Had I been given the luxury of choice, I would have opted to spend the entire summer sitting around my house half-naked relaxing as thoroughly as I could. Honestly. If my parents hadn’t basically told me, “you’re getting a job this summer, no discussion,” I wouldn’t have even considered seeking employment. Well, the first few weeks of summer had passed by and I had yet to find work (it should be noted that my search for a job was a bit less than enthusiastic), so one day my father — deciding that I needed a bit of help — made a list of places I was likely to get hired at, and even drove me to all the places on this list himself. That guy really, really wanted me to get a job.

I filled out quite a few applications that day. Target, H-E-B, some new “American Grill” that just opened up on Nasa Rd 1 — all sorts of places. Only one potential employer called me back, and they did it that same day. A few days and a few interviews later, I was hired. I am now part of the world’s largest private employer:

As a cartpusher, no less. That’s my official job title. Cartpusher.

Day 1: Orientation

When I told Jeb I had gotten hired at Wal-Mart, he had this to say:

Prophetic words indeed. The two other new-hires that had orientation with me were young African American women who had scored jobs as cashiers. We waited for a bit in the area in the back of the store which used to be Layaway until a middle-aged and clearly overstressed woman named Hollie came out and led us into the Personnel Office. She seated us at a table and directed our attention to the giant piles of paperwork sitting in front of us. We (the other new employees and I) spent the next hour or so quietly filling out a ridiculous number of forms. I now know my social security number by heart.

When we were finished, Hollie had us turn our chairs around so that we were facing the TV, and then she started the first of about five videos we were required to watch. I believe the first one was about the history of the company. Did you guys know that Wal-Mart had its first billion-dollar year in 1979? I sure didn’t. After the first video, Hollie had the store manager, Chris, come in and talk to us. This guy, the head-honcho of the whole place, is a pretty damn ridiculous person. He bears a striking resemblance to Canadian stand-up comedian Seán Cullen, pictured on the right. He sat down at the table and gave us a little inspirational talk, telling us, “I started out as an overnight stocker at Sam’s Club seventeen years ago, and now I manage my own Wal-Mart. One day each of you will have a Wal-Mart of your own,” and, “I know you guys technically work for me, but I’m not really your boss. And I know the district managers are technically above me, but they’re not really my bosses. You see, our real boss is the customer.” After he had gotten that shit out of the way, he got down to the “making you guys feel comfortable” spiel. He told us, “Man, when Hollie’s up here talking to you again, one of you just like, bang on the table and scream as loud as you can, and see what she does.

Better yet, in the middle of her speach, all of you just get up and leave without saying a word. Seriously, do it. You can come down to my office and I’ll take care of you. Are you going to do it? Jacob, don’t let me down, man.” At one point he told one of the girls to hand him the giant bowl of candy left out on the table so that he could take a piece and throw it at Hollie, who was across the room working at her desk. This guy is pretty much a badass. After he left we watched the rest of the videos. One particularly memorable video was titled “Protecting Your Back” and was all about, well, protecting your back. It would have been pretty informative if it weren’t for the fact that it made no sense. Remember, guys, next time you have to lift something heavy, stay in the dark green zone and execute the “build-a-bridge” maneuver. Four hours into orientation, Hollie informed me that I needed to leave, because I’m under 18 and Wal-Mart has a strict policy of only letting minors work four hours a day, five days a week. So while the other new employees got ready for their walk-through tour of the store, I went out to my car and left. I took with me, however, my newly laminated Wal-Mart badge. The front badge, the red-white-and-blue one with my name on it, has a barcode on the back for use with the time clock. The yellow circle next to my name signifies that I’m a minor. There’s a seperate badge behind that one. You can see the part that identifies me as a Courtesy Associate. Above that title is a picture of Wal-Mart’s now-deceased founder, Sam Walton, wearing his ever-present trucker hat, and a quote from the man himself: “Wal-Mart’s future depends on how well you take care of each of your customers. A day at a time. A customer at a time. A store at a time.”

Days 2 and 3: Computer-Based Learning

Five or six computers line two of the walls of the Personnel Office, and are used exclusively for the Computer-Based Learning program. With this system Wal-Mart has set up, new employees can get all the training they need without having to talk to an actual person.  After logging on, one is presented with a list of individual training modules, referred to by everyone there as “CBLs.” Each CBL is a little slideshow of facts and procedures relating to a particular topic, with narration one can listen to through headphones. Some of them even have little videos one can watch. Throughout each CBL are a few review questions, and at the end of each CBL is a test, which one must earn a certain score on in order to pass. I’ll admit that there were a few that I failed the first time, and had to retake. All-in-all there were about 25 CBLs on my list, and they took all of two four-hour days to complete. The topics ranged from more back-safetey tips to procedures for cleaning up different kinds of spills, and from corporate ethics to the store’s anti-theft systems. The one covering sexual harassment was pretty incredible. Let me describe the opening video for this particular CBL:

• An absolutely repulsive, morbidly obese (typical for Wal-Mart, I’ve found) middle-aged woman in large, thick glasses and a Wal-Mart uniform is putting some items on a shelf.
• A man with a snazzy moustache and a suit comes up behind the woman and puts his hand on her shoulder.
• The large woman turns her head slightly toward the man, and we see on her face a look of sheer terror and disgust.
• Freeze frame.
• Animated jail bars slowly appear and close in over the man, and the resulting clank echoes in the silence.

