I don't think so, not unless your store's in Missouri. It's hardly surprising if these practices are widespread, though.
Yeah, that's how mine was, but its likely in same general area (Kansas City area, Gardner specifically). Ironically, my store had, and still has, a reputation for being the WORST store to work for in the area... which doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, here's a small list of the bullshit they pull:
They brought in a manager who had no fucking clue what she was doing. Most of us knew more about running the damn store than she did. Hell, once she even had the asset protection guy help a customer buy a display TV despite the fact that he was supposed to be incognito and I was only a department over and electronics was the only department outside of mine that I actually liked (largely due to the fact that I know the merchandise there like the back of my hand).
Ran a skeleton crew, even during the fucking holidays by refusing to replace people that quit or got fired unless they absolutely had to. Hell, the number one customer complaint was that they couldn't fucking find anyone to help them!
Bullshit write ups. Once I got written up for "low productivity," courtesy the aforementioned dumbass manager that had no idea what she was doing. She claimed that she had multiple incidents on record that lead to this write up, but couldn't even pull ONE out of her ass when I pressed her. My direct supervisor at the time actually apologized to me immediately afterward because even she saw the bullshit.
Relatedly, bullshit threats for write ups. Repeatedly, they would threaten to write me up if I didn't partake in the fucking Wal-Mart cheer, which they knew I fucking HATED in all its demeaning worthlessness. It was a waste of time and energy and I initially just left the meeting when they were about to start it. A couple other people actually started following suit because they agreed with me. They eventually gave up after I just sat there and did nothing during it to get them off my ass for leaving before it.
A complete lack of efficiency. Once, I was about to leave when a customer asked me to help them, so I went to do so. They wanted a fishing license, but the license computer was having serious issues (they happened all the fucking time and they never replaced it), so I let the customer know that it needed to reboot and that, since it was time for me to leave for the day, I would send over the next guy to help him. The customer had no problem with this, so I went to pass the sporting goods keys to the next guy (again, note that this was not my job and was actually a higher paying job than my actual position, see how often that happens?). A manager (incidentally, the SAME FUCKING IDIOT) overhears me doing this and she tells me to go back and help the customer, I explain myself to her, but she doesn't care. I roll my eyes and head back to help the customer... when the guy I was going to pass the keys along to comes by and takes the keys and proceeds to help the customer, telling me to go and talk to the manager. The manager then tells me to WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE STORE MEETING to talk to her, which I call her out on. She was actually so stunned that she actually let me leave for the night with no complaint. I can bet you twenty bucks that she would have written me up for this incident, which amounted to her making a mess out of me trying to optimize one simple fucking thing.
Lied to the unemployment office. This one didn't happen to me, but to a co-worker who was fired a few months after me for similarly dubious reasons. They fired him for some similar non-offense like when they fired me for not saying "hi" to a customer, something along the lines of refusing to help an unreasonable and angry customer, then lied to the unemployment office by telling them that he had threatened a customer.
As Ravynous said, shifted people from job to job... in the middle of doing something. On top of that, they would then yell at you for not getting your department's work done when you were forced to drop something and take care of a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEPARTMENT for two hours.
Worthless and idiotic manager rotation. Wal-Mart policy when I started working there was that managers would be assigned a new department every six months. Compare this to the store I now work at where my boss has had his position for 15 fucking years and knows everything there is to know about the department as a result. WHY they rotate managers like this is completely beyond me. The only advantage is to separate employees and managers that hate each other. Also, because of unnecessary policy changes, I was stuck wit that same fucking dumbass as my manager for the majority of my two year stint with the store. At least there was a 3 or so month gap between when she was my boss as a cart pusher and when she was my boss as a sales associate /sarcasm.
Completely computer generated scheduling. Because that worthless dumbass needs even LESS to do /sarcasm. Initially, the computer was used to give a guideline for scheduling, but idiotic and completely unnecessary policy changes actually made it impossible for managers to change the schedule before finalizing with conflicts having to be worked out afterward (or so they claimed, I have no idea if they were lying to me or not). The computer not only CONSTANTLY shuffled around hours and rarely would you go even TWO WEEKS with the same schedule, but it would often disregard availability, so we'd have people scheduled when they couldn't even work. It also disregarded logic in that it would occasionally schedule me until fucking midnight or until 10 PM on one day, then at 7 or 8 AM the next.
