So, you see why I get so annoyed that I cannot bring my perfectly well-behaved dog into stores?
Yes, I read all the posts in the thread. No, I did my cooking at home, and I am extremely sanitary and a good cook. I even wear rubber gloves when dealing with raw meat. I have never worked at Wal-Mart.
Not quite sure what you mean by your last paragraph. The subject line said to share your own retial experience. I took that to mean whether you shop or own. There is or was recently a thread on one of the forums here about nothing but what happens at Wal-Mart.
Bugs in cereal, two bad experiences with raw meat, which has never happened to me at any other place I have ever shopped at. I also have two good friends who told me similar stories about their meat. And by the way, the Sam’s warehouse, which is a part of Wal-Mart, I also had a bad experience with raw meat.
Don’t get me wrong. As far as staples such as drinks (cokes, bottled water, etc…), toilet paper, paper towels, even socks and underwear, I wouldn’t go anywhere else.
Many, many months ago, one of the networks with a very reputable show, did a behind-the-scenes look at grocery stores who did the thing with changing out-dated labels, and Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart were two of them.
I was just ranting, as I was invited to do. It’s not really a subject to be nit-picked. I’ll leave that to the rock-scientists posts.
Peace Lady
Peace Lady, you are obviously new here, so I will try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
The subject was obviously “rants about customer misbehavior, especially kids”, not about store experiences in general. You are off topic, or, as it is called here, “hijacking.”
Look around a little more at other threads, the rants in particular, and you will start to understand more how they progress.
Stick around and learn, this is a great place.
Read for a time and learn grasshoppa, then you may be thought intelligent when you post at a later time.
Thanks for the ahem advice, PL, but I am by no stretch of the imagination an addict. I had hand surgery yesterday, and when I read your post, my first thought was, “Damn, either that post is fucked up and way off topic, or those pain meds are hitting me harder than I thought.” Since it had been a while since I took anything, I had to conclude that it truly was surreal, and not just me being all doped up.
As a side note, any reference to “retail hell” is talking about the hellishness of working retail, not bad experiences shopping retail. Just a bit of FYI.
On the subject of annoying, piss-ant customers, I actually had one woman come up to me and say; “This store doesn’t give refunds, correct?”
I said yes, that’s correct, no refunds.
C: “Why don’t you want grownups shopping in your store?”
M: 
C: “I can understand that you don’t want teenagers buying things, wearing them, then returning them, but you know, adults sometimes want to be able to get their money back. There is a law called Buyer’s Remorse, you know.”
M: :eek:
C: “I understand you’re just an employee. But could you please explain to me why you don’t want grownups to shop here? You lose adult business because of your policy, you know.”
M: :rolleyes:
I just wanted to stomp that smug bitch. I think she was related to a woman who bought her granddaughter an outfit (about $60 worth of clothes, we were a clearance store). The granddaughter promised to pay grandma back with her tax refund cheque. At the time I thought; “Uh-oh”, but it’s not my business to decide what people do with their money. So sure enough, three weeks later, grandma comes back wanting her money. I pointed out to her that there were NO REFUNDS signs posted in the dressing rooms, at the cash and NO REFUNDS was also printed on her receipt, in caps, in 14-point type, which she cared enough about to keep in pristine condition, but not to read. Grandma said; “I think that’s a DISGUSTING policy.” and swept out of the store, probably to try and return the stuff at The Bay with no tags on it (they give refunds for stuff they carry in stock, even with no tags or receipt. They carry the same brands we do, so customers would often do this when we thwarted them).
I think that other high handed bitch was her daughter (granddaughter’s mom), who was coming back to bother us as “revenge”. She didn’t even look at any items, just came in and started grilling me about our return policy.
Closer to the topic of this thread, we had several girls in our mall who used their adorable kids as decoys so that they could shoplift. We also had “stroller ladies”, who would hang bags on the handles of their toddler’s strollers, and stuff merchandise in said bags, when the salespeople weren’t looking.
