If you didn't catch Sunday's post, this entire week I'll be posting off topic and about me, my interests, and fun-facts about my life. My goal with these posts is to simply provide readers with a better understanding of the kind of person I am outside of the search marketing space, and to have a little fun. Without further ado, here's my forth post:
As a search engine marketer, I for one have always found it interesting to know what other SEM's did before breaking into this industry. I mean it's not like you can graduate from college with a degree in search engine marketing... at least not yet anyway. And, so one has to wonder... with so many of us search marketers out there, how did we all break into this industry and what were our jobs / careers beforehand.
The funny thing is, everyone that I've ever talked with or interviewed has always said something to the extent of: "well, I was doing this other thing, and one thing led to another and I just sort of fell into the field." Which... if you were to ask me, is exactly what I would say.
At 24 years old, I have only had 2 jobs in my life (not counting a paper route and corn detasseling duties when I was a kid). I am currently the Project Manager at All Web Promotion where I have been for the last 4 years, and before All Web, as you no doubt already figured out from the title, I worked for Wal-Mart retail.
I applied at Wal-Mart when I was 17 and worked their every bit of 3 1/2 to 4 years. As with a lot of high school kids, I wanted a little more income than what I was able squeeze out of my parents, and so I decided to get a part-time job where I could work after school and make a little cash... oh, and I do mean a little. I was hired for a floor position in the sporting goods department, but, due to a real shortage of employees I quickly found myself occupying the sporting goods, automotive, pets, hardware, toys, and furniture departments on many occasions.
In fact, as time went on I sort of became a real go-to-guy which I'm sure sounds really cool, but really just means that I was a tool... or better yet, a Wal-Mart bitch.
I was so versatile that depending on who called off and where the store was short in employees, I was often at times forced to leave the comfort of my sporting goods counter and work elsewhere in the store. Believe me when I say I've done EVERYTHING that Wal-Mart has to offer. Besides becoming fluent in every department of the entire store, some of my real bitch projects include:
Simply put, if you name it I probably did it and without any sort of pay compensation whatsoever. In fact, now that I think of it, I have to laugh a little because it wasn't until the night I put in my 2-week notice that I was offered my first raise outside of the mandatory minimum wage increases. But, that was then, and I've definitely moved on for the better.
I'd be lying if I said that working for Wal-Mart was the worst experience of my life. While at Wal-Mart I worked with a lot of great people, met a few of my good friends there (one being my now Fiancée Jackie), and learned a lot about life, work-ethic, and responsibility (if that doesn't sound corny).
To wrap up my story, I worked at Wal-Mart through the remainder of High School and then on-through College. During college, I studied in the Graphic Design & Technology field which just so happens to be what led me All Web's doorstep. And, that's that.
What about you? I'd love to hear about your past work experience even if you're not in the search marketing field. What are some of the early jobs of your life?
Labels: karl-ribas
10 Comments:
Karl,
It's been great reading on your recent posts! I, much like you, have always been the go-to-gal for many of my jobs in the past - but to back track a little, 20 years ago at age 17, my first job was at Taco Bell - churning frozen meat in a huge metal container was just the best, NOT! The grease emitted from such work gave rise to those horrible teenage acne years!
Fortunately, things got better after college, I did office administration at a tool company, a medical management co., and finally a security/building automation co., before I left to start the online business.
I also dealt with a lot of cruelties of being the go-to-gal and had to perform tasks at times that were, in my mind, incomprehensible! Too many to list, but at the last company I worked for - there was this 'secret' copying machine - ingeniously placed in a corner where only a few people knew about it, and everytime I was too stressed out, I would go and hide near that copying machine (because I knew no one would find me) and take a 10 min. breather before returning to the chaos of work! lol.
But you're right, Karl, it's never, ever about the daily manual labor that we perform...but it's ALWAYS about the people we meet and the lifelong friendships we make and retain into our later years...
