Wal-Mart feeling the Houk Effect?

I hope this isn't an indicator of how his career is going to go, but on the very day my son was hired by Wal-Mart (in a high-level position responsible for the efficient removal of shopping carts from the parking lot), the company announced its first quarterly profit drop in ten years.

Odds are it had more to do with Germany and Korea, to say nothing of poor same-store sales increases (up 1.5%, compared to Target's 4.6%), but this sort of thing could blight a promising career.