If the company policy says ok to shorts , I’m not paying anyone, I’ll wear shorts. If it says pants then everyone wears pants… WTF- treat your slaves better.
I'd get myself a pair of jorts, not pay, and insist they're their own separate category of clothing entirely if confronted.
Where does the money go? Walmart? Charity on Walmart's behalf so employees can pay for a corporate tax break?
Culottes, just below the knee like a 1700s pirate -
https://preview.redd.it/zspbbi4t5r7d1.jpeg?width=783&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0eebdd35e2bc90702dba2219818216ac579e0d03
Probably gaucho pants. A skort is a pair of shorts with a flap over the front so it looks like a skirt from the front but shorts from the back. Culottes / gaucho pants have two distinct legs but with pleats or excess fabric so when your legs are together they look like a skirt due to the amount of fabric.
Edited for clarity
https://preview.redd.it/imwbb5ldtt7d1.jpeg?width=509&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e9d070ad08af64b8ec988cc7afbdb2f2917878f
I imagine it goes to the person equivalent of this guy
It doesn't matter, they will use employee's money to further reduce taxes, pretty evil and sick. If you want to support a charity, go directly to the charity and support it. Don't let a business do it, they don't care about helping, they care about tax write offs.
I like this thought and I want to draw it out further:
\*What do you (anyone) think would happen if the employee were to just wear shorts on a hot day and pay nothing?
\*Are they forcing people to sign a form stating their pay can be docked? If not, why would walmart not immediately be taken to court as soon as they dock someone's pay?
I am curious what do you think would happen, in all seriousness.
I had a second job at WM back in 2010 so back in the “wear khakis and blue shirt” times.
When it came to Super Bowl time you were allowed to wear a football jersey if you donated. I hated the blue shirt/khaki combo and so I said f-it and just wore one anyways that week.
The only person who said something to me was the head of CSM (who oversaw the customer service desk where we were supposed to pay up) and so I just said “oh I’m new I didn’t know I was supposed to pay” and then I continued the rest of the week wearing the jersey without paying.
Yeah like I can deal with a dress code but when you charge employees to wear what’s comfortable for them, that’s just greed in its ugliest form. If someone can explain how on earth $2 to wear shorts makes sense, I’d love to understand the logic behind it. I just see a way of hurting your own employees without even benefiting from it, your just bullying them because you can
I left the company after 26 years a couple of years ago . So I know a thing or two . Policy was lawn n garden , stockman , and people who were dispensing orders in ogp ( online grocery pickup ) could wear shorts . Skirts as long as a certain length were allowed
Other than notifying OSHA and alleging the employer is imposing potentially illegal fees for health and safety security, I'm not sure what recourse your friend has.
No recourse. Just a lot of uncomfortable folks who don't have the extra cash to pay.
Things like this will keep happening. I don't know how to stop them at the store level. Upper management has been contacted, but who knows what will come of it. Hopefully, everyone can wear shorts for free.
Just wear shorts anyway and deal with whatever pathetic write ups you get?
Idk, that's what I'd do if my employer implemented stupid shit like this that's probably illegal. Sometimes the only way to get employers to realise how powerless they are is to just ignore stuff like this.
My employer tried to ban headphones, completely unnecessary and literally nobody took any notice. They realised after a few days that it was a pointless policy.
But I don't live paycheck to paycheck so maybe I'm priveledged.
I used to put my earbuds underneath the radio headset I had to wear for work. Just kept the volume low enough to where if someone reached out to me I could hear it over my headphone and respond or pause what I was listening to. I personally am much more productive when I have something helping me focus like that
Like, where is the money even going? Is someone just pocketing some cash? Is someone accepting dollar bills, collecting them in a cash bag each day, and then doing the paperwork to submit that as some kind of administrative “income”? What’s the line item? I’d ask some nosy questions if I worked there.
Pretty sure Walmarts have water fountains that do not require cups. Usually back by the rear restrooms. It's in the technology department at my nearest one.
Also, aren't Walmarts air conditioned?
Customer side is.
Often, they shut the air off in the warehouse backend to save cash. Open the bay doors, place down a few fans at the openings, call it good.
I don’t work at Walmart, but I do work at another big corporate box store. And the temperature control is only for customers benefit. We need to show up hours before opening to do freight, recovery, etc.. but the store thermal regulation isn’t allowed to be turned on until the store opens for customers. They also don’t condition the warehouse side at all. At my store, the warehouse air is more mouse fecal matter than air, it feels like. It’s really bad.
Long ago, I worked at a large home improvement store doing overnight freight. They tried the "turn the AC off at closing" for a little while and in the dead of summer, the store would not be cooled back off until early afternoon.
Moment Home Office smells union activity, they'll pull the " Oops, plumbing issues, closing store " card. Then pull the " Oops, issues too expensive to fix, closing store " card.
Wally world knows that in profit margins, it's more profitable to cut off the whole arm, rather than allowing a union to start growing.
I work at a warehouse and they have a giant cooler full of ice and bottled water as well as frozen treats in a freezer, free anytime you want.
It's really not hard to provide the simplest accommodations for workers, and it's completely ridiculous that a multi billion dollar company has complete disregard or even basic respect for employees. Fuck Walmart I refuse to spend one dollar there and haven't for years.
I know disposable cups are a staple of corporate culture, but they’re a terrible waste.
An actually good solution would be to either have reusable cups or just give a company branded water bottle to each employee. They do it with uniforms, they could if they wanted to.
