IAMA Newly fired Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express Technician. Ask away!

I guess I'll ask the obvious... Why were you fired?

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There has to be more to the story than this.

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Ah. Sounds like a real prick.

He's a manager at a WalMart tire center, what do you expect?

upvote for accuracy.

I wonder when he was five years old, I wonder if he ever announced to the world, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a manager at the Waw-mart Tire Center"

I'm sure. We were all pretty positive he didn't have a high school diploma or GED even. His whole inbred family were a bunch of losers.

Don't you have to get coached and have your d-day before you get fired? Or did they just skip that?

They don't do that any more. I had a couple other writeups previously. See the part above where dept. manager always has other people blamed for his mistakes.

This sounds almost exactly like my time working in TLE. I have never had supervisors care so little for their employees.

TLE was used as the armpit of the store. Need someone to unload a truck or push carts for the day? Sure! TLE has 3 people working on 20 cars, lets grab one of them! Need someone to stock stationary or toys? Hell, lets go grab the guys covered in grease and oil and sweat!

I think you must have had a bad store. My husband worked TLE for two years and other than occasionally having to stock the auto section of the store, he never had to do anything that wasn't TLE.

From what we've experienced, walmart varies WILDLY from region to region. There can be stores that are the pits of hell, and some that aren't half bad. It all depends on management.

I think deli is the only thing I didn't do. I was one of the ones unlucky enough to be trained on the register in TLE, so I would sometimes get stuck on a register at the front of the store for an hour or two at a time.

I'm not sure if they send them to employees who were terminated, but if you get a questionnaire from corporate, fill it out. I received one in the mail after I quit.

I explained that the final straw in me quitting was a manager saying (and this is a direct quote) "We tried to teach them [the unloaders] how to do their job and they didn't understand, so all we can do is let them do it wrong." Said manager was fired by corporate six weeks later.

Nice, I hope I get one, as I'm very eloquent when I write something properly.

I would talk to a lawyer about a possible case of wrongful dismissal

That would be more trouble than its worth, I'm afraid.

They cant fire you for that (work there for 5 years) i would go take it to cooperate and the store manager

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Go up the chain anyways, at least leave him the parting gift of getting in some shit for getting you fired.

Probably a good idea.

What kind of shitty/deceitful things do they make you do with customers?

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You forgot to explain how the fuel injection cleaning was shitty or deceitful.

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I just paid $150 for a basic run-of-the-mill service. Was I ripped off? I'm a 21 year old female, first service of my first car. I live in Australia so I don't know if you're the best guy to ask.. Maybe a fellow Aussie could tell me?

That sounds like a typical full service price - speaking for Sydney anyway, when you break down cost of oil, parts etc and add in labour at $100 an hour that is about right. I'm afraid Australia is expensive.

Yeah being in the US that would be really high, I'm glad someone else could answer you. I know people expect car places to take advantage of females, but myself and most the people I worked with would help out, be honest and NOT take advantage of anyone (male or female) who would admit to not knowing anything about cars. The ones who thought they knew it all were the ones who got taken advantage of.

I have a mate who is a mechanic and every time I think I got ripped off I ask him and he breaks down the cost by materials and labour and it seems pretty reasonable most of the time. I find most mechanics are way more honest than a typical retailer, lawyer etc.

When you work that hard for a living, usually you just want to do your job and get done.

Having worked at a Wal-Mart by me in the same department, why did you not just quit? I actually work for a company now that rents out and sells "fixtures" to body shops. Gotta say, huge step up. Wal-Mart fires people if you are 5 minutes late to and from a lunch. They don't give a rat's ass about their employees, either. Supposedly you can't smoke weed, but honestly that is the only way I got through the day without losing it on some twat I worked with who didn't know what a drain plug was. Sure the people were cool, some of them. But the higher ups were just that. They viewed themselves as if their shit didn't stink. I left on a moment's notice, never looked back. "You can never work at a Wal-Mart again" they said after calling me several times to come back. Good riddance I say. Though, I do miss the black folk I worked with. Good people

It was helping keep student loans to a minimum, and if you quit you can't get unemployment.

Would you put the actual grades of oil people ask for when requesting an oil change. Example, if someone asked for synthetic motor oil would you actually use synthetic motor oil?

Yes. Though if there was a quart or so of whatever oil in a jug i wanted to use, i'd just top it off. Well, this was probably just the past 6 months or so after I stopped giving a fuck.

I was a service writer at Walmart TLE for two weeks. What am I doing?

Odds are, not your job correctly.

Were you caught doing something with the lube that's against Wal-Mart policy?

Never, I was the only tech there, besides a couple brand new people, who never ever broke anything. Not a hubcap, wheel stud, tire sensor, drain plug or pan, air filter housing.. nothing.

What Walmart system chooses the oil to put in a car? I (a Walmart associate at the time) took my mother's car to TLE for an oil change and they put the wrong oil in.

Apparently "the computer" told them that was the correct oil to use.

When I worked there(8 years ago) There was no computer. I usually looked at the oil cap. (Chevys take 5w30, fords 5w20) Or just put what the customer wanted or had last time.

Be thankful, the computer system is absolutely shit.

The guy who writes the ticket when you show up is supposed to check the oil cap, sticker under the hood or the book, or use whatever the customer wants. That is how it gets in the computer. I always checked the oil cap and put the recommended weight in, never trusted the worthless 'greeters' we had.