Mismanaged

As most of you know, I work in the Garden Center at Wal*Mart. While most of our stuff is inside, a lot of our work is done outdoors. I live in Texas, and it's July. For the past 2 weeks, it has been in the triple digits, our highest temperature so far being 112. This isn't even our hottest month. Our hottest is August. Every day, the Garden Center employees are given a checklist of things we need to do in our department. A lot of the work is done outdoors. To avoid overheating, I work outside for 15 minutes at the most, then go inside to cool down. While the Garden Center has 12 employees, only a few of us work the same days. We are supposed to have at least 3 people in the morning and 3 in the evenings. One person to watch the gate, one on the register, and one to cover the breaks. Management refuses to hire anybody, so every day, when Wal*Mart gets a truck, they don't have enough people to unload. Their way of solving this problem is to pull all the Garden Center people, usually leaving just one of us. Now, it's against the rules to have one person. We have to have at LEAST 2 at all times. When I'm by myself (or I'm the only cashier), I can't do the items on my checklist. Or, it's raining outside so I can't do the outdoor checklist items. Well, today I got written up. On Tuesday, I came into work at 10 a.m. Earlier that morning, before I arrived, we got a plant truck in. It was raining until a little before 2, when I went to lunch. When I got back from lunch, a manager came out and gave me a list of things to do. So, I did them until it was time for me to leave. I got yelled at by my department manager for not dealing with the flowers. That is what I got written up for. I explained to them that I was doing things the STORE manager told me to do. I'm sorry, but the store manager ranks higher than the department manager, so I'm going to do what he says. This wasn't good enough. Apparently, putting the plants up on tables was more important than building grills (hello, it's almost the 4th of July. Grills are our best sellers and we need them built!!!). Not only did she write me up for not handling the plants, but she also said that I take too long of breaks and have no consideration for others waiting to take theirs. First of all, I always take my breaks either early or on time. I'll go early if I know someone else takes theirs at the same time I do. Now, I have to walk to the back of the store to my locker. Then I go to the break room or the smoking area, where my 15 minutes begins (I was told not to count walking as part of my break). Then I have to go back to my locker after my break, and then go to the bathroom (again, restroom breaks aren't supposed to be counted as part of the break). In total, it takes me 25 minutes, depending on if I get stopped by customers or not (and 99% of the time, I do get stopped). My breaks NEVER exceed 15 minutes. Again, I explained this. They don't care. Fine. I'll keep my cigarettes in my car and bring my own drinks from home and keep them in the cooler we have in the garden center. I won't go to the bathroom. I'll hold it if I have to. I'm sick and tired of getting screamed at for things beyond my control. If a customer asks me a question, I can't say "Sorry, I'm on break, I can't help you." The customer comes first, ALWAYS. That is what takes me the longest on my breaks: helping customers. No matter how hard I try or what I do, it's never good enough. One manager tells me to do one thing, I do it. Another manager comes out, tells me to stop what I'm doing and go do something else. I do it. I get yelled at by the first manager. It's a lose/lose situation. I really hate having 500 different managers yelling at me for 1,000 different things.