Ye' Ol' Days

The well air-conditioned break room of the Hopeville Wal-Mart is silent. A couple of employees sit quietly fingering through back issues of Forbes Magazine left over from last month. Signs cover parts of the wall that assert, “Clean up after yourself, your mother doesn’t work here.” So the tables are indeed kept clean from any stale food or debris. The two poster-boards are filled with Wal-Mart propaganda of working hard, having a great attitude, and keeping your hands clean.

Teamwork is also a big issue with the “yes” men at the corporate offices as well as the minimization of theft from employees and outsiders. There’s one manager sipping his coffee and reading the postings and nodding his head seemingly in agreement. A custodian comes around and begins to sweep a floor so clean one would wonder why he’d do it again. The floors are polished to a reflective sheen with only a few small scrapes from the bottoms of the silver chairs.

The manager on break whistles to the janitor and points to the garbage can reminding him that he needs its contents depleted. The janitor tips his hat back at him and proceeds with his new found assignment. The manager turns back around and takes a peek into the employee locker room. The lockers are perfectly blue with Wal-Mart decals at the top of them. Four of those lockers have gold colored name plates with the names of the mangers that run the store. The manager seems satisfied with the cleanliness of the locker area and simply nods his head again. He then puts his used coffee cup in the garbage can and proceeds to head back out to the sales floor.

On the way out he takes a look at the employee recognition board and looks at the pictures of babies, newlyweds, pets, and himself from his vacation to Cancun, Mexico. He looks a little closer at the picture from that day at the beach and notices that some rascal has put a tiny Hitler mustache on him. He licks his fingertip and rubs off the small piece of graffiti. He gazes upon his reflection and notices his tie is misaligned. He sways his head in dissatisfaction to his gaffe. He straightens his silver tie against his black shirt and then strolls out of the break room and back on duty.