Jordy Alsfelder - Army Strong Stories

Walmart AIAD- Wrapup (leadership lessons)

Jordy Alsfelder — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:37:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
Over the course of these last four weeks I have learned a lot about leadership. This was one of my main focuses for this experience and Wal-Mart went far beyond my expectations. The first major takeaway for me is that leadership is all about influencing people. A lot of the people in the army get their rank and are put in charge of a group and believe that is leadership. But that does not make you a leader. It is interesting to see here that there is no rank. When you are talking to someone,...read more

Walmart AIAD Week 1 (part 2)

Jordy Alsfelder — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:47:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
Today is Memorial Day and I just finished my first week of a work and then a three day weekend. Although physically the last 3 days of work have been extremely easy, mentally I am exhausted. I am working in a very technical aspect of Wal-Mart and I have to do my best to learn what is going on. To elaborate on what we are doing is we are upgrading the current computer system that Wal-Mart uses to input its’ finances in Japan. On a normal computer this would simply be installing the...read more

Walmart AIAD- Final Week

Jordy Alsfelder — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:52:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
My fourth and final week is coming to a close right now and it is my last day of work before I fly out tomorrow morning. This week I was given the opportunity to see as much as possible before I leave. Since last weekend we went through with our plan that we had been preparing for weeks, this week is just fixing the parts of it that got messed up. Because I do not have the technical skills to be fixing the program, I had time to use. So, at the beginning of the week Susan Chambers, Executive...read more

Walmart AIAD- Week 3

Jordy Alsfelder — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 01:37:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
I just finished my third week at Wal-Mart. This was a big week from a work standpoint because this weekend was the weekend that everything we have been working on took place. Because of that, this week was all about making our final schedules and making sure everything was ready to go because someone was working at all times for about 48 hours straight over the weekend. I got to sit in on a video conference with Japan to get ready for the weekend as well. That was a learning experience in...read more

Walmart AIAD- Week 2 (part 2)

Jordy Alsfelder — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:16:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
I have just finished shareholder’s week and my second weekend here in Bentonville. I found out that this month the finance department is raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network and are having different sales and competitions to raise money for the organization. Each department picks a charity to support in the community. I am also finally starting to be able to help while working as I am beginning to understand what is going on. But the biggest news of the week was the...read more

Walmart AIAD- Week 2 (part 1)

Jordy Alsfelder — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:20:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
It is currently Wednesday of shareholder’s week. I wrote a post just two days ago, but since this is such a hectic week I will have to split this week into two separate posts like last week. There was a free concert by Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker last night and one tonight by Bob Seger in order to celebrate shareholder’s week which concludes with the actual meeting on Friday. So, we decided it would be good to go on a tour of the recently re-opened visitor’s center in...read more

Walmart Academic Individual Advanced Development (AIAD)- Orientation

Jordy Alsfelder — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:40:00 GMT

By: Jordy Alsfelder
I am a West Point cadet who was given the opportunity to intern at Walmart Headquarters in Bentonville, AR for 4 weeks from May 23-June17. Although I am currently in my 3rd week, due to internet issues, I am only now able to create these posts. Therefore, although I will post them close together, they actually happened in the past. I arrived in Bentonville, Ar three days ago in time to make it for the deadly tornadoes that came through this area. Bentonville was just barely missed but...read more