Are You Consistent Enough to Manage at Wal-Mart?

From Carpe Diem:

Charles Platt (picture above) is a journalist, computer programmer and author of over 40 fiction and nonfiction books and was a senior writer at Wired magazine. Charles moved recently from being a senior writer at Wired magazine to an entry-level position at Wal-Mart, "a company reviled by almost all living journalists," after he read the book "Nickel and Dimed," in which Atlantic contributor Barbara Ehrenreich denounces the exploitation of minimum-wage workers in America…Here are some excerpts from his BoingBoing blog post "Life at Wal-Mart":

Several of my co-workers had relocated from other areas, where they had worked at other Wal-Marts. They wanted more of the same. Everyone agreed that Wal-Mart was preferable to the local Target, where the hourly pay was lower and workers were said to be treated with less respect (an opinion which I was unable to verify). Most of all, my coworkers wanted to avoid those “mom-and-pop” stores beloved by social commentators where, I was told, employees had to deal with quixotic management policies, while lacking the opportunities for promotion that exist in a large corporation.

No surprise that better pay, being treated with respect, and opportunities for promotion would influence people’s employment choices. But, how often do we inflict quixotic decisions on the people we manage? It’s important to people that management heads consistently in the right direction. If Wal-Mart can get it right, certainly the rest of us can too.