Wal-Mart Terminated for NOT taking two breaks. Maryville Missouri

I am sorry you lost your job, however considering how Wal-Mart treats their employees don't think of it as a major setback.  Many employers (but certainly not all) offer a benefit package to their employees after 90 days, and some even pay a wage that allows their employees to rise above the poverty line.  To Wal-Mart and companies like them, the only matter if concern is the color Green as in money.  Wal-Mart had some legal issues for not allowing associates to take two 15 minute breaks, so your dismissal is of little surprise.... But as for eating on the sales floor - no this is never a proper thing to do.  In fact, the company refers to this practice by all customers as "Grazing." - i.e. eating something before or without paying for the item.  Did they cover this with you in your computer based orientation?  Not only is the company concerned with shrink - they are also concerned with pest control issues.

Employees of Wal-Mart do not want to appear as pigs - remember associates serve the pigs with their fat wallets every day - that is what keeps you employed and your employer in business.  Best wishes to you in finding more suitable employment.

For the civilized human customer reading this post - my apologies for referring to some as piigs (but only animals open a drink, a bag of munchies, or bite into a piece of fruit, etc without paying for the item first)    I would also like to thank our customers who are also taxpayers for shopping at Wal-Mart in support of the low wage employee who unfortunately often relies upon public assistance programs to meet the cost of housing, healthcare, food, and in some cases dependant care government subsidies. Some of our customers (who are not employees) also benefit from these same programs.  Low prices and low wages often result in higher taxation and our economy is in very poor shape with unemployment in all sectors exceeding ten percent.   Thank You for your patronage.

The same thing happen to me right now i am on my second appeal for unemployment they fire you for coachings but for some reason unemployment does not understand that and my store Mang. told me to come back in 2 months and she would hire me back i was 2 weeks away from my 1yr i missed out on vaction time ins. and my raise that right there is fishy I would not work for them again they care nothing about thier emploees

As trivial as not taking a full 15 minute break may sound it cost employers not to enforce it.

You are entitled to a 15 minute break (full 15 minutes) for every four hours worked. If your employer doesn't mind paying this that is fine and most employers won't care whether you take it or not. However, if this break is non-paid then you have to take the full 15 minutes. If you do not take the full 15 minutes it is as if the break never occured and they have to pay you for the time off that you took.

If your employer has you clock back in early that is one thing. I am sure they don't mind updating your time to reflect that you did not get your full break and go ahead and pay you for it.

By clocking in early you are causing them problems (even though you may not mean to) since they have to pay you for your 10 minute break even though they may not really want to.

Just think if you take two 10 minute breaks a day that is 100 minutes that they still have to pay you for even though you didn't work it (thats a little bit over 1 1/2 hours that they have to pay you for not working).

If you are not paid you can go to wage and hour and they will research it and make sure you are paid for it. In addition they will then audit that whole companies timesheets to make sure that everyone is paid (since the govt assumes that the problem exists throughout the whole company).

That is why in addition to the other reasons you were fired.

Not sure of any employee orientation you may have attended but maybe that was covered and you took the short breaks to get extra money.

Just food for thought.

There's another reason employers don't want you to have personal bags in your work area: items tend to "find" their way into them. Not to mention you pulled a bottle of Febreeze out of your bag and swapped it with the empty bottle. That could be the main reason you were terminated. The question is: did you have a receipt for that bottle of Febreeze? If not, then how does management not know you simply took it off the shelf?

Another reason to not have a personal bag in your work area: someone could steal something out of it and then you'd have a hassle of trying to find out who did it and if it turned out that a customer wandered into your area while no one was looking, then you're SOL.

I work for another retailer and have seen and heard of both instances of this happening. That's why employers discourage it. If you needed the Febreeze to combat your allergies, you could have purchased a bottle before work or on your meal break, wrote your name on it (or taped the receipt to it) and placed it in your area.

And all companies fight unemployment because it costs them money.

As for the reasons you were fired I don't know rather they are correct or not. What I do know is that you should not be eating on the sale floor. That allow could and did get you fired.

As for your bag they have lockers in the back. You should have requested one or left it in your car. When I worked at Wal-Mart everyone who brought anything in pretty much used a locker.

If you think you were wrongly fired contact a lawyer. But it sounds like the reason is valid but their may have been backing reasons for it.

Also on the overtime issue why didn't a manager fix that since you were not owed overtime? Or didn't you report it? If you didn't report it you stole over time and since a lawsuit would bring that up you would lose the lawsuit.

Either way IMO this is a lesson learned. It's too bad you being fired will be on record. It will hurt future employment. Also I suspect you will not get unemployment. I'm sorry you didn't realize it was against the rules but common sense tells you not to eat on the sales floor. Some policies don't need to really be spelled out though if I remember right it is talked about during orientation.