You all may know of or heard of a company here or there that from time to time mistreats an employee or two. I am almost POSITIVE if you ever talk much about local employment you have and will here of the environment at a local company called American Wholesale Book Company. The TOP company for turn over employees. NO one will stay with this company for more than a week to month at a time. Lets get further into this subject and devulge some of the nasty truth about this company! If Times Dailey isn't scared of being called out or sued you will soon know why this company gets its bad rep and why I would contiously caution others to stay away.
My Wife who I will leave un-named has worked at AWBC for 6+ years. She has always been on time and give it her all with this company. AS she does with ANY company she has worked at prior. This winter storm AWBC really set the bar for sleez treatment of their employees. They made it perfectly CLEAR they have no concern, sympathy or moral concsious of the well being of their employees old or new! On Sunday evening my wife expressed great concern about the winter storm comming our way and she knew that with all the chatter things might get bad enough that travel would most likely become limited and this being EXTREMELY true where we live, a few miles off of county road 8 near the Tennesee line where we get most of the brutal end of storms for some reason. So she called up her supervisor and asked her what AWBC's expectations would be for their workers. Her supervisor told her that things would persist in the normal fashion at the moment and if she needed to leave early to make it in on time. My wife tried to thorouly explain that we live back in a VERY rural area and if it ices and snowes travel is impossible without risking self harm and damage to our vehicles and others that may be attempting to travel. The responce from her supervisor was " OH WELL YOU KNOW THE RULES AND I CAN'T CHANGE THEM FOR YOU"! My wife then tried to ask if the supervisor would ask head managment if she would get an accurance or written up if she could not make it in due to weather. With the return phone call the answer was YES! My wife started getting upset thinking about what may happen if things got to bad and stayed bad for any length of time meaning days. Well the snow got bad where we live a whopping 8 inches and sure enough no travel was possible. To our supprise AWBC did close on Monday but No empoyees were called. We found out only by going to WHNT business closings. Well Monday night my wife called her lead "which is the assistant to the supervisor" and asked what AWBC's expectations were for Tuesday. The leads reply was "be at work by ten o clock in the morning". My wife explained that we were snowed in and that the road was a solid sheet of ice where the farmers had taken tractors and drove the road to get to their cattle. They simply packed the snow and with a tid bit of melting turning it into hard ICE. The lead was just confused and told her the main roads were somewhat passable and to do what she needed to do. My wife called AWBC that Tuesday morning to let them know she could not make it. After letting them know her situation she was informed that ninety percent of the people were not there but they were still going to give accurances for not showing up and a get out of jail free card or "FREE ACCURANCE" was given to the onese that did. My wife started to tear up asking "what am I going to do these roads are going to be a mess for a few days as the temprature is not going to make it out of the twenties"? I just told her as long as she is safe thats all that matters and another job can be found. I HOPE!!! My wife did not go into work Tuesday and the roads did clear up some but quickly refroze into black ice that night.
Wednesday morning TODAY she was determined to try to get to work as she was afraid that she would get into more trouble with AWBC. From our past experiences and that is MANY AWBC does not care what your situation is. They will write you up and fire you no matter how long you have been there or what type of worker you are if you can not make it to work for any reason or late you will get diciplined, written up and after so many your fired. Well after barely making it out of the drive and sliding into the ditch "thank god for trucks" she pulled out and was off to work. She called me about fifteen minutes later all freaked out. She had just slid sideways down a hill and out into an intersection on the Natchez Trace on the route to work. Thank God no cars were coming! I know the hill well and it is about fifty feet from the top to bottom. I asked her if she was OK and she said she was. I then asked if the truck was fine and she replied everthing was ok. She proceeded to tell me she was going to try to make it the rest of the way. I said OK and my wife was off to temp luck once more. She did call me from work telling me she was ther fine and that she would call me close to quiting time. This brings back memories of the time when we had all the tornadoes come through the cloverdale/ petersville area and do all that damage. AWBC plays subscribed music on the loud speaker. With the conveyeurs running carring the totes and boxes over the wareshouse it is LOUD so it is nearly impossible to hear anyway. I called and told my wife that a tornadoe warning was in effect and was moving that way. She needed to take cover and warn everyone. She came home telling me that AWBC turned off the radio so people could not hear the warnings. Later it was said that it kept the workers from panicing and they were watching the weather outside. They just simply kept everyone working. My wife took cover in the bathroom until it was over. Six employee cars were damaged in their parking lot that day and could have meant their life. Lucky I came home because the kids got out early due to weather. I just wonder what situation it would be if my wife was a single mother like many that work out there?
Ok here is my questions AWBC! DID my wife really have to put her life and well being in danger for a whole 8 bucks an hour??? Just because the economy is in a hole, jobs are none existent, our houses and lifes depends on that eight bucks, does this make you grin that you know you can demand anything you want from your employees? Is your profits really worth employees putting there person and belongings at risk of loss or damage for you? It seems that AWBC's tactic or management outline is much like what businesses had before the industrial revolution. They stiff brow and could care less if you stay or not. They hope you don't. AWBC has the highest hire, fire, quit rate in the shoals area and possibly in north Alabama. Most jobs within the company any ten year old could do and thus less than a days training and your good. They will hire anybody that puts in an application. Known sex offenders no problem! They just make them post there picture on the bulletin board that no body reads. The picture states their crime, just like the picture you recieve in the mail if an offender moves to your neigborhood. No employee is warned of this criminal in their work force. MY WIFES lead was on the cover of Hard Times in the Shoals and was eventually fired for drinking on the job for christs sake. See if AWBC keeps the ball rolling with fresh people comming in, the pay rate stays at minimum wage and no insurance is dealt out, no vacation is dealt out, no incentive bonus is dealt out. All the things AWBC boasts about. I am sure there are many more finacial perks to the turn over. See thats another thing. Depending on the amount of stock you get out a day/hour you get a percent rating for your department and due to your percent you get what they call an incentive bonus. That pecent your department recieves for that month is what your bonus for that month will be. Lets say you made a total of 1200 dollar that month in paychecks. If your department gets five percent ouput for that month you will get a five percent off your total wages for that month in a incentive bonus. WAIT if you get three accurnaces you get NO INCENTIVE so yeah they are GONNA deal those accurances out for people that CAN'T GET INTO WORK BECAUSE THE ROADS ARE ICE. You see how they work. So if you are thinging on or know ANYONE who is thinking about working for this company DON'T!! Drive an hour to work out of town before you work for this company! Trust me you will thank yourself you didn't. If you don't beleive me then go for it. Maybe you can add to my article here later on! I will reply to questions here in this thread. I can and will give further examples and incedents if asked. There are PLENTY so go ahead and ask. Thank you for reading and I hope this gets TONS of traffic. Helping keep Florence informed and hope you all take up the trend!
Thanks,
A concerned husband!
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