Speak of the devil. We got an email from Home Office this morning detailing the pending black friday strike. And by that, I mean we were informed that the evil monied Union was staging a publicity stunt at the cost of poor hapless workers who don't know any better and how Wal-mart was filing suit to PROTECT THE DREAM OF MR. SAM WHOOOOOO.
Most pathetic, empty, vapid corporate propaganda puff piece I've ever heard, and having to listen to it in our manager's nasally voice and ridiculous faux enthusiasm made it worse. It never actually addressed the reasons WHY they're facing this strike, just repetitions of Union Bad, Wal-Mart Good, Union Employees just lazy and want something for nothing.
And then they told us we have a responsibility to the customer and thanked us for our flexibility his holiday season. Because nothing says flexibility like being scheduled 56 hours in one week with no days off and less than 6 hours between some shifts, having your schedule changed at the whim of our store manager, and being threatened with write-ups if we call in.
I think we call that "exploitation."
Edit: And it came to light recently that our district manager implemented a hiring freeze on our holiday temps last month, and wouldn't let us actually hire the people we'd interviewed and approved until the end of October and early this month. What this means is that after wasting time in orientation, our holiday help is going to be kicked out onto the floor in the midst of the grinder that is holiday blitz, and will likely quit en mass. I went through this shit once last year, and it was a nightmare with even six months experience.