Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers...

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, so after being run out of my career as a craps dealer by the general evilness in the casino industry, I got a job at Wal-Mart, as a front-line cashier. Oh, the joy. So, anyhoo, I have a bit of advice for shoppers at Wal-Mart that will make life more pleasant for all parties concerned.

  1. Do you see a bagger? No? Me neither. Wal-Mart doesn’t have them and I have no place to put the bags once they are filled. So, after you’ve unloaded your cart, will you please push it to the end of the counter and take your fucking bags off the carousel?

  2. The time to decide that you don’t want that item is before you bring it to the register, not after I’ve already rung it up. Please put it back on the fucking shelf if you don’t want it.

  3. If you want information about the features of the small appliance you’re considering purchasing, ask somebody in the department. Do not bring two water filters to the cash register and ask me what the difference between them is. I’m sure all of the people in line behind you are not happy about waiting while I frantically try to read the packages to get the information you could have gotten by reading the fucking packages yourself.

  4. Can’t find the price of an item? OK, see all of the big yellow signs all over the store that say “Can’t find the price? Look it up here” with an arrow pointing down? Guess what? They all have little scanners underneath them so you can scan the item and find out how much it is. Use the fucking thing, will you? I don’t have a lot of space behind my register, and there is not enough room for all the shit people brought up and asked for a price check on, then decided they didn’t want it.

  5. If you want to make, oh, say, a five or ten dollar purchase, bring a small bill with you, like, a twenty or smaller. I’m getting sick and tired of having to order change because some asshole bought, like, six dollars worth of stuff and then handed me a fucking hundred dollar bill, so I had to give him all three of the twenties I had, then all of the fives I had left, then a bunch of ones… (incidentally, we start with $50 in fives and $32 in ones, plus the coins, anything larger than that in my drawer came from customers).

  6. Keep the rugrats under control. If I almost lose a finger one more time because it gets caught in the bag hangers on the carousel because your snot-nosed kid thinks the fucking thing is a toy and wants to spin it, I’m going to go ballistic.

  7. If you want to buy ten dollars worth of food, have a two dollar balance on your Nevada Quest card and more than ten dollars in cash on you, just pay with cash, will ya?

  8. If you are under the age of eighteen, don’t even think of trying to buy firearms, including paintball guns and supplies, from me. It’s illegal for you to buy them, and illegal for me to sell them. I will ask you for ID. I will not sell you the items if you are underage, or if I think you are underage. Same goes for tobacco.

  9. Know how much money you have, and how much the stuff you want to buy costs before you get to the register. If you get here and suddenly realize you left your wallet at home, no prob, it happens to all of us. I’ll just suspend the transaction and hang onto your stuff while you run and get it. But if you only have thirty-six dollars, don’t come to my register with fifty dollars worth of stuff, then go through your bags and select items, saying, “take this off, and this, and this…”, forcing me to void all these items. I’m sure the people in line behind you don’t appreciate having to wait while I do this.

  10. Yes, we do price matching. If you want to do your grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, and you have a few items that are cheaper, or on sale, at Smith’s, that’s fine. But if you have an entire list of forty items that are cheaper, or on sale, at Smith’s, fucking do your grocery shopping at Smith’s.

Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart, have a nice day.

2

Nope, too much logic. This’ll never catch on.

3

Welcome to the wonderful world of retail :slight_smile: It never gets any better :frowning: I spent 10 years working in a supermarket and everything but the paintball and the scanners sounds like a typical day in the grocery. Good luck!!

I must say though that the walmart near me sucks as most of it’s price checker things are broken!

4

This is my list from my last retail job (please, let that be my last retail job).

1)I shop at the store I work for. If you see me wandering around not wearing my uniform, don’t bother me. And just because I pretend to like you while I am working it doesn’t mean I am going to help you off the clock.

2)If it isn’t on the shelf, then we are probably out of it. Here’s a hint, we like to sell stuff, and we aren’t in the habit of hiding it from you.

3)Related to 2. If we are out of the small cans of a certain type of cat food, but we have the bigger size (or vice versa), you don’t get to have a huge fit because your cat is going to starve. I don’t care if you think it costs more, you are the one who has decided your cat can only eat one flavor, you deal with the problem.

4)If you can get something cheaper somewhere else, and the couple of pennies you would save are worth the trip across town for you, then please, go there. No need to tell me about it, just go.

