A Walmart employee’s post about having to return a customer’s shopping cart full of items in a span of 30 minutes despite it being their second day of work has sparked a conversation on the store’s lack of proper training for its employees.
TikToker Aleck Edwards (@aleck_edwards) writes in a text overlay of his trending clip, “I got hired 2 days ago and they want me to return all these items in 30 minutes, I don’t even know where any of it goes.”
@aleck_edwards #walmart #walmartogp #work ♬ original sound – Aleck Edwards
Thankfully, one viewer was willing to serve up some helpful pointers for Edwards. “Go on your scanner, go to the homescreen, go to daily availability, sign in, go to ‘look up items’, then scan their barcodes,” they suggested in the video’s comments section.
Some else wrote that Edwards should use the Me@walmart application.
However, others were much less sympathetic to their plight.
“You shoulda paid attention in orientation,” one user wrote.
“Have u ever shopped at Walmart?” another quipped.
This isn’t the first time a Walmart employee suggested they weren’t adequately trained on TikTok. Another user on the platform wrote that while they were being trained to perform their job duties on the first day, the co-worker training them admitted that they were never formally trained.
One Reddit post uploaded in 2021 seems to indicate that the lack of proper training was a widespread problem across numerous Walmart locations. In a rant titled, “Why is Walmart so terrible at training associates?” that was uploaded to the site’s r/Walmart sub, user @Zestyclose_Date_3823 said that despite working at the store for a month they still had no idea what they were doing, despite being employed previously at places that required a more complex skill set.
“The associates that were supposed to be training me barely trained me and complain when I ask questions. Management is so bad at my Walmart that for my first 2 weeks I was completely alone in my aisle during my shifts Because they were apparently ‘underemployed’,” they wrote. “When I made a mistake at my other jobs it was like ‘DON’t EVER DO THAT AGAIN’ but you got feedback and that was it. Here If I make a mistake I get no feedback, and I feel my privileges get taken away.”
Social media Influencer Paris Mars also claimed that “no Walmart employee is trained for any department that they’re put in,” and that “nobody knows anything.”
Glassdoor reviews on the retailer don’t paint a much more hopeful picture, either. One commenter gave a wholly negative opinion of Walmart’s attitude towards training its workforce, stating that a lack of training in the store ultimately led to an on-the-job injury that could’ve been avoided had they been shown the ropes.
Today, it’s also been reported that Walmart is actually being sued over its 2015 “Pathways Training Program” which allegedly saw workers with disabilities discriminated against, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Walmart via email and Edwards via TikTok comment for further information.
