submission

For your consideration.

“The Walmart Way” Not Sam’s Way   (Subject to change)
By Julie Pierce   copyright 2001-2005

I do believe The Walmart Addiction is worse than I originally thought it was.
Seriously, there is a huge portion of Walmart no one knows about. The cult, the culture and the corporate
offices. The lies, the associates and "the necessary evil," as Sam Walton called it.
The seven years our family has worked for the company has brought to my attention so many things that it is
difficult, to say the least, to write this book based on true experience and catch someone’s attention doing it.
There are many good things amongst the bad.
I could change it. Totally anti Walmart and the UFCW union was interested in that. The agent I had at that
juncture said they would look at it and possibly pre order 50,000 copies. Using me as a speaker at rallys and
meetings and the poster child for organizing a union at Walmart.
But the story would not be entirely real.
I am still in constant communication with Walmart Corporate Offices and it has become a true fight for me not
to go back to work with them.
There are associates across the United States that are reading a rough draft version of the book. By
request.
The feedback leads me to continue trying.
Walmart will not be unionized, partially because of what culture still exists and partially due to the fear factor
associates feel. If the current trends at Walmart continue the dedicated associate base will leave or retire and
what will be left will not sustain the profits the company needs to survive.
Synopsis
Not pro or anti Walmart, but Walmart as it really is inside the stores.
A true to life insider’s look at Walmart the Culture, Cult, Executive and Corporate offices as told by a Walmart
associate, not a corporate officer or reporter.
A journey through four states in numerous positions with Walmart, issues that rear their ugly heads from time
to time as I progress from hourly associate to salaried management and beyond.
Working with, and assisting associates with problems in ten stores, that Walmart Human Resource
departments neglect to find answers to or ignore, and filled with a consistent flow of communication that brings
to light “The Walmart Way” as it is seen by the average associate and includes quotes by H. Lee Scott;
Walmart CEO when he is presented with a possible misappropriation of funds. The lies, the truths
Gender discrimination issues within the stores that include promotion and salary issues reported, but not
changed and not a thing of the past even with a historic class action lawsuit pending against the company and
on appeal.
This story includes every issue brought to my attention by “my Walmart family”. This includes associates,
more than four thousand I have worked with and the associates in our own family, six of which four have left
the company in various forms and for a variety reasons.
Of interest to all Walmart associates and their families, associates alone number in the millions. (associates
across the nation are reading a draft of the book currently) Consumers, 100 million shop at Walmart weekly.
Retailers in search of retail concepts and human resource information, and stockholders interested in the
company and it’s future. This is a story that will interest, and or inspire, anyone with any sort of, Walmart,
Addiction.

The book starts with the question of what has happened to the culture Sam Walton started when he founded
Walmart and the way the associates became so dedicated to the company.
It continues with our family being introduced to Walmart in 1990 and the experience of being a consumer in
stores located in Oklahoma.
It then looks at the impact Walmart had on a small business owned by our family in Florida.
The good effect Walmart stores had on her business while still a division one store and the negatives that
came along as Walmart repeatedly relocated stores and reopened them as super centers.
It continues as the family becomes attached to the Walmart culture and becomes a part of the cult working in
Florida.
The chapters then go on to explain, the cult, gender discrimination and the family’s acceptance of “The
Walmart Way” as life.
The story continues in Alabama and a continuous battle coming from within as far as the fairness of the
company’s employment tactics and hiring procedures. Steady promotions occur as connections are made and
the founder’s culture continues to live within these stores and the good continues to out weigh the bad.
The move into salaried management takes the family to New Hampshire where as an assistant manager, Julie
and her family find a completely different Walmart culture and what at times seems to be no culture at all.
All six adults in the family become Walmart associates in this state and numerous situations occur during which
Julie becomes deeply associated with associates who use the “open door policy” but fear retaliation more than
what they may or may not be asked to do daily.
Three of the family are terminated or quit for various reasons and the situations take Julie out of her district to
the corporate offices and executive ranks, while arguing the accusations that the family found unsubstantiated
and bogus.
Constant recurrence of issues concerning company policy and the culture were prominent, within each store
issues brought to her by large numbers of associates she worked with took her into many different situations
where the use of company policy was being neglected or abused. All issues presented to her were brought to
corporate and executive management with he hope of resolution in the most confidential manner possible.
The stories contained are real and the accounts are true. Many of the communications can be documented
and become more complex as the family attempts to avoid problems that there seems to be no resolution to.
The open door policy of the company continues to have barriers and the corporate officers run the company
strictly by paper.
The final move to Louisiana is approved and the family suffers from a botched relocation and the corporate
and executive officers assist Julie in resolving issues that hinge on issues resembling a misappropriation of
funds during reimbursement for relocation expenses, open door issues gone sour and a litany of associates
who have no way to communicate issues they feel are of importance to higher management.
Presently fifteen chapters the last of which is being written Walmart: Addiction, Withdrawal and Recovery.

They are as follows:
1        Where Is Sam?
2 A Customer, Small Business Owner & Walmart
Associate
3 The Cult
5 New Hampshire
6 The Culture
7 Unanswered Questions
8 Gender Discrimination
9 Open Door Communications
10 Propaganda
11 Office Politics
12 Ethics
13 Fluff
14 Louisiana
15 Addiction, Withdrawal and Recovery
Author:
Julie Pierce has been in retail for over thirty years in supermarkets, general merchandise and franchise retail
establishments.

As a Walmart associate she has worked as an hourly associate, department manager of many departments
and as a field manager for Walmart in four states.
She has had many meetings and different forms of communication with more than thirty-five Walmart executive
and corporate officers over seven years, including H. Lee Scott; CEO and Tom Coughlin.
She has personally worked and assisted in the operations of fifteen Walmart stores with more than four
thousand Walmart associates.
Her family has worked in a total of more than twenty different Walmart stores.

Relationship to other titles

I have not found a book written on Walmart by a Walmart Associate.
There are a number of books: all of which are written through research alone.
Liza Featherstone writes from information gathered on the class action lawsuit and from interviews.
Robert Slater writes on Walton’s Culture and on interviews.
Don Soderquist’s book is inspirational, but again is a view from the corporate offices.
Other books published about Walmart, have been corporate accounts or are written with the assistance of the
Walmart public relations department.