Geologists of the SDMB, unite!
Yeah! Where’s Geobabe when we need her?
My first job out of high school was working at a discount department store (not unlike Wal-Mart, from whence I shall never again buy persihables. . .what? Oh, never mind). I worked in the toy and garden dept. I cannot tell you how many times I saw parents bring their kids to my dept. and say something like “you play here while mommy shops”. Even at 17, I was horrified. Not to mention annoyed as hell. I always maintained that I should make $1.00 per hour more than the other employees, as compensation for my babysitting services. My manager would never let me say anything to the parents. . .
Because, see, if the customer calls Corporate to complain, then the manager’s ass is in trouble, and most managers don’t like putting their ass out there. And also because they have drilled into them that “The customer is always right,” just look at any of the bitching about retail threads to see the people who insist on that attitude. So the clerks are stuck in the middle.
The store I used to work in had a good-sized childrens’ section with toys (for sale) and books and so on. And parents just loved to let Little Timmy run through it, flinging things all over the place, while they sat there drinking coffee. When it was time to go, that usually meant they just walked out. Half our cleanup time in the evening was straightening and fixing kids up. And stuff was everywhere, on the shelves, all over the floor, and so on.
And the parents do nothing, of course. Their little hellions run around screaming and throwing things (literally). But heaven forbid you try and stop them! I know a coworker who got yelled at for stopping one little kid from climbing on the shelves. I know another one who got yelled at for stopping a kid from throwing toys across the section. And so on. Parents just love to leave their kids in the kids section and wander off, maybe to shop elsewhere.
I find it amazing that people trust their child’s lives to the store clerks making minimum wage.
I used to work at this really cheap discount store. I mean cheap it was an outlet that was only supposed to be open for 6 months and ended up staying open for 2 years before it closed (packing up was nuts, but I’m not here to go into that). I generally worked in the clothing section and we had numerous ‘tables’ of clothing that was just piled on. Now these tables were made of plywood, the bases were set up that it was merely two pieces with a small cut in the middle and stuck together with another longer piece of plywood on top.
The perfect hiding place for little kids. And extremely unstable too.
They’d been known to come crashing down a time or two when the plywood broke in the middle or one of the ‘legs’ bent wrong and cracked. I was always polite but firm when telling kids to ‘come out of there that it wasn’t safe.’ and then having some parents come up to me and demanding to know why I wasn’t letting their little darlings play. well because just their being under there they were likely to bring the whole thing crashing down! They would shove around the pieces to make more room for them and undermine the stability even more! I don’t think they wanted their precocious little darlings to have a table filled with clothes (and several ones that held plastic boxes of smaller things) come down on their heads! For the most part though the parents were polite and told their kids to ‘listen to the nice lady’.
I remember kids would rip open candy bars, or put their mouths on them, and parents would just put them back on the shelves!
You know, yeah, maybe you don’t DON’T want to teach the kids that if they ruin something, the parent will buy it for them, but you could buy it and then hide it away. Or throw it away.
Dammit.
Or kids who thought that the lingerie department was a great place to play tag. Ugh!
Sorry, I don’t think I’ve done enough Vicodin to participate in this thread.
That rope thing happens at the public library too. I think I probably tell at least ten kids a day “Don’t play on the ropes.”
One particularly obnoxious brat kept doing it and I kept trying to get his attention till finally his stupid cow of a mother said “Don’t yell at my child.”
At that point, I decided that if that kid’s head got smushed by a 40 pound solid brass rope pole, it would be a GOOD thing for posterity and I shut up.
Which is why as a customer, I write to the corporate headquarters complaining that they don’t allow their clerks and managers to make parents keep their little monsters under control. And one of the nice things about being an “old” lady, is that I can get away with being scornful and scolding to these young idiot parents with a few dirty looks and “tsk, tsk” type comments (but then of course I escape before they can go all indignant and entitled on me :D).
