Why I Hate Corporate America

I received a letter in the mail today from Giant of Carlisle - the parent company of the pharmacy I work for. The letter informed me that my benefits were being terminated effective July 31, 2005. Today happens to be July 27, 2005. I hardly believe that 4 days notification is substantial for termination of health insurance. I scanned the letter for a telephone number to call - it was conspicuously absent. This was very upsetting. I called my boss at work for the number to Giant of Carlisle. When I called that number, I was informed I needed to know the name of the individual I was trying to reach. Well that was just great because I had no idea who the hell I needed to talk to. Next I dug through my files and found my benefit agreement with AHOLD. On the front was a telephone number. The poor gentleman that answered had to deal with my wrath - I was quite pissed about losing my health insurance, the fact that there was no phone number provided to contact someone, and finally for the sheer reason that they waited until 4 days before termination to notify me. After venting, I was pleased to find that he thought I was suffering an injustice as much as I thought. He forwarded me to his supervisor - who forwarded me to a 1-800 number. The lovely lady who answered this phone then forwarded me to one more person. Apparently this was the person I needed to speak with in the beginning (and consequently her office is at Giant head offices in Carlisle!!!). CH had left her desk early today. She is supposed to be available until 5 - at 4:50PM, she had turned on her voice mail. It must be nice to just leave your job whenever the mood hits. I'm sure my manager would greatly appreciate me walking out of the pharmacy at 8:45 instead of 9. I left her a voice mail detailing my predicament along with hints at AHOLD's violation of federal law. See, my insurance is terminated on July 31 - however I have not received paperwork to apply for COBRA. Basically, AHOLD and Giant of Carlisle, and probably the actual store I work for, really don't care about their employees. When I lost my coverage under TRICARE due to my age, I received paperwork 30 days before termination to enroll in COBRA. When I lost my coverage with the insurance at the quarry, I received notification 60 days in advance along with paperwork to fill out for COBRA coverage 30 days before termination. What does AHOLD do? Why, they give me 4 days notification of termination and no COBRA paperwork! How nice of them.

From this experience I have learned that AHOLD and Giant are no different than Wal-Mart or any other corporation. They don't care about their associates - they only care about their bottom line. While profits are nice and are required to survive, you also have to have associates to man the store. The fact that they pay their cashiers $6 and shit on their part-time employees just proves to me that this company is something I do NOT want to be part of once graduating. I was supposed to receive a raise in May for my two years of dedication to the company. They conveniently forgot. Due to the diligence of my manager, I received the pay raise two weeks ago...and received retropay all the way back to May. Giant maintained that it was sheerly an oversight. I doubted that before, and now I just know it wasn't.