I swear, this is a completely accurate decription of the video. I had to watch it twice. The CBL itself was your typical, “it’s okay to compliment women on their appearance but make sure not to proposition them for sex” lesson. There was another CBL that nearly made me laugh out loud, which I believe was about general safety precautions. Halfway through it showed a little montage of people being injured on the job, which was as ridiculous as it was pointless to the lesson. The pictures included a black dude with yellow acid splattered across his face, a man with half of his body charred and black laying on a stretcher, and a guy driving a forklift over a ledge and slamming his face into the steering wheel. All these things I saw in the two days I spent in front of a computer in the Personnel Office, letting Wal-Mart culture seep into my brain.

Days 4 through- what is it now, 7? 7, I guess: Out On The Lot

I had taken CBL’s that told me the procedures for selling tobacco and tobacco paraphernalia, taken CBL’s that gave me instructions for stocking shelves with merchandise, and even taken a CBL all about being a People Greeter, but somehow Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. had neglected to make a CBL that dealt with being a Cartpusher. So when I finally made it out to the parking lot on my fourth day as an employee, I had only a vague idea of what my tasks actually were.

With an orange vest over my shirt and a hope in my heart, I went and gathered up my first set of carts from a cart-return-station-thing, and pushed it to the cart bay on the left side of the store. Apparently I had the gist of it, as this was exactly what my colleagues were doing. The only person I worked with on my first day pushing carts was a guy named Sidney, whom I had heard described as “the skinny black boy over there” multiple times. To me he looks an awful lot like New York-based rapper Papoose. We would end up making some pretty epically long chains of carts and bringing them into the bays. I learned my limits on that first day on the lot. I started out with the idea, “the more carts I push at a time, the better.” How naïve I was. What I soon realized was that chains of more than about eight carts are not only much more difficult to push forward than a shorter, more reasonable chain, but require one to exert ridiculous amounts of force to the left or right if one wants to change the direction of the carts’ movement. About an hour into my first day, I was worn out, drenched in sweat, and the relentless Texas sun had prompted me to down two complimentary bottles of water. All these elements, it turned out, were a formula for disaster, and while bringing another group of carts to the front of the store, I turned my head to the side and vomited on the asphalt. “Not a big deal, man. The vomit is just weakness leaving your body,” I told myself, and after a short trip to the bathroom to clean up a bit, I got back to work. Despite this incident, I left that day thinking, “This job isn’t that bad.” The next day brought with it some new characters. Early on I found myself working with a fat goth chick (FGC) whom I learned is also a minor, complete with the yellow dot on the badge. It turns out she’s actually a cashier, but every now and then they’ll send cashiers out to help with the carts. She told me she would much rather be out pushing carts than inside working a cash register, and seeing as she’s highly overweight and it’s hot as hell outside, being a cashier at Wal-Mart must be an unbelievably shitty job. After two hours Charlie started his shift. I had heard of Charlie before, back on my second day. This guy is a legend. I had heard several people refer to him as the best cartpusher our humble Wal-Mart Supercenter has. With him, FGC and I working together, we got both bays filled up in no time, so we decided to rest for a little while and chat. I valued the opportunity to bask in this guy’s wisdom. He apparently works a full-time job during the day, and pushes carts at night part-time. I forgot to ask him what his day job is, but perhaps it’s best that I don’t know. He even told me his method for cartpushing — the technique that made him the most valuable cartpusher on the payroll: don’t pay attention to those guys making gigantic chains of carts that take three people to move. Make small, managable chains of carts so that you won’t get worn out, and you can work at a faster pace. This guy really deserves to be on top. The days since then have really started to blur together, and nothing really interesting has happened. All I can say is that I’ve pushed a lot of damn carts.

It really isn’t a bad job. I like it quite a bit. I start at 5 pm every day, so by the time I get out there the sun’s already on its way down, and besides, there’s always a nice breeze blowing through the lot. I get to work at my own pace and never have supervisors breathing down my neck. The simplicity of my task and the ubiquity of carts in the parking lot make the time pass by surprisingly fast, just like Chris had told me back in orientation. Plus, $7.25 an hour isn’t bad at all.

You guys want some useful Wal-Mart secrets? Alright. If you’re ever in a Wal-Mart parking lot and feel like you need some free bottled water, head over to the cart bays. The keep coolers right inside the doors, at least at the Wal-Mart I work at. Here’s another secret. Want to ride in one of those electric handicapped carts? Just ask for one when you walk into the store. The People Greeters aren’t allowed to question your need for one. It said that pretty explicitly in the People Greeter CBL. One last secret. If you’re ever in a Wal-Mart and somebody comes on the announcement system and says, “Due to circumstances beyond our control, everyone must leave the building,” or something similar, it’s a fucking bomb threat. Code Blue, motherfucker. Get the fuck out of there.
Pictured here is the discount card I got in the mail the other day. 10% off of everything, hell yeah. To be continued…?