ROY UNTALAN
Walmart, Poulsbo

My schedule is supposed to be set Monday to Friday with a cap of 30 hours. I know a lot of people want more hours, but I’m collecting retirement, so if I work more than that, my income is considered too high and the government takes half of it as a penalty. So I just want 30 hours and that 30 hours was how it was supposed to be when they hired me, but they can’t seem to make it happen. Plenty of people probably want the extra hours, but it doesn’t work for me.

And my schedule is totally unpredictable. Two weeks ago I found out that they scheduled me for 40 hours instead of 30, and it wasn’t the days I expected. I was supposed to work a Saturday, with no notice. They have my phone number, they have my email, they know how to contact me, but they never did.

So I didn’t know I was supposed to work. And then when I went in the next day to start work like normal, two of the managers indicated to me that I had a no call, no show. And I was like, “How could that be? I was never notified!”

Now I guess I’m supposed to show up on days I didn’t know I was supposed to work. It changes, so I have to look not just the week ahead, but in fact the day before to see if I’m scheduled to work, and it’s still unpredictable. You can’t plan anything — you can’t plan your life.

I’m supposed to be retired now. I can’t afford to be but I still want to live my life. I want to do the things I want to do. But I can’t because my work schedule completely changes from week to week. It’s unpredictable, and to me it’s unethical. People say that’s just the way it is when you work at Walmart, but that’s not right, something’s wrong here.

I’m not married to my job, and I don’t want to be married to my job. I’m there to make money. We’re not robots — we have lives to live.