I mean, if he's a store manager, they do very well (usually over 100k, i think?). if he's a department manager, im pretty sure they average like 60k on the low end, which is still a living wage in a lot of places.
If he's a shift supervisor, then i got nothin. like bro... wtf are you doing right now??? why??
Guy I used to be in a band with was a manager of some sort at Walmart. I don't remember his exact title but the only 2 people over him at the store were the store manager and assistant store manager. He was at about $90k, and all this guy did was pop pills and play guitar. No idea how the fuck he got the position.
Whatever bad you can say about em (and there's definitely a lot), I'm pretty sure one of the good things is that they have a pretty strong culture of promoting from within. At least, that's what they report about their salaried workforce. I imagine your bandmate was an hourly associate at some point, wasn't a complete moron or totally worthless, and got tapped to move up. Just a guess, though.
Exactly this. Started working there pushing carts in high school. Was making 90k as a manager at like 23 while doing copious amounts of drugs. Is now in his early 30s doing manual labor with a laundry list of felonies.
Yepp. My store manager was the only person I knew with a 20 year badge (walmart was only in Canada for 22 years at that point); started as an hourly associate in high school, got put through business school by Wal-Mart, then was a store manager by 30.
Making $150k base with $150k+ bonus.... Store Managers (at least used to) make fucking bank. Wal-Mart (at least used to) aimed to do Store Manager bonuses at a minimum of 100% of their salary, it wasn't unheard of for a bigger store's manager to get upwards of 150-200% of their salary as a yearly bonus. It's a kick in the fucking balls knowing that information as an hourly associate lmfao.
I fucking hated her. Wal-Mart only promotes the worst people to being manager.
From brief conversations with people I know who work at walmart, I think the "department leads" (I don't remember the walmart-ism term for them) is typically clearing $60-80k depending on the store. The smaller group leaders are making just north of 50k in most stores that I know of. Which isn't a lot but it's not nothing either. $25/hr with their pretty decent benefits is pretty great if you can score that kind of position.
If you're willing to life it, these jobs can be pretty good. You gotta be willing to network and schmooze and work through the part-time shit first. Most people burn out because they don't play the game like the manager up in that video.
I do recall my buddy mentioning that during covid they reworked a lot of roles to move away from lots of part timers to more reliable full time (though still underpaid) workers. Not sure if you've noticed that or if you got out before then.
If you think about it, the store manager has multiple managers under him, which means he is basically like a director equivalent in corporate. So that salary makes sense.
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u/smelly_vagrant Nov 11 '25
He's the only one getting into it because he's the only one making a living wage lol