The Walmart Chronicles (Dirty Work)

Andrew Whitlock was born and raised here in New Mexico and moved from town-to-town. He currently resides in Hatch and drives almost two hours everyday to work. After having graduated from Hatch Valley High School in 2021, he expected to attend NMSU. However, due to some unprecedented events, he had to choose between his education or his family. Turning down his full ride scholarship(s), he stayed back and immediately got a job. With Hatch being such a small town, he applied to jobs both there, and the surrounding cities, Las Cruces being one of them. The 4601 Walmart location, the one off Rinconada Blvd., accepted his application as an online grocery pickup associate. Since July 2021, he’s been with the company growing and learning with every new day to come. He has stayed in the same department for the past three years and is currently in the running to be the newest team lead of the department. With the amount of experience, he has and the support and encouragement of his team, Andrew is positive he will get the position and help better his team and store!!

Andrew wakes up everyday at 4:30 A.M. as he works the 6 a.m. – 3 p.m. shift everyday. Having to drive almost an hour to and from work, he makes sure he has enough time to get ready, head to work and clock in on time.

After working all day, and considering his commute, he has about 4-5 hours to himself before he has to go back to sleep and repeat it all over again.

He’s got used to the physical and mental challenges that come with the job and even though he doesn’t have much free time, he enjoys working for Walmart as they work with his busy schedule and the pay is decent.

Mr. Whitlock credits his handheld device, also known as a TC (Touch Computer/Zebra device) as doing all the work for him. Being able to work such a device is impressive enough but having the ability to constantly adapt to the never-ending updates, is a skill he’s proud to have picked up. With the company constantly wanting to adapt and better their stores, comes new updates, changes and policies all for better customer satisfaction.

Andrew either picks all day, or stays in the OGP backroom helping prep, stage or dispense orders. If he’s picking all day, he uses the carts provided to pick customer orders. He walks all over the place, doing chilled, frozen or ambient walks. If he’s prepping, he must gather the ambient totes alongside the chilled and frozen totes. Luckily everything is within reach, though a hassle, before the store remodel they had to walk across the store to retrieve the frozen and chilled items.

When staging, Andrew must scan the sticker on the totes and see if it isn’t already located somewhere in the backroom, then he must pick an empty spot to place the tote and the rest of its remaining totes.

Andrew hopes to stay with the company for the time being. He plans on acquiring that lead position and learn the many ways to motivate your team and be a true leader. If school is in his near future, then he’ll be ready to step down and go part-time to focus fully on his studies. For now, on the top of his priority list is finding a place closer to his job to hopefully minimize his commute and gain a few extra minutes of sleep.

When there is nothing to do, or its “dead” as he says, he must get down and dirty and clean everything in sight. While refilling the carts up with totes isn’t enough to satisfy his managers, he wipes down the handles, sweeps the backroom or merely does returns for the store. Hardly ever is it an easy day for the team, but Andrew prefers having a busy hectic day as opposed to an easy boring one. Dispensing being his least favorite task, he tends to avoid that one at all cost. But he knows if the dispensers are struggling, he himself should go out and help take out some orders and engage with the customers. He mentioned the holidays, as they are right around the corner, and how tough it is not just for him, but the whole team. The capacity of orders and overall customers in the store make it difficult to properly fulfill his job.