Reply #81: Growing Balls and Hurting Profits

[RoyGBiv]

Of the latter, how? How, specifically, does this "prank," as you put it, hurt Wal-Mart's profits? I would prefer something other than theory, as in specifics. Understand before answering that I worked for many years in management of a retail corporation and am well aware of the arguments about productivity and the so-called bottom line being affected by things such as this. That is, I know the theory. I also know how retail stores seek to combat this. Those who manage these establishments are quite a bit smarter than some people in these threads give them credit for being.

As far as "growing balls" is concerned, I'm really getting tired of addressing this kind of indictment of victims of worker abuse. Blaming the victim has become a convenient device to be pulled out of the rhetorical war chest as though it is harmless. It's not harmless. It's a well established tactic of the corporate world to make workers responsible for "allowing" unfair practices of employers that skirt the thinnest edge of legality to continue. If you truly do not think employers such as Wal-Mart do not find ways effectively to force their employees to work off the clock, you are lacking the relevant facts necessary to analyze the effects such "pranks" have on workers as opposed to the company that employs them. It's not a choice of stocking the coolor or cleaning up the mess. You do both. If you have to clean up more messes, you do that too, and you do it without overtime, period. Clocking out late is considered just as much an infraction as clocking in late and is often treated in the same manner on evaluations.

Take a poll of retail workers regarding what they think of people who do things like this. Or, if you really want a reaction, walk up to one of the graveyard shift employees in a Wal-Mart and just bluntly tell them you think this is a grand, harmless idea that you also think is pretty damn funny. Then call me when your bones heal.