By
Paper Loving Gal, at November 16, 2007 2:24 AM
Thanks for your comments, and thanks for sharing your story.
Wow, I think your time at Taco Bell might actually trump my time at Wal-Mart. I can't remember an instance of when my daily duties affected my skin condition. There were a few times where I think I was subject to battery acid in automotive, but that was a simple as washing it off in the Men's room. I can't imagine having to deal with all that grease knowing that it's contributing to acne.
By
Karl Ribas, at November 16, 2007 8:36 AM
Man, those really were the glory days. There was nothing to worry about besides makin' money and hangin' out. And now, only 7 years later, we've got student loans, car payments, A MORTGAGE to worry about. I agree with Paper Loving Gal - it's all about the people and the experiences. Even if it is all in the past now. Like I said, those were the glory days.
P.S. - F$@% WALMART! KMART KREW REPRESENT!
By
Drew, at November 16, 2007 9:00 AM
Oh so many stories to tell from WalMart. I only worked with Karl for like 4 months before they decided to move me from lawn and garden to stockboy and give me a pay cut because I no longer would work in a department with a cash register which ultimately led me to tell them to shove that job and I quit. Ya i'm still bitter. But let's see there was checking out all the HOT woman who shopped wearing skimpy clothes in the summer(Code Purple I think it was), there was the time Karl shattered the glass at the sporting goods counter screwing around with a shotgun, and the infamous time we had to get an entertainment center down from the storage area and Karl climbed the ladder and dropped it which split his pants from the crotch to his ankle then decided to try and staple his pants together in order to finish work. Those were the days indeed. I thought you were gonna be a lifer there. But you've moved onto a real job with a house of your own and are getting married. Meanwhile I'll grow up sometime and join the real workforce, but until then i'm gonna enjoy going to school, living off the government, and playing video games most of the time.
P.S. Shop Home Depot: You can build it, we can help
By
Greg, at November 16, 2007 11:04 AM
wow. i've worked at walmart for six months now...
and it's true, the more you know the more they use you for all you're worth.
i've already done half the jobs our walmart supercenter has to offer.
and i'm certainly not paid enough for it.
i hope i aspire to new and better things in the near or distant future.
-wmt bitch.
By
angry-brain, at July 18, 2008 4:54 PM
Wal-Mart is pretty crappy. It could be worse I suppose. Wal-Mart to me is an inspiration to the rut I'm in right now. Either I can fight to better myself or I can wake up to the nightmare that is reality 20 years down the road to be wearing a badge the basically says, Hi My name is Patrick and I've wasted 20 years of my life here.
I('d give my (much needed) video game playing thumbs to have ol' Sam back with us today just so he could bitch slap the current CEO. When he started the company, he had a lagit business that actually cared for it's employees as much as the customers. AAAAND the customers......
Back in to 60s and 70s, people were alot more polite than they are now. Back then, it was still legal to grab your child and bust their ass for running up and down toy isles destroying shit! Now, everyone and their mothers run a mock, think just because we are there that they OWN us, and are just a general nuisance.
With such a positive environment, why would ANYONE want to take anti-depressents?
My occupation is answered with Corporate Pawn when asked because that's what we are.
ALWAYS!
By
Patrick, at October 05, 2008 12:55 PM
Wal-Mart definitely isn't the only crappy retail job out there. I've had a number of friends and relatives working there who were always telling me stories about their jobs and advising me against applying for a position at Wal-Mart, and telling me that working there had to be worse than the job I had at Pamida. So I'd tell them to come work at Pamida for a few months and then get back to me. This was a couple years ago.
At this Pamida, everyone was a bitch. For the most part, the store was too small (and usually understaffed) for anyone to specialize in a department. You were responsible for knowing everything about everything. I was hired there under the vague title of "Customer Service Associate" but like you, as I gained experience I wound up doing everything under the sun depending on where they needed me on a given day.
