Wal-Martians: Casualties of Store

I was going to write sometime this week about store construction, but right now, I'm not in the mood. Here's why.

Inventory Prep time is a stressful time of year for everyone. Imagine the chaos surrounding your everyday Christmas shopping experience, and how that must be for the people that work at Wal-Mart. Now imagine something at least twice as bad. That would be 'Inventory Prep', the time of year when Wal-Mart stores attempt to get all of their backroom inventory properly prepared and labeled. Why? So that an auditing crew can come in and check how much of what our computer system thinks we have on hand, we actually have. Any understock is referred to as 'shrink', and comes off of our profits; what's left is used to determine whether we've earned our yearly bonus or not.

For the past two weeks (and right up until the actual day of the audit, on Thursday), the store has been in a frenzy over this process. The 'sense of urgency' required for all associates is at its highest during this period, and everyone who works in a department is pushed to their limits during this period.

There was a coworker ... let's call her "Betty" ... who was in her late fifties (possibly older), and had been with the store for over ten years; I'm not sure of the precise number, I just know she had one of those badges you get for having been with the store more than ten years. 'Betty' worked in the apparel department, which is one of the hardest departments to prepare for the inventory process - all of the inventory on hanging racks in the back is carefully counted and wrapped up in brown paper, gathered from the many odd locations where store personnel put it and arranged so that it can be properly counted when the audit time comes.

'Betty' collapsed last Sunday during her shift, right outside of the restroom. There was a cluster of associates around her when I came by; she was semi-conscious and unresponsive to others, and a manager who had just arrived was telling the Fitting Room (which handles most of the outgoing and incoming calls) to call 911. The paramedics came in an ambulance, picked her up, and took her to the hospital. I was pretty worried - I knew her. Not closely, but I'd seen her plenty of times over the years, and was at least familiar with her after all this time.

Today at the evening meeting, after taking care of other business such as announcing sales and the closeness of the inventory audit date, and recounting how many days accident free we were, the manager in charge at the time announced that 'Betty' had died in the hospital yesterday from heart failure. Funeral arrangements were yet to be announced, and they would let us know when they found out more. And that was that.

I'll probably never know what happened to her in the hours before she collapsed, or what happened earlier in her work week, and whether that had any bearing on her death. I don't know what else to do about it. 'Betty' was a friendly, sweet lady who should have gone on to a quiet retirement. Rest in peace, 'Betty'...