Ok I have never started a pit thread but tonight I think there might be a few started by me.
I went to Wal Mart today on the bus and bought some bakeware and a magazine. We have a Sams next door and since I had some time I decided to go through and sample some foods. When I got there I decided to go ahead and get a membership. I bought a bag of chicken breasts, some hamburgers, a huge bag of salad and a bag of frozen vegetables.
I walked back to walmart to wait for the bus. I went in to Wal Mart to ask for a bag to put the chicken breasts in to make it easier to carry.
They would not give me a bag!!! One bag Nope, they said it was because of **security issues. ** What??? Security Issues! What kind! :eek:
I am in the state of West Virginia, I would not take it across the border as there is no border to take it across. I don’t think chicken breasts have a habit of exploding! Good Heavens! That is just stupid. :smack:
I will be calling the manager tomorrow to see what kind of security issues they are concerned about.
They’re probably talking about store security issues. This is a bad time of year for shoplifting and other forms of shrinkage; it’s not unreasonable for them to not want to give you empty bags to put things in, since a fair number of less scrupulous people would use them to try to smuggle out unpaid-for merchandise.
If they try it again - then fuck 'em. Throw everything on the floor and demand an immediate refund. Don’t leave until you get them. Make it abundantly clear to all the other customers that they are being held up because WalMart is being run by fuck nuggets.
I am a trustworthy person and I guess it bothers me that I can go in and spend money in a store and not be trusted. Do you think it is good business to make it clear that you don’t trust your customers. I had no intention of going back into the store. I could not go into the store without being approached by one of the 4 vultures who are guarding the door.
Huh.
That’s strange.
Our Wally*World greeters will go out of their way to help. I’ll have to ask them if they’ve been told not to do that.
Or, if it was me, with yucky wet chicken, I’d have grabbed some of the recycled bags out of the bin in the walkway.
Talk about a security risk. Between that bin, and the Toy-Game-o-Rama section, you could hide a fair sized bad boom easily.
Okay, let me make sure I have this straight: you’re willing not just to shop at Sam’s, where they check your receipt before you leave, but to pay for the privelege of doing so. But you’re bitching because Walmart doesn’t want you wandering their store with their bags, because that implies they don’t trust you.
Why is it okay for you to be treated like a criminal at Sam’s but not at Walmart?
It was not that I was going to wander their store with the bag. I had no intention of going back into the store. They had bags at the service desk which is right next to the door.
The point about Sams is valid. They check your reciepts sort of (the lady just looked it over, didn’t look into the basket and marked it). I think because of the way Sams is run. As far as I know, there are no sensors that go off if you leave the store with unpaid merchandise (at Wal Mart there are) so I don’t see it as a criminal thing.
LadyDragon: If you remember to ask them, please post it on here. The greeters Wal Mart i have noticed are all pretty bitter. I always try to be nice, and I don’t know what it is…perhaps because I am a young college student (I am not one of the scanky dressed one…think Liz Claiborne and you would have me), I don’t know. I know that college/town relations here are not exactly friendly but not really tense either.
Look you can consider what you want silly but I had already gone to a store and spent money. It is bad business to make it clear that you don’t trust your customers. It is implied just not said.
It was not the bag that was all that important it was the attitude and being told there were “security issues”. Fortunatly I am not used to being treated like that. Maybe you are but I am not.
I don’t consider it too much to ask to get a bag from a place you have spent money in and in another store that is owned by the store in which you have made the request. That is good business and is known as being nice. Many businesses will even offer you a bag if they see you are struggling. I think most people would like to spend money in a store in which they feel that the employees go above and beyond the call of duty. I have also worked in retail (granted not wal mart but department stores) and if I would have pulled “there are security issues”, I would have been nailed for being rude by my supervisor.
Wal Mart also has a very nice security system that enables it to get alot of shoplifters (but I know that they still lose money). That stupid buzzer goes off and I think they need to deal with those people not innocent people. Now if I had left the store and the alarm went off then I would understand completely being suspicious.
Sams has no bags to buy. None, zero, nada. They have boxes which would have been fine if they would have been there.
Buy bags from Wal Mart? Oh please…I am not doing that. That is really silly. I do have reusable shopping bags which I would have brought with me but I the trip to Sams was impromtu. I don’t think it is “petty and silly” to ask for one bag from a store that I have already been in and spent money in and in the past have spent alot of money in and when I ask in a nice manner and tend to be polite even though the people who work there are rude and bitter.