I was a cashier, and when you're a cashier at Pamida, you're also the entire customer service desk. While on duty, you handle all sales, returns, exchanges, layaways, commercial charges, in-going and out-going photo processing logs, and anything else a customer might bring to you. You are the front line for every complaint and are expected to know how to handle it. You also answered the store phone (until we eventually got some new radio devices where the manager's units became the store phones). Oh yeah, and our registers sucked and we had to do tons of paperwork for everything we did. A customer decides they don't want the item you just scanned? Put a "void slip" through the machine that has to be printed with the item info., and then you have to mark the reason and sign the document and save it. This was done for every voided item in any transaction - any time a simple mistake was made like a double scan or anytime you had a non-sales transaction like making change for someone, or whenever a customer just changed their mind there was more paperwork. Returns, layaways, and charges each had their own special forms to fill out and sign and have the customer sign, and if they weren't done correctly, boy would you hear about it the next day!
While cashiering, in between customers, you didn't stand still... the entire front of the store is your responsibility: you clean (dust, vacuum, sweep, wash windows, wipe counters, whatever as needed), you face as much of the store as you possibly can while still in sight of your register, you're responsible for keeping the dressing room clean and putting all clothing back on the racks. If stockers find boxes of items which are located up by the registers, they drop the boxes off with you and you have to stock the stuff in between customers. The trick is you can't get caught doing nothing, but you can't get caught doing something else when a customer walks up - either way you're in trouble. At closing time, you clean the front area of the store and put away all of the customer returns that have accumulated throughout the day (re-tag things that need it, fix broken packaging as best you can, determine what is re-salable and what needs to be put into the damaged bin, and then get everything put away as quick as possible so the shift leader doesn't get pissed cuz you're taking too long). And that's just working as a cashier.
On other days I was a stock person. Some days I would be idiotically scheduled to be a cashier for certain hours and a stocker for alternate hours... but co-workers would be unhappy if you left any freight in a cart partly finished because you had to go run a register for an hour or two. You stocked whatever came off the pallet that was most accessible in the store room, which was only semi-sorted into departments. If you took too long filling your cart because you were trying to get stock which would all go in one area of the store to save time, and a manager happened to be around, you were told to stop "picking and choosing" and get something done. You were responsible for knowing how to stock everything in the store in every department - fashions, jewelry, grocery, pet supplies, hardware, furniture, electronics, office supplies, toys, housewares, cleaning, appliances, health & beauty including OTC pharmacy, and whatever seasonal items were currently in stock. Sometimes you'd have to help clean and organize the back room or unload a truck.
Along with being a part-time stocker came the responsibilities of cleaning the bathrooms, taking out all garbages, mopping the lobby, mopping up spills, retrieving shopping carts from outside (without the assistance of those motorized pusher thingies they get at Wal-Mart), fetching things for whoever was cashiering, and carrying heavy things for customers to the register and out to their car.
We also had to know the rules of what items could be moved when, and what had to stay in its place... this was a big issue due to the fact that Pamida doesn't have enough shelf space for the rotating inventory and layouts and plan-o-grams are always changing. You had to use common sense when stocking new items and be careful not to condense the wrong things or you'd be in trouble. You had to know how to set up endcaps and rearrange shelving (and scrape and repaint shelving when it needed it) when doing a new display. And don't forget to get everything properly labeled whether the printers were currently working or not.
I had to know what to do at the jewerly counter with no training... we lacked proper jewelers tools and would have to try changing watch batteries with knives and screwdrivers... yes, literally using paring knives.
I had to know how to do price changes and label things using both the office printer and the portable printers that you attach to handheld RF scanners. I could write pages on those POS alone. We had crappy old equipment and were lucky if it worked half the time (and I've seen what Wal-Mart has, there's no comparison), but it was our ass if we didn't get the job done regardless. I had to know how to do inter-store transfers of products, which required a horribly confusing series of steps on 2 different old office computers to get the transfer processed, get the weight calculated, and print the shipping label.