5)Don’t act like you have caught me in a huge fraud if the price of something has gone up. First, I don’t set the prices. Second, prices go up, that’s life.

6)Don’t bitch about the price of stuff going up, and then walk out of here with bags full of ‘free’ samples of dog food. Cause we still have to pay for it, even if you don’t.

7)Don’t try to pawn off expired coupons, or coupons for something you didn’t even buy. And don’t tell me The Man lets you do it. Yes, he probably does, cause he’s lazy, but I’m not.

8)Don’t you ever, ever, sneak in when you know the store is closed, just because I had to unlock the door to bring in the bird feeders. This elevates you above being a bad customer to being a bad human being.

9)Don’t try to return something that you have picked the price off of, and lost the receipt. How convenient, and yet, I’m not quite that stupid.

10)Don’t tell me stories about your cat. I. Do. Not. Care. Especially if you have told me the story every other time you come in. And a “my cat likes his blue mouse more than his red one” story stretched over 5 minutes is not interesting.

11)Our phone rings 4 times, and then goes to voice mail. Yes, it would be nice if I could answer every call, but the fact is if there is only one person working, and there are customers in the store they are more important to me than you. They actually have money, whereas you are just trying to use me for free advice. If it is important, leave a message, and I will get back to you. Don’t leave a rude message, and then expect me to talk to you later. I don’t know why people don’t think we might have call display.

12)If you have a band card (tax exempt status) tell me before I ring your stuff through.

13)Don’t bring a single item up to the counter, and have a fistful of change that totals less than the price of the thing before taxes. What do you think? The government is going to give you money back? I wish I lived in your world.

14)After you have ordered me to get a certain bag of dog food or cat litter, don’t stand directly behind me and stare at what I am doing unless you want me to step on you.

5

Nevada Quest Card?

6

Probably Nevada’s EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) Card - Electronic Food Stamps.

7

Attention Wal*Mart checkers:

You are in the service industry. You are there to serve the customer, not the other way around. Don’t like stupid, rude, or bothersome customers? Get another job–this is Wal*Mart, ferchrissakes.
Now, about your rant:

First off, I highly resent being expected to do this. I don’t work there as a bagger, and it isn’t my job. For the record, I always do get my bags off the carousel with a smile, but it’s only because I feel sorry for the nice checker who wasn’t given any help by her own damn employer. It is not the job of the customer to load up the cart. Do you get this pissy when an 80-year-old woman with arthritis can’t unload the carousel? If you want to be pissed at someone about this aspect of your job, be pissed at Wal*Mart who is shifting the workload unfairly onto the customer, without the customer’s consent.

Sure, but first tell me where to find a fucking Wal*Mart employee in the department? I can’t count the number of times I have had to search the entire store to find one employee to even ask where I can find an employee from the aforementioned department. Let’s take the fabric department, for example. The employee clearly sees me getting ready to bring fabric up to be cut and priced and decides this is the perfect time to disappear into the break room, leaving me standing there with bolts of fabric and no one to help me. But if I search the store for someone to help me to find someone who can actually help me, I’m likely to come up with no one. If I then bring my items to you, you’re going to go ballistic.

I don’t have a problem with the rest of your rant in principle, but I want to reiterate: If you don’t like serving the public, get another job.

8

I’m with Calliope on this one,Thea. Retail can be hell at times. I have BEEN in Retail since I was 16,so in part I can sympathize with you. But if you don’t like it,get o ut of the business now.Seriously.Go peddle ice cream. Or feed the lions at the zoo.But do not continue on in retail if that’s how you feel.

IDBB

9

Why would a cashier be able to help you with that? Take it to the Customer Service desk if you really can’t find someone in the department, and get them to find you some help, rather than holding up all the customers behind you while you ask a cashier about the relative merits of water filters.

10

Maybe we should be blaming the public for demanding the lowest prices, but refusing to understand that they might need to do a little more work to get those prices. Wal-Mart and stores of that type don’t have baggers because it would cost too much to hire them, and the prices of the merchandise would reflect that.

Have you ever been to a Grocery Store where you had to bag your items yourself? At least the Wal-Mart checker bags it for you.

11

Sorry, chica. I ain’t giving you my cash. I rarely, if ever, have cash on me. If I’m going to give to a cashier, I’m going to give it to one in a store that doesn’t take plastic.

Other than that, I’ve no problems with your rant. For a new Walmart employee, though, I must say you seem bit bitter. It is Walmart, though, so I guess I’d be pissed off If I had to work there, too.

