As by far and away the largest retail store in the world, with revenues worldwide of $482.2 billion in the 2014 fiscal year, Walmart is doing well as a business. It has come under fire over the past decade stemming from its treatment and pay of employees. It has largely ignored those pleas, but signs are good that the company is changing. Minimum wage will increase to $10-an-hour—potentially to get ahead of a federal increase in minimum wage to the same dollar amount—and it's changing the music in the stores. The music currently comes from a CD, which plays on loop, consisting of a lot of Celine Dion and some Justin Bieber, a very high concentration of Canadian acts. This has been driving employees crazy and the company announced at its shareholders meeting Wednesday that the company would employ a DJ, who would curate the soundtrack to its U.S. stores. The program is called Walmart radio, which would be played to all U.S.
Employees have decried this CD, which has become drilled into the employees' heads. It has become so hated that even Walmart executives have noticed and it has become the punchline for several jokes during the shareholders' meeting.
During a presentation according to the Washington Post, one Walmart executive used a puppet named Willie to drive home his point and joked that Willie was becoming dangerous. Mike Moore, executive Vice President of superstores asked why and Willie replied, "One of my fellow associates recently developed a serious eye-tic from hearing Celine Dion's greatest hits on loop in our stores."
We have to ask, does the DJ take requests? Will they be getting some big names on the program or just a smaller guy who won't play any potentially controversial music for an audience all across the United States.