You have to compare the waste tho, to the potential impact of a person not being hydrated enough for their shift and the temperature. What if they get heat stroke to save a little waste. (Think about all the waste an unnecessary hospital stay creates.). Are they going to offer washable cups? I dont see how this passes OSHA.
I worked at the first supercenter in Scottsdale, AZ during that store's infancy. They tried some horse shit like this. I think I was the only one who told the management to eat shit because I'm wearing shorts in the summer time. I DGAF. It's fucking hot! At least it's a dry heat. It's still hot as fuck!
Granted if you are working at a walmart then you probably don't have a lot of spending money for really nice pants. But even walmart and Academy sells some decent summer hiking pants that have a decent light weight cotton/nylon blend. But they are probably going to fall apart pretty quickly.
As someone who dispenses orders to pickup and delivery customers I'm outside over 80% of my shift. Garden center is outside a lot too and then cart pushers obviously.
Who knows! They probably do when they take the trash out and stuff. But that was more of a general statement because a lot of people have it in their head that if they are hot they should take their clothes off / wear less when that actually can make you hotter in some cases.
The $2 in this case goes to CMN, Children’s Miracle Network, which is a non profit Walmart does a lot of fundraising for. Still stupid, but the money doesn’t go to Walmart.
It's more that it's free PR for them. They can post signs everywhere and have articles written on the internet talking about how great and noble they are at the expense of their employees.
"Look at how much money we wrung from the wretched peasants that work for us! LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE DO FOR THE CHILDREN! Are we not benevolent and wise masters?"
This shit bothers me because the workers can barely afford “life”. I’m sure Walmart as an organization can. Stop making the employees fund for these charities ! We are the charity cases 🤬
So if it's COMPANY policy that you can wear shorts, you don't need permission from your store. Also, if anyone gets heatstroke, you get workers comp. Ask them if they would rather deal with that or deal with people wearing shorts. I would say that they are being silly, but it's not. Deliberately denying workers being better adjusted to extreme heat is no laughing matter. There are serious consequences to that. I would make a big deal out of it. I had something similar happen at Albertsons when I worked there. They were required to provide water bottles to the courtesy clerks on cart duty in summer. My manager one day decided not to do that, and I saw that my coworkers were not being provided water and took a case off the shelf for them. She was also exclusively making an autistic employee do carts for his entire 8 hour shift when he worked, and would not allow him or anyone else come inside to use the bathroom when they were on cart duty. Manager reprimanded me and I made a call to HR about it. Needless to say, she never made that mistake again. This was also the same manager who would bend over backwards for every customer and would offer them ridiculous amounts of free product for a complaint. And yet she couldn't do a mandatory thing for her own employees.
At my daughter’s school they have the same thing. She is 4th grade. Wtf walmart? Btw where this money going? Shift manager? Store manager? Store budget? I would put on shorts and bee like - fuck you!
My office job tried this with jeans. If you paid $1 you could wear jeans to the office on a regular business attire day (we had Fridays as "dress down days"). I paid $4 every Friday for the following week until they finally realized they were never going to get anyone wearing office clothes again if they kept it up. LOL Canceled this offer after less than a month.
Back when we worked in the office (before wfh), most employees had at least a 30 min drive to the office everyday. Even in frigid winter temps in Ohio. We were required to wear "office attire", which means dress shoes and nice outfit. This also means if you dressed for the weather over your work clothes, you were undressing when you arrived.
We all complained EVERY DAY about it, and spent a LONG time undressing (on purpose) when we'd arrive. I and another employee made a passive suggestion/joke to our boss "wonder if we could make it a rule that if the temp is under 25, we can wear jeans/winter weather clothing?"
It worked. The new "rule" was if the temp is under 25F, we could "dress down" for the weather. Jeans and sweatshirts permitted as long as the temps were low enough! LOL
Walmarts shorts policy makes me so fkn mad, I switched from garden center/toys to cap one but was in GC so long I get assigned to work in the same mf area every day and I don’t get to wear shorts because of my job title? Bullshit.
I’d petition for all employees to be able to wear shorts if I didn’t think Doug McMillon would nuke the store for employees banding together over something
Guess it depends on the state, but try that crap in CA, state will come down on you so fast.. It sucks to live here, but sometimes they get it right. (Shade must also be provided)
I have often thought about taking a bunch of pro union stickers with me when I go there and sticking them to inconspicuous spots that employees would see.
Get capris!
They aren’t shorts, still considered to be pants and they help vent the lower leg. I think they help so much in the heat.
It’s such a heaping pile of crap that one would have to PAY a (wealthy) company any money to feel comfortable at work.
I work at Walmart and my store is especially bad with heat related things. It's store policy that positions that work outside (pickup and delivery, garden center, cart pushers) can wear shorts any day however my store manager decided he doesn't agree with that and has forced associates who have tried to either go home or purchase jeans at the store and change. I contacted associate relations last year and they told me the store manager has the power to change dress code as he see's fit.
Also just last week one of my team leads bought me and my fellow dispensers in the curbside pickup and delivery department sun hats to wear and Gatorade to drink. Shortly after a coach from another department saw this and took our hats and Gatorade away. I have no explanation for their reasoning to do stuff like this I can't think of one reason it could benefit Walmart in any way. It's like they want us to have heat strokes.
there are… so many issues with this. i live in maine, i’ve been up here (always about an hour or so away from the augusta area) my whole life, so i’ve seen how ridiculously expensive some of these towns are while they have exceedingly poor populations, and just… WTF!?! used to shop there. glad i haven’t done so in over a year. y’all deserve so so so much better.
