Pros
If you are a hard-working, intelligent young man, you can climb up the latter quickly at Wal-Mart. I have been working there part-time, for the past year while finishing up college. I graduate this month, and my Store Manager is giving me a shot at being an Assistant Manager (Third in the management's hierarchal order) next month (There's a waiting list). I'm a 23-year-old man who has just come in and shown some initiative and intelligence and they love me. Wal-Mart is not a glamorous place to work, but while everyone else is struggling right now, Wal-Mart is still hiring and advancing their employees. They're not going anywhere. They have a very good benefits package. You can get whatever you want. The limit is how much you want taken out of your check. You can do a lot with just a few dollars a month. You can even have charity donations taken out of your check automatically to help you with your taxes. There is a clear career path at Wal-Mart. In eight years, I could be a Store Manager running my own store. I was told by a former Store Manager that it is a $200,000-a-year job. That's more than I could ever make using my journalism degree.
Cons
Working at Wal-Mart can be a high-stress job at times. You are rewarded for hard work, but at the same time, a lot is expected of you after you have shown that you are a hard worker. I've been yelled at and cussed at by customers. I've had to juggle a lot of responsibility. I've even had to manage and delegate work to others as a "cashier." To their defense, I would have been promoted a long time ago if I hadn't been in college and unable to work full-time. Worker moral is really low at my store. Six hundred people work at my store, and most of those positions are low income and/or part-time positions. Those positions attract less fortunate people who, many times, have a negative outlook on life. You have to listen to a lot of complaining. You have to deal with a lot of bitter people. You just have to rise above it. The work is not as bad as those people make it seem. You can't let them suck you in. You just have to be positive and focus on your work. You're going to come home tired. If you want to move up, you have to work hard. I'm tired when I come home. Sometimes I'm sore the next day. I work with a lot of heavy items. Sometimes I work with heavy items for most of the day. I've actually lost weight and gotten into better shape since I've worked there. It's not like that every day, but if you don't like working with your hands, then this isn't the job for you.