For what it’s worth, I hate Wal*mart with a fucking passion. Now I live close to a Target and I’ll be making my TP, bathroom cleaner, paper towel, Windex, etc. purchases there from now on.

12

Actually, to be fair, the customer consents by returning to shop in the store.

And there’s nothing wrong with bitching about your job. I teach. I LOVE teaching. I can’t imagene doing anything else with my life. It amazes me every day that a career happens to exisit that dovetails so nicely with my talents and preferences. But even with my total commitment to my job, there are still things I hate, and I still gripe sometimes, and, end of the day, it amuses me to rant AND it makes me a better teacher.

If ranting to annonymous strangers lets {b]Thea** feel better and do her job better, who are we to complain? We don’t have to read the thread.

13

First of all: I don’t work for Wally World and I do my best not to shop there if I can avoid it.

WalMart is cheap. Do you understand what this means? Cheap means no extras. Cheap means no baggers. Cheap means no having staff who have undergone several months of retail training. Cheap means cheap.

Want someone to bag your groceries? Go somewhere that has higher prices. Higher prices = more money spent on staff. It’s not a difficult concept. Want underwear that fits? Shop at Neiman Marcus. Want to save money, WalMart is for you.

14

I haven’t visited a Wal-Mart in about 5 months.

Wal-Mart=hell

15

Wal-Mart = satan’s prefered shopping center.

That said I shop there when I have to. I’d rather get a better price on my automotive stuff than canadian tire where I end up with lots of canadian tire “money” that I can’t reuse so quickly.

I agree with all your points Thea Logica. As a customer I hate waiting for dumb shits that don’t know how to count (the 12 item or less isle doesn’t mean 20 items fuckers!)

BTW, are we not allowed to use their real name here or something? Is wal-mart really named with the dash?

16

Go Thea.

I hope I never have to work in another shithole like Kmart again (which is about the same).

Calliope, get over yourself.

BTW, to those of you who say, “get another job!” sometimes you have to take what you can find.

17

Just because the cashiers are there to serve the customers doesn’t mean they have to be the bitches of every person who walks through the door, you know. Being a cashier does not mean having to enjoy people who are stupid, selfish, time-wasting fucks.

18

Either way is correct. When Sam Walton was alive the name on the stores was presented as “Wal-Mart.” After his death, they replaced the “-” with a star “*” to symbolize Sam. See, he was the star in heaven looking down on the company. :rolleyes:

Stores that have the “-” in the name were built before Sam’s death. All new stores have the “*”.

19

Calliope, like Guin said, get over yourself. Bag your own fucking crap, or shop in a more expensive store where they have baggers.

I’ve never worked in a retail store, but when i shop at them i often find that when there is a delay it is more often caused by idiot customers than by inefficient staff.

I’m talking about the sort of dickhead who spends ten minutes watching the cashier ring up the merchandise, and then decides to hunt around for the check-book. Hello, morons, start filling out your checks (store name, date, signature, etc.) beforehand, and then fill in the total at the end.

Or the person with 17 items who wants them rung up as four separate transactions.

Or the person who thinks that “15 items or less” just doesn’t apply to them.

Or the couple who get in line when they have done only half their shopping, and one person waits with the cart while the other runs around the store grabbing tons more stuff. One or two last-minute items? Fine. But don’t get in line until you’re done with the bulk of your shopping.

The list goes on.

The only part of the OP’s rant that i really take issue with is number (10). Wal-Mart (and other stores) do price matching because they want to maintain a reputation for being inexpensive. Well, i think customers are well within reason to call them on this tactic.

20

As a customer of WalMart and the like, I agree with most of what the OP said. As a customer I am thoroughly disgusted at fellow customers who do the stupid things she mentioned.

Just because you’re at walmart doesn’t mean you get to digress to a “mommy take care of me” state of mind. COME ON!!!

Especially the “let’s chat about inane things” to the checker who is saying “uh huh, uh huh” and trying to be polite, but is VERY much noticing the line of 20 people impatiently waiting.

If I can’t find an employee in the department for which I am trying to find info on some item or another, I will ask a checker to page that department, then wait for them.

Or, if it’s a slightly oddball item, or one for which I really need help, I will CALL that department first for information and then go to the store to pick it up.

I try to call during non rush hour times too (mostly so I don’t get put on hold forever, but partly to be reasonable and polite about it).