? That's wild. I'm really glad I never took up the recruiters for Walmart Labs now, that would have been a disaster for me.
  - sib 3y ago
    For those groups, typically at things like quarterly all-hands, etc. Not on a daily basis as they do in the retail side.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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Jakesben101 3y ago

[flagged]

bunabhucan 3y ago

I bumped into their manager AGM (well, quarter of it, they did 4 separate ones consecutively) in Kansas City one year. My employer had booked the hotel months previously. I think I was the only non walmart person. They had four lines at check in, men smoking, women smoking, men non-smoking, women non-smoking. You shared a room with whoever you got in line with. Lots of shop talk, no juicy secrets, silence when they found out I was not one of them.