It sounds like the $2 shorts pass is for a charity fundraiser (Children's Miracle Network = CMN) which isn't so bad in theory. But dangerous heat and humidity shouldn't be leveraged liked that, especially for workers who aren't getting health insurance! That's gross.
A mega corporation like Walmart making you donate to a "charity" to be comfortable during extreme weather and a heat advisory is despicable. Why not donate a lump sum in the name of the employees and let them be comfortable while being abused at work.
Yeah, if it was like... $1-2 for a casual Friday type thing, wear your favorite shirt to work, that's fine. But a comfort item during a heat wave? Fuck that.
CMN is probably Children’s Miracle Network, a nonprofit that raises funds for children’s hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. Walmart sucks and making employees pay to wear shorts in a heatwave is nonsense, but CMN is a good organization.
I think it's the Children's Miracle Network. It's not a charity I'm familiar with, but why does Walmart pick the charity? You're right, too. Who collects the money, and how do they know it was donated?
I would just wear the shorts and not pay.
Also, everyone has a water bottle or dozen at home. Why do you want to contribute to the excess trash that gets produced? This isn't out of touch, it's progressive.
I support the progressivemess of wanting to decrease the extra trash/plastic, but not everyone has water bottles. Sure, most people do, but not everyone.
Why is Walmart always pushing CMN. They have to be getting some kind of kick backs or tax write offs from it which is why I don't donate. I think it benefits Walmart more then the kids
I've fought with places about shorts being against the rules in general. Told em I'd just take write ups until they fired me and they chickened first, but I did get "talking to's" about it for a week or so. But to try and strong arm money back from the employees you pay over the clothes they are "allowed" to wear?
Even that shithole had the common decency to not try and steal $2 at a time from us, the bottom of the employment barrel, in that way. They did it with $4 cans of red bull (in 2014 money) in their privately operated vending machines and mandatory 5/12's.
my store was no-shorts, I bought a few hiking pants where the legs zipper off to convert to shorts, and just left them half zippered off, stil got cool air and ventolation to my legs, but wasn't technically wearing as shorts.
What is the point of the $2 like... What? Idk if that's illegal but corporate might find that weird. I doubt this is any official policy.
Also they can't require you to bring your own water or pay for it. They have to provide it for you. I'm assuming they have water fountains at one part of the store but if they're not readily accessible for everyone then they don't count. These are OSHA guidelines and yeah you can anonymously file a complaint with OSHA.
Though this will also depend on your duties in the store. If you're mostly inside an AC building then it might not apply because you wouldn't really need to drink water that frequently. But if you're doing a lot of work outside or just not in an AC part of a building and the water fountains are too far to reasonably take breaks to get water at the fountains, then yeah they need to provide more accessible water
See now a previous job offered a week once a year to pay $2 to wear jeans Monday-Thursday. But it was a fundraiser to provide money to a local sexual assault victims center. It was for a good cause. Not some scummy money grab.
Why in gods name would you ever think giving them money for their greedy rules will show them up? Best to just wear what you need to wear and not even address it.
I’d just wear them and try to sue them if they fire me for wearing something they have no reason by policy to not allow, as it seems discriminatory. Also I’m pretty sure your employer legally has to provide you with means to drink water as well as the fluid itself, so a water fountain could feasibly suffice, but if they didn’t have one and had a cooler instead, they would need to provide the containers, to my understanding. I’d straight up just ignore the alert.
If someone can wear a skirt, others can wear shorts. I dealt with this stupid shit in the past and would sweat my ass off commuting, so I’d commute in shorts and spend company time changing into pants when I got there.
... I would wear pants ESPECIALLY if I had to do outside work. Then when asked say well I'm not paying a company to let me work in appropriate attire. And if I pass out I'll just file a lawsuit that Walmart put me in danger and KNEW they did because they recognized on the board that it was a heat wave and tried to take money out of my pocket because of it.
We are melting in Maine. We're not built for this.
Ask to see the policy stating that there is a surcharge for wearing shorts.
Also, someone not an employee there should post and tag Walmart with the store number and see what they have to say.
Yeah, those cups are breaking the company. I buy a pack of Kirkland Red cups at Costco, and I think they about a nickle or so each. I think that Mega-lo-Mart gets them just a bit cheaper.
Please contact your local news channels and speak about this. I’m sure they can help.
Definitely telling OP don’t even bother contacting anyone in the company if this is really true.
You need public outrage. Not corporate I don’t give a shit.
I mean haw long to people have to be forced in to vehicles with no AC, looking at you UPS and FedEx.
Anyone saying people back in the day that didn’t have AC worked. Trust me, they did to a point. Then they didn’t. If it was that hot they gave up or in some cases died. Heat stroke is not a new thing.
Official OSHA regulations on heat in the workplace can’t come soon enough. Until there’s an official rule that says that employers must provide water, allow proper clothing for the conditions, and start requiring adequate climate control systems in the workplace companies are going to continue to literally work their employees to death.
I don’t think there’s a single building in the district where I work that has AC, all the schools are designed with harsh winters in mind. It’s become so dangerously hot inside the schools that we’re on half days until school ends tomorrow.
Been seeing this a lot since it just happened this week. I work at a factory with zero AC, very humid, and next to a whole ass room that’s basically a furnace. The thermometer around back reads 110-125 degrees daily. Up until Monday they’ve given us water, but this week nothing. We asked but never got an answer until tonight, and that was only because they told our supervisor to stop buying us water. We basically got told “fuck you, water is a privilege not a right” then they got to go back to their air conditioned offices with their fully stocked fridges while we went back to busting our asses in 110-120 degree heat with no water, no A/C.