Also had to do ad signing for each week's new advertisement flyer, including having to figure out how to make proper signs on the office computer when corporate failed to send us the sale signs we needed.
On occasion I would assemble furniture.
At inventory time, everyone had to help clean, reface, and count everything.
On Sundays one of us would get the dreaded task of vacuuming the entire store, including underneath all the clothing racks and around everything (until we finally ripped the carpet up and went all tile just before I left that job), and if it took us more than about an hour and a half somebody would get pissed... usually that somebody would be a manager who never had to do it before. To do the job right it took about 2 hours, assuming zero interruptions, but you were always interrupted by customers and co-workers. I got that task quite a few times.
My last summer there I spent a decent amount of time outside running the greenhouse... which was really more like doing damage control and trying to keep things alive which weren't being properly cared for on the days I didn't work out there. I watered plants, deadheaded flowers, marked down the unhealthy plants, re-organized as stock sold down, kept the other outdoor stuff like the bagged soils and mulches organized, and during peak season ran a register outside. And loaded bagged stuff and paving stones and such into customer's vehicles after they bought it. That really sucked after a rain, because the bags of soil and mulch would be water-logged and heavy, not to mention dirty (and I still had to wear the mandatory khaki colored pants while doing greenhouse work).
We went through 3 different store managers while I worked there, and some were more incompetent than others at scheduling. Sometimes we would wind up horribly understaffed on certain shifts, with 2-3 people to run the entire store for the midday hours when somebody would be at lunch. That's one cashier, one person on the floor, and one shift manager. There were multiple occasions where when it was the shift manager's lunchtime, and the store manager had effed up the schedule, I would be handed the manager's keys and be put in charge of the store for that hour. I remember this happening one busy summer day and I was left with a cashier barely out of training and one guy working on the floor, both of them high school kids (I'm only a couple years older in college). I got to be manager for that hour and answer the cashier's questions and work with the guy trying to help the customers in the lawn and garden department who were buying patio furniture sets. Had to figure out the huge set of keys I was given to unlock a bay door and get into the overstock trailer out back where some of the furniture items were stored, and make sure nothing walked out that door while I was in charge. At the same time I had to be available to other customers as much as possible because we were the only ones in the store.
I didn't mind the responsibility, but I never got paid anything extra for any of that time... not to mention all the crap I took from a select few crab-ass coworkers for such atrocious acts as borrowing a pen from their register because it wasn't being used and mine was dead.
I got a raise when minimum wage went up. And I was supposed to get a raise review yearly, but nobody bothered to inform me of this policy, and I never got another raise until my 2nd year working there, when I finally asked why, and got a raise to a whopping $6.83 an hour.
I know Wal-Mart would've payed me better. And when people would tell me how working at Wal-Mart was worse than my job, I had to wonder how the hell. I could go on about Pamida, but I think I've said enough.
By
Anonymous, at November 12, 2008 12:51 AM
Hey dude! That is so funny. WalMarts bitch. LMAO. How did you get your badge to say that?
By
asdffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, at May 20, 2009 10:37 AM
I used to work at Wal Mary. They paid me minimum wage which really sucked. It took me for ever to buy my first new car. When I tried to get a raise, the manager fired me. I was like, why be so bitchy? But anyway, I have a job at Kmart now.
Im only 17 so I guess im lucky.
By
Nick, at May 20, 2009 10:39 AM
I also work for wal mart and like you I have done every thing from clean the bathrooms to driving a fork lift. I am now a electronics assoc but at my last store I was in sporting goods like you were. Now I have been known to work other departments as well. Lets see, sporting goods, automotive, hardware, furniture, meat, grocery, paper goods and chemical, fabrics, electronic, unloader, janitor, front end cashier, photo lab, and some others things as well. there was one day last week that I was the only person to different Five departments at the same time for 4 hours on a saterday afternoon fun fun right
By
hitman3314, at May 28, 2009 11:37 AM
Post a Comment | Email Author | Subscribe