Open Letter to Sam's Club Management
Dear Bentonville,
We are the little people.
We are the people who take care of your members each and every day. We are the people who run your registers, stock your shelves, push your carts, cut your meat, work your snack bar, put on your tires, receive your stock, sweep your floors, fit your eyeglasses, unload your trucks, drive your trucks, stock your produce, field your complaints, fill your pr-scrip-ions, and do all of the other things at store level that fills your cash registers with the money that pays not only our paychecks, but yours as well.
We work mornings, evenings, weekends, and holidays. We miss our children's first steps, ball games, piano recitals, and school presentations. We miss family meals, church services, birthday celebrations, and weekend get-togethers. We do this, year after year, to make sure that the business is properly maintained and our members' needs are met so that they can continue to pay our bills. And yours.
We gave you our dedication, our time, and our loyalty, and you used to return the favor.
Why did you suddenly decide to abandon us? Why did you abandon the 3 basic corporate beliefs?
1) Service to our customers. This one used to matter to you. Did you just decide that it was too expensive to staff our clubs sufficiently to satisfy this one? Did you decide it was too inconvenient to pay the people who worked so hard for so long to ensure our corporate success?
2) Respect for the Individual. This one doesn't even deserve lip service from you in the era of corporate policy to abandon, terminate, or "displace" all of our legacy associates.
3) Striving for excellence. If excellence only means maximizing profits for the present quarter by any means possible then you might still own this one. However, if it means providing value and quality service to our members and associates alike in the long term then this one lies on the bottom floor of the outhouse alongside Respect for the Individual.
A value is only a value if you stick to it and honor it even when it is not convenient.. It is a value if you still believe it and practice it even when it hurts a little bit to do so.
Why did you abandon our values so easily? Why???
We are the little people.