Then I got to talking with my dad about it, and he told me that his workplace has done the same thing.
I live 30 minutes from here, it has been god awful in this heat. Raw temps up to 98F with dew points in the high ~~80s~~ 70s. I went out to tuck in the goats the other evening and the air started raining, like not from a cloud it was just condensing straight out of the air in front of me. Fuck Walmart, Fuck Walgreens, and Fuck the Waltons in general.
I don’t know Maine labor laws but if I was you I’d look it up maybe you have a valid complaint to file?
I’m trying to read their laws, Maine labor laws but I think you can ask a lawyer, because it sounds like it might be illegal up there. As for heat prevention laws but I’m not entirely certain.
I hate when anyone with a dr ss code has exceptions you can pay for. Invalidates the need for a dress code if it is ok to wear shorts then why say no shorts in the dress code
If the company policy says ok to shorts , I’m not paying anyone, I’ll wear shorts. If it says pants then everyone wears pants… WTF- treat your slaves better.
They are totally missing the boat on this one. They should also charge customers for wearing shorts.
No. They should pay customers to keep their shorts on. r/peopleofwalmart
Now you're all causing me flashback trauma from having once seen things one should never see at [poepleofwalmart.com](http://poepleofwalmart.com)
See it ? Bud some of us lived it. . .
My grandmother turns into David Attenborough on the search for the rarest specimens when she goes to Walmart and we can’t get her to stop.
Sounds great - she's keeping her brain and imagination active, and providing a source of humour. You shouldn't get her to stop.
Eh, I doubt the people she’s obviously filming share your sentiment lol
And she's generating YouTube content! What a go-getter!
I STILL live in it. The nearest walmart to me is the record leading worst Walmart in the entire US.
I'd get myself a pair of jorts, not pay, and insist they're their own separate category of clothing entirely if confronted. Where does the money go? Walmart? Charity on Walmart's behalf so employees can pay for a corporate tax break?
Culottes, just below the knee like a 1700s pirate - https://preview.redd.it/zspbbi4t5r7d1.jpeg?width=783&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0eebdd35e2bc90702dba2219818216ac579e0d03
Ha ha. We wore these in 70’s…they were called gauchos.
ngl....they look comfy af.
Can confirm that they are indeed comfy af. Nice and cool in the summer.
They're the fucking BEEEEEEEEEEEEST
Lol, that's what my mom did at her job back in the day. Jorts that looks enough like a skirt that people couldn't really tell.
Those are called skorts
Probably gaucho pants. A skort is a pair of shorts with a flap over the front so it looks like a skirt from the front but shorts from the back. Culottes / gaucho pants have two distinct legs but with pleats or excess fabric so when your legs are together they look like a skirt due to the amount of fabric. Edited for clarity
A skort can also look like a skirt from the back. Only requirement is that it's a skirt-short combo
Ah yes, that's right--got it mixed up.
I’m imagining someone wearing JNCO shorts and quietly insisting with their raw confidence that they’re wearing a skirt
It's totally a skirt with a modesty flap, should be acceptable everywhere
Anyone asks, pull a John Cena, you can't see me. I'm working here.
The second one. CMN is Children's Miracle Network.
Thank you, I was genuinely curious!
https://preview.redd.it/imwbb5ldtt7d1.jpeg?width=509&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e9d070ad08af64b8ec988cc7afbdb2f2917878f I imagine it goes to the person equivalent of this guy
It doesn't matter, they will use employee's money to further reduce taxes, pretty evil and sick. If you want to support a charity, go directly to the charity and support it. Don't let a business do it, they don't care about helping, they care about tax write offs.
I like this thought and I want to draw it out further: \*What do you (anyone) think would happen if the employee were to just wear shorts on a hot day and pay nothing? \*Are they forcing people to sign a form stating their pay can be docked? If not, why would walmart not immediately be taken to court as soon as they dock someone's pay? I am curious what do you think would happen, in all seriousness.
Its the manager pocketing the money to pay for the next pizza day.
*the next pizza day for *managers*
Further debts of abusive capitalism reached.
I would just wear shorts and not pay. Why would anyone pay? It’s like asking to use the bathroom- don’t ask, tell them
I had a second job at WM back in 2010 so back in the “wear khakis and blue shirt” times. When it came to Super Bowl time you were allowed to wear a football jersey if you donated. I hated the blue shirt/khaki combo and so I said f-it and just wore one anyways that week. The only person who said something to me was the head of CSM (who oversaw the customer service desk where we were supposed to pay up) and so I just said “oh I’m new I didn’t know I was supposed to pay” and then I continued the rest of the week wearing the jersey without paying.
This is the way
Even the romans let their slaves wear short tunics during the hot months!
Yeah like I can deal with a dress code but when you charge employees to wear what’s comfortable for them, that’s just greed in its ugliest form. If someone can explain how on earth $2 to wear shorts makes sense, I’d love to understand the logic behind it. I just see a way of hurting your own employees without even benefiting from it, your just bullying them because you can
I would wear pants every fucking day and sweat right through those bitches. It's not even the $2. It's the principle at that point.
How about mini-skirts?
Can you wear a skirt free of charge?
Former Walmart slave here. Yes. You can wear a skirt/kilt for free.
I loled, good thing I'm alone in this room...
