I am going to the orientation for cashier tomorrow and I am extremely nervous. I have a few questions:
Are there going to be other people there, other new employees?
Do we bring a lunch?
Would it be alright if I brought a small notebook with me to take notes, or would that be weird?
What will we be doing for the whole nine hours?
Would it be alright to wear regular clothes, if I do not have the uniform yet?
Can you give me any tips or anything to help me out? It would be much appreciated. This is my first job, ever, and I am so twisted-up-inside-nervous. 😀
7 Answers
1.) They do want you to be in uniform. You won’t be going out to the floor most likely but they still want you in uniform. Atleast my store required that you be, you should call before you go in because I think its policy to give you a couple of days grace to get the uniform, and not everyone is anal about enforcing uniform at orientation but some stores do. If they didn’t tell you that you must be in uniform they may be ok with it, better call before you go.
2.) You’ll get a break so you can bring a lunch if you want to. Your orientation may or may not last 9 hours, we were kept for 7 I beleive.
3.) Oh yeah, you will be orientated with other people, though not all of them will be cashiers (most will be, i’m a pharmacy tech and I got orientated with another tech, pharmacy cashier, 2 regular cashiers, and a garden center associate).
4.)You can bring a notebook but there isn’t much you need to take note of that won’t be covered in your new employee kit or the brain torture (CBLs, I will mention this in a bit).
5.) You’ll get a new employee kit, they’ll talk about the store. You’ll be told about benefits (that you dont qualify for unless you’re fulltime for a year or part-time for 2 🙁 ) and policies and different things. You’ll watch a video about how unions are blood-sucking vampires sent by satan himself (the really scary music playing along with the video is quite unsettling). You’ll also watch videos about back safety, and about how you deal with spills and toxic waste.
You’ll also make your badge and stuff XD And I hope they explain the WIRE to you better then they did me .___.
Then begins the brain torture. The CBLs. Basically you do all your “training” on computer terminals. Just prepare yourself for this, you will lose your mind. You won’t have near as many as I did if you’re just cashiering but the regular ones are long, needlessly drawn out and bad enough. And once you finish the required ones theres still ones that will be dropped on you as you work there that you have to go and do, and you MUST be clocked in to do them. It won’t be so bad being a cashier though.
I was told that alot of stores do training back and forth between the floor and computer, but my store required that you do ALL of the CBLs before you were allowed to go to the floor, and you will be spending ATLEAST 2 full shifts doing these things (not including orientation day), I kid you not. My brain turned to mush. I wish someone had warned me (so here is your warning, take your breaks and give your mind a break).
I don’t mean to scare you. Working at walmart is probably my best employment experience so far and you’ll probably meet some very awesome people while you’re there. The cash register is pretty simple. Even though Walmart has a higher concentration of stupid customers then just about everywhere else I think it’s a fine place to work in terms of how you’re treated as an employee. Alot of people ***** about walmart, but I had no respect at every other job I’ve had and here I’m actually treated like a person who has a life, so I can’t speak poorly of it. But those CBLs, whoever came up with that is a friggen moron.
If they want you to be a cashier in the pharmacy, run the other way XDDD That might be overwhelming as your first job ever .___.
Walmart is good minus the CBLs. I think you will enjoy your time there and you’ll learn alot. It’s a good starting place. All of my previous jobs were miserable but walmart has restored my faith that there can be good employers out there. I definitely can’t speak for every walmart, but I do hope its a similar situation for you. There will be a lot of crabby people, but there’s plenty of nice ones as well.
It’s different from one store to another. I just had an orientation at a new store which has a lot of new employees who don’t yet know their jobs that well, thus they glossed over many items.
There was no requirement to be ‘in uniform’.
The orientation included several other people who were hired for various other positions.
My orientaton was completed in 3 hours, so there was no break or meal time.
The Store Manager is supposed to make an appearance for a particular batch of topics, but she wasn’t available at the time of my orientation.
I brought a clipboard and paper and no objection was raised. Nobody else had any notetaking apparatus but they may have been recording with their phones (I’ve no idea).
The main problem I have with the orientation is that the speaker reels off many Walmart policies verbally, and maybe I’m not as smart as a regular person, but I retained less than 5% of all that stuff. These policies aren’t available in print and aren’t available to employees online except when you are ‘on the clock’. This probably has something to do with Walmart’s concern for confidentiality but the result is that employees end up never knowing the policies . Anyway, it’s common for companies to do things with alterior goals in mind. Often they don’t care that much if you actually ‘know’ something, but care more that they have a piece of paper on file with your signature, that they can use as legal proof that you “were informed”. If the goal was for you to ‘know’ the policies and procedures, the material would be in writing and there would be a Study, Test, Review, Test again process.
Oh, if you’re called in for an orientation, it seems that you’re already hired. You need to bring two forms of I.D. such as Driver’s License and Social Security Card or Birth Cert. and you’ll be paid for the time you spend at the orientation. This may be a new thing (current year is 2015) and it may vary from store to store for all I know.
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I don’t know where the other person got their answer from but I work at Walmart and you have wear the Walmart colors. Blue shirt (or green if your store allows) and beige pants. And Walmarts orientation is horrible. They make you watch videos on safety topics and company rules that you will see again in c.b.l’s but three times longer, be sure to finish ALL your c.b.l’s! Then they make your name badge then through you out on floor. I hope you have a high endurance for bullcrap because that’s all Walmart is but best of luck!
Walmart Pharmacy Lunch Hours
Dress formal Casual. It is orientation, then dont worry. You already have the job. Its not an interview. If anything wear a plain white T shirt, with black pants and flats.
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