Reflection #2: Fighting the System at Wal*Mart and how it backfired, -costing me my Job.

Back in the summer of 2009, I was working the overnight shift at Wal-Mart as an electronics stock associate. My normal duties included, inventory accounting, expediting nightly freight, shelf stocking, and department cleanup. However, for several prior months leading up to July of that year; ever since our Management had changed, my list of nightly chores had expanded, too include coverage of three adjacent departments (Furniture, Domestics, and Toys) which I would randomly be expected to handle, all by myself at times. Needless to say the pressures and stresses of the daily grind in this work environment gradually began to affect my psychological demeanor with respect to my fellow employees, but mostly with third shift managers, which I found to have utterly ridiculous expectations. So much so in fact, that on some occasions I would even go on mental tie raids, where I’d throw boxes of freight angrily at the floor and lash out at helpers who never seemed to give me any help. However, my biggest faux-pox was trying to fight the system. One day I wrote a letter to the Store Manager explaining that the work that was heaped on me was creating an unsafe workplace environment and that my failure to finish my work and be out on time, as well as demonstrate a positive mental attitude towards my job and fellow associates was caused by unreasonable expectations set up by members of overnight management. So here’s my question: was I justified in making my gripes known, or was I foolish for not holding myself more accountable for actions that could possibly get me fired? Well, as it turns out I would be justified according to Psychological determinism: (the type espoused by behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner), which declares that human beings are wholly physical beings whose development is totally determined by those external stimuli provided by their physical and cultural environments. Thus my workplace demeanor would have been shaped by the external stimuli of being physically overworked as well as emotionally anguished by verbal attacks from management. However, there are problems with this theory. Number one it is based on purely materialistic views of human beings (i.e. we can’t have morals or spirituality) and number two. As in Freud’s theories it goes too far in its claims, using the validity of operant conditioning in some instances as a basis for claiming its validity in all. Alternatively, I would not be justified in blaming Wal-mart for my problems according to Indeterminism, which maintains that there is a certain amount of chance and freedom in the world and that not everything is caused. In this way my strivings for doing a good job for the company and my regrets for having failed at living up to my own high standards, must mean that I’m entirely free from the external stimuli and operant conditioned causality model of Skinner. The three problems with this theory are 1) it seems to be based on wishful thinking rather than evidence or logical argument, 2) there I little evidence to suggest that uncaused events exist, and 3) if some events are totally uncaused; then they are not caused by anything or anybody: therefore, indeterminism is no guarantee of human freedom, only of chance. The End