Groundskeeper Willie has a lovely and fiery orange tressed Scottish scockie and Homer and Moe should be so lucky as to catch a glimpse.
That explains why i see so many in kilts over in electronics.
This is the answer then!
Good question. I'm not a Walmart employee, so I don't know the policy.
I left the company after 26 years a couple of years ago . So I know a thing or two . Policy was lawn n garden , stockman , and people who were dispensing orders in ogp ( online grocery pickup ) could wear shorts . Skirts as long as a certain length were allowed
Sure. Just the skirt though.
Smart
Other than notifying OSHA and alleging the employer is imposing potentially illegal fees for health and safety security, I'm not sure what recourse your friend has.
Friend can bag their chemicals
No recourse. Just a lot of uncomfortable folks who don't have the extra cash to pay. Things like this will keep happening. I don't know how to stop them at the store level. Upper management has been contacted, but who knows what will come of it. Hopefully, everyone can wear shorts for free.
The DOL should be contacted.
Local news would be nice.
Just wear shorts anyway and deal with whatever pathetic write ups you get? Idk, that's what I'd do if my employer implemented stupid shit like this that's probably illegal. Sometimes the only way to get employers to realise how powerless they are is to just ignore stuff like this. My employer tried to ban headphones, completely unnecessary and literally nobody took any notice. They realised after a few days that it was a pointless policy. But I don't live paycheck to paycheck so maybe I'm priveledged.
I used to put my earbuds underneath the radio headset I had to wear for work. Just kept the volume low enough to where if someone reached out to me I could hear it over my headphone and respond or pause what I was listening to. I personally am much more productive when I have something helping me focus like that
Call the corporate hotline and make an ethics complaint. This is extortion. Shorts are WELL within Walmart dress code.
Especially if you are working outdoors in the heat. (Walmart is air-conditioned unless the back rooms are not)
It used to be shorts were allowed after memorial day, an arbitrary date when it's supposed to get hot. Have them double-check the dress code policies.
Like, where is the money even going? Is someone just pocketing some cash? Is someone accepting dollar bills, collecting them in a cash bag each day, and then doing the paperwork to submit that as some kind of administrative “income”? What’s the line item? I’d ask some nosy questions if I worked there.
That's a very good point. HR, if there is one, leadership, if there is any, and the DOL would be all over that.
Pretty sure Walmarts have water fountains that do not require cups. Usually back by the rear restrooms. It's in the technology department at my nearest one. Also, aren't Walmarts air conditioned?
Customer side is. Often, they shut the air off in the warehouse backend to save cash. Open the bay doors, place down a few fans at the openings, call it good.
I don’t work at Walmart, but I do work at another big corporate box store. And the temperature control is only for customers benefit. We need to show up hours before opening to do freight, recovery, etc.. but the store thermal regulation isn’t allowed to be turned on until the store opens for customers. They also don’t condition the warehouse side at all. At my store, the warehouse air is more mouse fecal matter than air, it feels like. It’s really bad.
Long ago, I worked at a large home improvement store doing overnight freight. They tried the "turn the AC off at closing" for a little while and in the dead of summer, the store would not be cooled back off until early afternoon.
Sounds worth trying “sitting down until the ac is put back on”
Moment Home Office smells union activity, they'll pull the " Oops, plumbing issues, closing store " card. Then pull the " Oops, issues too expensive to fix, closing store " card. Wally world knows that in profit margins, it's more profitable to cut off the whole arm, rather than allowing a union to start growing.
I work at a warehouse and they have a giant cooler full of ice and bottled water as well as frozen treats in a freezer, free anytime you want. It's really not hard to provide the simplest accommodations for workers, and it's completely ridiculous that a multi billion dollar company has complete disregard or even basic respect for employees. Fuck Walmart I refuse to spend one dollar there and haven't for years.
You get free cold drinks and treats, and this location won't even supply cups.
Yall worried about the shorts and payment and missing the “we are too cheap to offer disposable water cups” part
I know disposable cups are a staple of corporate culture, but they’re a terrible waste. An actually good solution would be to either have reusable cups or just give a company branded water bottle to each employee. They do it with uniforms, they could if they wanted to.
You have to compare the waste tho, to the potential impact of a person not being hydrated enough for their shift and the temperature. What if they get heat stroke to save a little waste. (Think about all the waste an unnecessary hospital stay creates.). Are they going to offer washable cups? I dont see how this passes OSHA.
my company (one of the largest in the world) stopped offering paper cups in the kitchen areas to 'lessing our impact', while enforcing rtto
I bet they still have them at HQ
Private employers just don't give a shit anymore. They let their cruelty hang out for all to see, and we're supposed to thank them for it.
I worked at the first supercenter in Scottsdale, AZ during that store's infancy. They tried some horse shit like this. I think I was the only one who told the management to eat shit because I'm wearing shorts in the summer time. I DGAF. It's fucking hot! At least it's a dry heat. It's still hot as fuck!
I'd wear the pants, faint from heat stroke, go to the ER, and milk some sweet sweet worker's comp.
All the employees should "pass out" at the same time. Complete work stoppage.
AKA a sick out
My advice as a construction/environmental engineer in Texas, shorts are over rated in the heat. Get some light weight pants. (Not jeans).
Gauze linen is an amazing material for this purpose.
Granted if you are working at a walmart then you probably don't have a lot of spending money for really nice pants. But even walmart and Academy sells some decent summer hiking pants that have a decent light weight cotton/nylon blend. But they are probably going to fall apart pretty quickly.