By the way, I had the wal mart bag with me from my original purchase. I had also brought in a bag from Rite Aid (which was an errand I had ran earlier) which they insisted on rumaging through when I walked in the door. I could understand if they had just put the little sticker on the bag to say that someone knew I had it but no they went through it. I found that a little irritating.
It is not a “handout” in the real sense. It was asking a small favor. I was not asking them to move the moon or to perform some magical task. There were bags right behind the vultures. She would have had to turn around, grab a bag and then eyeball me as I walked out the door. Given the circumstances, I think it was petty of her. I will also dicuss the policy with the manager and mention that my bag was rummaged through and do they encourage that sort of behavior in thier employees.
I may also email the Wal Mart coorporation and mention the idea of Sams selling bags because that is a good idea.
I have a feeling I would not have reacted so strongly had it not been for the behavior beforehand.
I study consumerism (it is part of my major) in college and this sort of thing would make an excellent research project.
And I studied political science and psychology in school, and your sense of entitlement would make an excellent research project.
You are not entitled to have all of your favors granted. Keep in mind that you were asking them to do you a favor. Just because you asked doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to anything.
What attitude? The attitude of putting their security interests over your convenience?
As for your implication that Wal-Mart doesn’t have any security issues, according to Congressional testimony [.pdf file], “grocery, drug and discount chains lose approximately 4% of earnings from gross sales due to theft. Retail businesses experience losses greater than $30 billion annually due to theft.”
Is $30 billion annually enough of a security issue to justify making you carry your chicken [gasp!] by hand?
Really? They don’t have trashbags, or sandwich bags, or paper bags? Because on their website, they claim to sell lots and lots of bags. Or is it possible that you were so busy throwing a fit because someone dared refuse your request that you didn’t stop to think of another way to solve your problem without relying on someone else to bail you out?
Why? Because you’re not going to patronize a store that won’t bow to your whims? Because Wal-Mart has irrationally decided that they would rather save millions of dollars that would be lost to theft if they slackened their security measures, rather than save you from your horrific fate at being forced to carry your chicken home without its own bag?
Your attempts to paint this as some sort of persecution or incredible inconvenience notwithstanding (“vultures”? Are you implying that you were some sort of weakened animal and they were flying in to pick apart your bones?), maybe this all could have been avoided had you stuck the chicken in one of the other bags.
Or perhaps you could have lived with the inconvenience. Struggle builds character. And this isn’t exactly the Great Depression, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
Upon which you’d be escorted out by security, for being a complete and utter “fuck nugget”.
You didn’t buy this stuff at Wal-Mart, right? So they don’t have to give you jackshit. Get over it.
Road Rash: You’re right. They’re owned by the same guy. Different branhes of the same business.
That’s why I’m a little muddled as to why they wouldn’t give you a bag. I mean…you spent money within their corporation, and had the receipts to prove it. It’s not like you walked in from K Mart and asked for a bag.
Of course they rummaged through your bag when you came into the store–that’s what they fucking do when you bring a bag into Walmart. They look through the bag and usually put a sticker on each item, to save you the trouble of being thought a shoplifter later on. (That policy also, incidentally, reduces the chances of you bringing something dangerous into the store and them getting sued for negligence when you hurt someone.) This has been standard procedure for at least fifteen years, probably longer. If this policy offends you, shop somewhere else. Trust me, they won’t miss you at all; they’ve got plenty of other customers, ones who don’t think they’re too good to go through standard security measures.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been in their store a million times and spent billions of dollars there; they don’t know you from the shoplifter down the street, because of the volume of shoppers they have. This is especially true on the day after Christmas, when half the country is in there trying to return stuff or snatch up discounted holiday items. They don’t remember you, and they don’t have time to babysit you or to deal with your bullshit. If this offends you, shop somewhere that does a smaller volume of business, where they’re more likely to remember and trust you. You’ll pay higher prices, but you’ll probably get all the shopping bags you want.
(A few folks at the SuperWalmart by the clinic know me, but I’m in there frequently at 3 am, when there aren’t a lot of other shoppers.)
It makes perfect sense for them to act how they did. Would you hand a complete stranger a heavy coat upon them entering your home and leave them, unsupervised, to inspect every room?