One of the items on
national news tonight was a story about greeters at Walmart and the
fact that Walmart is trying to shut down there “greeters program”.
I'm really quite surprised that this is taken on a national interest
like it has. To be honest I'm not really sure how I feel about the
whole issue. I don't even remember when the whole concept of greeters
began to take hold. Really I'd didn't even go to Walmart and tell
Dianne started going to Walmart but it moved up the Taylorsville area
just west of our home in Murray number of years ago. I'm quite
surprised to find out that some of these individuals that Walmart is
looking at terminating have worked there for over a decade 17 years
in some cases!
I was at Walmart today is
a matter of fact and I almost ran into one of these greeters that was
hanging out in the back of the store. I was intrigued to watch how he
seemed to be held in high esteem by many of the other Walmart
employees. Calling out to him as they walked past, slapped him on the
back and really they really seem to include him as part of the
employment family. I have to admit however that I've often wondered
just what are how much these guys get paid, these greeters. They sit
in the front of the store is not like that even greet anybody, many
of the folks in nonverbal as far as I can tell having pretty severe
cerebral palsy. These guys are usually a big power chairs sitting
there like a lawn ornaments. I'm kind of surprised at how many people
of come to their defense, the Walmart public. So many in fact have
contacted national Walmart management that the corporation is
beginning to rethink their decision. Interesting. It sounds like
they're going to give these guys the option of trying to find another
job within the corporation. I don't know how realistic this is our
this is just a smokescreen to take the heat off upper management. But
really, I don't mean to be a bad guy, corporate probably does have a
difficult time justifying these guys salaries if in fact they get
like a real income. Can you even call this a career, greeting people?
You will recall that I
spent part of my work life as a long-range planner for sheltered work
facility, a.k.a. sheltered workshop. I understand the whole concept
of vocational rehabilitation and developing work scenarios for people
with severe disabilities specifically developmental disabilities.
They have a term in sheltered work called W A our work activities.
This is an ongoing exercise for people with severe disabilities (DD
are what used to be termed as mental retardation) get up, get ready
and go to work at the sheltered workcenter doing supervised busywork
and getting paid meniscal amount of compensation. Work activities I
guess the looks like work at his work. I'm curious if the employees
at Walmart with similar disabilities are under work activities
contracts. It seems like most of these employees are folks with
cerebral palsy and I wonder if it's a giant sweetheart deal through
United cerebral palsy or the like. I don't know. I can't really
throwing stones so I have to be careful. I often thought, while
working for the independent living center that we (the full-time
employees and part-time) at the center were not a whole lot different
than the employee showing up at the sheltered workshop except a lot
of the staff at the ILC had actual college degrees. We got paid a
heckuva lot more, but we woke up, we got dressed and went into work
and did work. I still sometimes feel it was high end work activities.
I wish these workers well.
I'm sure that Walmart is not hurting are losing money employing these
greeters. I'm sure that some skilled bean counter can even write off
most of their salaries is one kind of expense or another. I don't
know if these folks, who have these jobs, are being taken advantage
of our field are being taken advantage and do they care if they do.
Seriously, capitalism screws everyone one way or the other at one
time or another… You're the worker, get in line, keep your head
down I get screwed like everyone else…
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