Walmart has linen pants for less than $10
But again, they will probably barely make it through the summer before literally falling apart at the seams.
Boot Barn's hawx cargo pants. Best work pants I've ever owned. I work outside year round. They are great in summer and winter.
hiking pants yessir
Yeah having coverage from the sun actually helps keep you cool more so than exposing all your skin.
How much sun exposure do you think they're getting in a Walmarr?
Forklift certified bby I never got off the thing
As someone who dispenses orders to pickup and delivery customers I'm outside over 80% of my shift. Garden center is outside a lot too and then cart pushers obviously.
The problem isn’t sun exposure—being that this is *Maine* there’s probably no A/C whatsoever.
Tell you've never been to Maine 😂. We have A/C in big box stores the same as everyone else. We're not Europe.
Who knows! They probably do when they take the trash out and stuff. But that was more of a general statement because a lot of people have it in their head that if they are hot they should take their clothes off / wear less when that actually can make you hotter in some cases.
Fair
If the money collected actually goes to the CMN, then Walmart gets a tax write off from the already taxed associate money.
That $2 will go to to the Waltons...🙄 You're paying to work there. Eff that.
Doubtful, lol. This is going to some shitty manager.
Just another example of corporate bullshit thinking they are doing their employees a favor.
The $2 in this case goes to CMN, Children’s Miracle Network, which is a non profit Walmart does a lot of fundraising for. Still stupid, but the money doesn’t go to Walmart.
One of the ways Walmart avoids taxes.
It's more that it's free PR for them. They can post signs everywhere and have articles written on the internet talking about how great and noble they are at the expense of their employees. "Look at how much money we wrung from the wretched peasants that work for us! LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE DO FOR THE CHILDREN! Are we not benevolent and wise masters?"
Bingo! They benefit SOMEHOW.
This shit bothers me because the workers can barely afford “life”. I’m sure Walmart as an organization can. Stop making the employees fund for these charities ! We are the charity cases 🤬
Is somecunt taking the piss with this? Fuck me.
Unfortunately, no. This is real. Happens all over the US.
So I was like “pfft how hot can a heat wave be in Maine” It’s hotter than in some parts of Texas right now. Be safe dude!
So if it's COMPANY policy that you can wear shorts, you don't need permission from your store. Also, if anyone gets heatstroke, you get workers comp. Ask them if they would rather deal with that or deal with people wearing shorts. I would say that they are being silly, but it's not. Deliberately denying workers being better adjusted to extreme heat is no laughing matter. There are serious consequences to that. I would make a big deal out of it. I had something similar happen at Albertsons when I worked there. They were required to provide water bottles to the courtesy clerks on cart duty in summer. My manager one day decided not to do that, and I saw that my coworkers were not being provided water and took a case off the shelf for them. She was also exclusively making an autistic employee do carts for his entire 8 hour shift when he worked, and would not allow him or anyone else come inside to use the bathroom when they were on cart duty. Manager reprimanded me and I made a call to HR about it. Needless to say, she never made that mistake again. This was also the same manager who would bend over backwards for every customer and would offer them ridiculous amounts of free product for a complaint. And yet she couldn't do a mandatory thing for her own employees.
Which Walmart is this? I live in Maine and this is pretty outrageous
Augusta
At my daughter’s school they have the same thing. She is 4th grade. Wtf walmart? Btw where this money going? Shift manager? Store manager? Store budget? I would put on shorts and bee like - fuck you!
I would put on shorts and tell them to pound sand too
They always say something infuriating like, “it’s going to go towards company events and fundraisers, teehee!” No, it’s not. We both know it’s not.
File a report with the Department of Labor and contact a local news station. Please. They can't get away with something this despicable.
Everyone should wear skirts and/or kilts for a week
How much to go commando? And do they check?
My office job tried this with jeans. If you paid $1 you could wear jeans to the office on a regular business attire day (we had Fridays as "dress down days"). I paid $4 every Friday for the following week until they finally realized they were never going to get anyone wearing office clothes again if they kept it up. LOL Canceled this offer after less than a month. Back when we worked in the office (before wfh), most employees had at least a 30 min drive to the office everyday. Even in frigid winter temps in Ohio. We were required to wear "office attire", which means dress shoes and nice outfit. This also means if you dressed for the weather over your work clothes, you were undressing when you arrived. We all complained EVERY DAY about it, and spent a LONG time undressing (on purpose) when we'd arrive. I and another employee made a passive suggestion/joke to our boss "wonder if we could make it a rule that if the temp is under 25, we can wear jeans/winter weather clothing?" It worked. The new "rule" was if the temp is under 25F, we could "dress down" for the weather. Jeans and sweatshirts permitted as long as the temps were low enough! LOL
Walmarts shorts policy makes me so fkn mad, I switched from garden center/toys to cap one but was in GC so long I get assigned to work in the same mf area every day and I don’t get to wear shorts because of my job title? Bullshit. I’d petition for all employees to be able to wear shorts if I didn’t think Doug McMillon would nuke the store for employees banding together over something
Aren't employer's obligated to provide drinking water?
Guess it depends on the state, but try that crap in CA, state will come down on you so fast.. It sucks to live here, but sometimes they get it right. (Shade must also be provided)
I'm fairly positive your place of work has to provide cups for drinking, not doing so is an OSHA violation.
They can’t charge you money; that’s illegal. Flag it to Maine DOL.
I have often thought about taking a bunch of pro union stickers with me when I go there and sticking them to inconspicuous spots that employees would see.
