My interview with Rick Heyrend, Walmart manager

My interview with Rick Heyrend, Walmart manager

            I walked into Walmart with pit at the bottom of my stomach wondering to myself if I would be able to find the right person to interview and if I would get the questions I want answered. I have done a few interviews before so I had an idea of what was going to happen. I flipped through my notebook quite a few times making sure I had all the questions I wanted answered. I could not stop thinking about the Lobster fisherman story so I wanted to make sure I gave my interviewee all my attention and looked attentive. I walked into the back of Walmart into his office and I greeted him. To me he looked like a nice guy and I asked him for only ten minutes of his time. We quickly sat down and began. We quickly established that Walmart donates lots of money but he also informed me that not only do they donate money but they also help local communities in many other ways that go unnoticed. Many people focus on money but in reality Walmart also donates in other ways such as Inkind donations and Volunteer Associates Program. Another thing he noted was that in many other ways Walmart actually brings in business to smaller businesses by bringing in more customers to that area an example of this would be gas stations near Walmarts and hair salons in Walmart. I asked him about people thinking Walmart as a corporate monster and when he replied “it hurts” that through me off. I was at first expecting a defensive response but when he said that and his reason behind it I came to feel he was just another person doing a job even though he is the Manager of Walmart, a very successful company, at that he wanted to have the community look at walmart as a positive, not just another business dumped into a town. My original plan for ten minutes carried on much longer and when I had all my questions answered I thanked him for his time but I could see he was into the conversation and could have easily gone longer and probably wanted too. Rick Heyrend helped me generate a lot of ideas for my paper and taught me lots of things that I did not know or think about. Hopefully I can pass what I have learned to my readers and help Rick pass a message through my paper.