I’ve posted this before, but nothing mars a short trip to Fred Meyer or Walmart more than being forced to hear some kid (who CAN be heard throughout the entire store), screaming “mooooOOHHHHOOMYYY, GET IT!!! I waaaaHHHHAAANTTTT IT WAaaaaaaaaaaaaah, boooo hooo, snivel, Scream SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEECH,” for the entire time I’m trying to shop.
I used to think that I disliked children, but I have two of my own, and I like them just fine. I finally realized that it’s bad parents I can’t stand.
If you were really concerned she was addicted to vicodin, it would have been much more effective to send her a private message. Instead you give this lame attempt to embarrass her because YOU stumbled into this thread like a village idiot and made some babbling comment off topic.
Manx, I feel your pain. Don’t get me started on parents who let their children roam wild in our trauma center. Some of them actually say things like “Well, if she gets hurt… this is the place to be.”
Moderation note:
The Straight Dope Message Board has private messaging turned OFF. Our server is overworked as it is, and every time we upgrade the server, demand quickly meets and then again exceeds supply.
Peace Lady, pay more attention to your surroundings…that is, which thread you’re in, and which forum you’re in. If you had paid attention to the thread title and the original post, you would have noticed that this particular thread is mostly about parents who let their kids run loose in retail stores. Your rant does not truly belong in this thread. As Daisy Mae said, if you were truly worried about CrazyCatLady, you would have tried to PM her yourself…and you might have even noticed whether or not you can email her. On these message boards, you are assumed to have read the whole thread, and to have given some thought to your posts. If you don’t do these things, the other posters will eat you alive.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
I wish I could believe that you were making this up. Unfortunately, I can believe you.
Oh, man, this brings back so many memories. Like, the little girls who’d always come in for ice cream, the older sister looking after the younger. Big sister couldn’t have been more than 10, but they were always dressed in the skimpiest stuff.
Then there was miss Deborah, and her mother. We knew Deborah by name, 'cause mom was always calling her, asking her to come back here or settle down or whatever. This kid appeared to have a shoe fetish - every time they came in, she had to get a new pair of sandels. She’d then present them to whoever was ringing the sale, and demand that we cut off the strings for her. Mom kind of tried to keep her under control, but she was no match for Deborah. Deborah was also fond of throwing loud, public tantrums when she didn’t get her way, as I witnessed once or twice.
What really cemented her on people’s shit list, though, was when she walked up and kicked one of the other ladies working at the store. Actually, first she asked the woman what would happen if she (Deborah) kicked her (Val, my then-coworker), and unsatisfied by the answer, she went ahead and kicked. Little brat from hell, I’m telling you. I was so glad when she and her mom stopped coming in.
Back when I worked in the copy department of an office supply store, I had this one lady who’d come in with her son - who was maybe 3? (I’m not good at guessing kids’ ages… he could walk and kinda talk, but he was very, very small.) He used to try to disassemble the copy machines. His mom’d be using one of them, and he’d be climbing on the other ones, pulling out the paper trays and standing in them, and trying to yank off the bypass tray. Then he’d start in with the bin of supplies we had out there for customer use - paperclips and staplers and stuff. He liked to put paperclips inside the copy machine. He also liked to hang off the little swinging door that separated the customer area from the big copy area behind the counter. I’d repeatedly ask his mother to keep an eye on him, and eventually tell him myself that he couldn’t do that, and he’d never stop. Eventually his mother put him in a cart so he wouldn’t be able to break the machines, and he then started rocking back and forth so the cart would roll around and run into things. When he almost tipped the cart over and I had to jump around the counter and catch it, I’d had enough, and I called a manager over and had him speak to the lady. He ended up asking her to leave because her child was causing damage to store property (and very nearly himself) and she wasn’t making any efforts to keep him safe.
I’ve never seen such a tiny, destructive child.