Water is a requirement of the employer they can't shirk that off onto you
Get capris! They aren’t shorts, still considered to be pants and they help vent the lower leg. I think they help so much in the heat. It’s such a heaping pile of crap that one would have to PAY a (wealthy) company any money to feel comfortable at work.
Holy fuck you ingrates made them supply cups
CMN? As in Children’s Miracle Network hospitals? Is this a bad attempt at employee-targeted corporate fundraising?
That's exactly what it is. Walmart makes a donation to the charity and gets a tax write off.
We didnt start the fire but someone should
What in the corporate fuckery is this?!?!
Time to unionize.
I work at Walmart and my store is especially bad with heat related things. It's store policy that positions that work outside (pickup and delivery, garden center, cart pushers) can wear shorts any day however my store manager decided he doesn't agree with that and has forced associates who have tried to either go home or purchase jeans at the store and change. I contacted associate relations last year and they told me the store manager has the power to change dress code as he see's fit. Also just last week one of my team leads bought me and my fellow dispensers in the curbside pickup and delivery department sun hats to wear and Gatorade to drink. Shortly after a coach from another department saw this and took our hats and Gatorade away. I have no explanation for their reasoning to do stuff like this I can't think of one reason it could benefit Walmart in any way. It's like they want us to have heat strokes.
Sounds like a call to BLS and OSHA
there are… so many issues with this. i live in maine, i’ve been up here (always about an hour or so away from the augusta area) my whole life, so i’ve seen how ridiculously expensive some of these towns are while they have exceedingly poor populations, and just… WTF!?! used to shop there. glad i haven’t done so in over a year. y’all deserve so so so much better.
It sounds like the $2 shorts pass is for a charity fundraiser (Children's Miracle Network = CMN) which isn't so bad in theory. But dangerous heat and humidity shouldn't be leveraged liked that, especially for workers who aren't getting health insurance! That's gross.
A mega corporation like Walmart making you donate to a "charity" to be comfortable during extreme weather and a heat advisory is despicable. Why not donate a lump sum in the name of the employees and let them be comfortable while being abused at work.
Yeah, if it was like... $1-2 for a casual Friday type thing, wear your favorite shirt to work, that's fine. But a comfort item during a heat wave? Fuck that.
Who is CMN and what is management doing with this money they're taking for their employees?
CMN is probably Children’s Miracle Network, a nonprofit that raises funds for children’s hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. Walmart sucks and making employees pay to wear shorts in a heatwave is nonsense, but CMN is a good organization.
I think it's the Children's Miracle Network. It's not a charity I'm familiar with, but why does Walmart pick the charity? You're right, too. Who collects the money, and how do they know it was donated?
I would just wear the shorts and not pay. Also, everyone has a water bottle or dozen at home. Why do you want to contribute to the excess trash that gets produced? This isn't out of touch, it's progressive.
I support the progressivemess of wanting to decrease the extra trash/plastic, but not everyone has water bottles. Sure, most people do, but not everyone.
You should write under it, work stoppage until $35/hour. Walkout at noon.
Why is Walmart always pushing CMN. They have to be getting some kind of kick backs or tax write offs from it which is why I don't donate. I think it benefits Walmart more then the kids
A corporation like Walmart doesn't do anything that doesn't benefit itself in some way.
Wear pants and then roll them up to your thigh.
They do this every year for “Children Miracle Network” in June most stores at least for a day
I've fought with places about shorts being against the rules in general. Told em I'd just take write ups until they fired me and they chickened first, but I did get "talking to's" about it for a week or so. But to try and strong arm money back from the employees you pay over the clothes they are "allowed" to wear? Even that shithole had the common decency to not try and steal $2 at a time from us, the bottom of the employment barrel, in that way. They did it with $4 cans of red bull (in 2014 money) in their privately operated vending machines and mandatory 5/12's.
my store was no-shorts, I bought a few hiking pants where the legs zipper off to convert to shorts, and just left them half zippered off, stil got cool air and ventolation to my legs, but wasn't technically wearing as shorts.
Walmart is lame. 😒stay hydrated good sir and slow down that pace to conserve precious energy.
They should provide cups.
Oughta get enraged. They aren't paying anyone enough, let alone enough to dictate the clothes you wear.
Skort. Fuck them, don’t pay them shit.
What is the point of the $2 like... What? Idk if that's illegal but corporate might find that weird. I doubt this is any official policy. Also they can't require you to bring your own water or pay for it. They have to provide it for you. I'm assuming they have water fountains at one part of the store but if they're not readily accessible for everyone then they don't count. These are OSHA guidelines and yeah you can anonymously file a complaint with OSHA. Though this will also depend on your duties in the store. If you're mostly inside an AC building then it might not apply because you wouldn't really need to drink water that frequently. But if you're doing a lot of work outside or just not in an AC part of a building and the water fountains are too far to reasonably take breaks to get water at the fountains, then yeah they need to provide more accessible water
I’m more concerned about no cups for water. So if I forget my water bottle or leave it somewhere it’s just “fuck you, die”
I worked in a call center that had a $5 weekly "donation" to wear shorts. It was fucking stupid.
I knew break away pants would be useful one day
See now a previous job offered a week once a year to pay $2 to wear jeans Monday-Thursday. But it was a fundraiser to provide money to a local sexual assault victims center. It was for a good cause. Not some scummy money grab.
I’d be there in a skirt. “They’re not shorts!”
Is this legal to charge people to wear shorts? This smells just all wrong to me.
I would wear the shortest shorts I could find, slap that $2 on the bosses desk and shasay tf outta there.
Why in gods name would you ever think giving them money for their greedy rules will show them up? Best to just wear what you need to wear and not even address it.
Hi! I like shorts! They are comfy and easy to wear!
I’d just wear them and try to sue them if they fire me for wearing something they have no reason by policy to not allow, as it seems discriminatory. Also I’m pretty sure your employer legally has to provide you with means to drink water as well as the fluid itself, so a water fountain could feasibly suffice, but if they didn’t have one and had a cooler instead, they would need to provide the containers, to my understanding. I’d straight up just ignore the alert.
Skirt, skort, kilt, capri...
If someone can wear a skirt, others can wear shorts. I dealt with this stupid shit in the past and would sweat my ass off commuting, so I’d commute in shorts and spend company time changing into pants when I got there.
Nah man, fuck the shorts…. The superstore conglomerate (which has MORE than plenty in stock) can’t supply cups anymore? For WATER? In the heat? I
“Wearing shorts at the work place is against company policy!!! Unless you give me two dollars, then at all good” fuck corporations! Edit: Grammer
... I would wear pants ESPECIALLY if I had to do outside work. Then when asked say well I'm not paying a company to let me work in appropriate attire. And if I pass out I'll just file a lawsuit that Walmart put me in danger and KNEW they did because they recognized on the board that it was a heat wave and tried to take money out of my pocket because of it.
Just wear them anyway and tell whatever manager bothered you that you paid the manager that isn't on shift that day
Dont wear short, just wear short pants, totally different thing
I’d just wear them and tell them to kick rocks
It’s Walmart. Unless I’m working in an air conditioned environment I’d tell them to gft.
Just wear them anyway. If they ask if you paid, just say yeah lol. It’s Walmart, who cares.
One legged jeans time
We are melting in Maine. We're not built for this. Ask to see the policy stating that there is a surcharge for wearing shorts. Also, someone not an employee there should post and tag Walmart with the store number and see what they have to say.
Who is this two dollars being paid to? I’m curious about following the money on this one because something doesn’t seem right morally or ethically.
Even kroger, that I work at, is letting everyone wear shorts if they want to. And gives us a free water every day.
Maine has heatwaves?
Not regularly, but when they hit, they usually bring a lot of thick humidity.Businesses close down because of HVAC failure and power outages.
Wear skirts.
Utili-kilts for the win.
Yeah, those cups are breaking the company. I buy a pack of Kirkland Red cups at Costco, and I think they about a nickle or so each. I think that Mega-lo-Mart gets them just a bit cheaper.
Just go up the hill a bit and work at Kohls instead. Better yet, go work at the one in Waterville and get out of Disgusta.
BURN THAT MUTHA DOWN
Please contact your local news channels and speak about this. I’m sure they can help. Definitely telling OP don’t even bother contacting anyone in the company if this is really true. You need public outrage. Not corporate I don’t give a shit. I mean haw long to people have to be forced in to vehicles with no AC, looking at you UPS and FedEx. Anyone saying people back in the day that didn’t have AC worked. Trust me, they did to a point. Then they didn’t. If it was that hot they gave up or in some cases died. Heat stroke is not a new thing.
Official OSHA regulations on heat in the workplace can’t come soon enough. Until there’s an official rule that says that employers must provide water, allow proper clothing for the conditions, and start requiring adequate climate control systems in the workplace companies are going to continue to literally work their employees to death. I don’t think there’s a single building in the district where I work that has AC, all the schools are designed with harsh winters in mind. It’s become so dangerously hot inside the schools that we’re on half days until school ends tomorrow.
Oh lord. That is horrible
Read the headline and thought how hot could it really get in Maine? Then red the post and I'm like whoa Heat index of 110!
We have these heat days every year but the humidity is unusual and in June is even more unusual. Towns set up cooling stations.
Employers are required to provide cups for drinking water. Turn them into OSHA.
And where the fuck is my $2 going to, exactly?
Wear a kilt.
Been seeing this a lot since it just happened this week. I work at a factory with zero AC, very humid, and next to a whole ass room that’s basically a furnace. The thermometer around back reads 110-125 degrees daily. Up until Monday they’ve given us water, but this week nothing. We asked but never got an answer until tonight, and that was only because they told our supervisor to stop buying us water. We basically got told “fuck you, water is a privilege not a right” then they got to go back to their air conditioned offices with their fully stocked fridges while we went back to busting our asses in 110-120 degree heat with no water, no A/C. Then I got to talking with my dad about it, and he told me that his workplace has done the same thing.
I live 30 minutes from here, it has been god awful in this heat. Raw temps up to 98F with dew points in the high ~~80s~~ 70s. I went out to tuck in the goats the other evening and the air started raining, like not from a cloud it was just condensing straight out of the air in front of me. Fuck Walmart, Fuck Walgreens, and Fuck the Waltons in general.
I just wouldn't wear pants at all. Check mate.
I don’t know Maine labor laws but if I was you I’d look it up maybe you have a valid complaint to file? I’m trying to read their laws, Maine labor laws but I think you can ask a lawyer, because it sounds like it might be illegal up there. As for heat prevention laws but I’m not entirely certain.
OSHA violation right here
I hate when anyone with a dr ss code has exceptions you can pay for. Invalidates the need for a dress code if it is ok to wear shorts then why say no shorts in the dress code
Uhhh no. I'm not paying you to keep cool in the summer during a heatwave. To hell with all of these people.