Tag: walmart

Went to WalMart yesterday.

Oh fun!

It’s not my favorite place on Planet Earth and for years and years I boycotted the place along with millions of other Americans. When it became clear the WalMart felt that sting and they changed their ways, unfortunately, I realized it was my turn. It was now up to me to actually give them that Second Chance.

We have an uneasy relationship today but we’re working on it. At least I no longer feel like I need a good hot bath when I leave the place.

Since giving them that Second Chance I discovered there are certain products and/or sizes one can only get at Wally World.

Buggers.

Yesterday turn out to be only the first leg in the quest I share with my oldest daughter to Stock the House because…..

Not to mention COVID still has me seeing this in my nightmares

I’ve been poor so let me tell you, it’s one thing to go to the store and not be able to afford the food but it’s completely another to go to the store and there IS NO food to buy. So, I have overbought ever since COVID–I was never like that. Ever.

Anyway, WallyWorld here we come!

We spent an hour and a half or so wandering around the place before we decided we were done. My cart was completely full. I couldn’t have squeezed anything else into it and we were still going to go to BJs after WW.

In all their Changing and Rearranging to put a better more friendly face on themselves one thing WalMart held fast to was the quality of their employees.

And that shitty checkout system! Why would any High Mucky Muck think it a great idea to put a grocery store in a department store but not fix the checkout system to suit? Those carousels were just dreadful.

I put all of my items on the belt in my particular order and the cashier scans them one at a time. She puts them in the tiny ‘bagging area’ and just keeps going.The area fills up. Duh. I haven’t finished unpacking my groceries yet and the tiny space it full. She just kept filling it while chatting with her co-worker and laughing.

I finish putting up my items and I go to bag because, well, obviously, she has no intention of doing it. I live in CT we are now a non-reusable bag state. Some will tell you WalMart has a policy that their cashiers can’t bag outside bags. Some will tell you that’s straight BS. I don’t know which is true but in a bagless state, such a rule makes no sense.

When she finished ringing my items, but not chatting and laughing with her co-worker, she just stood there. Watching me. She did it as though I were causing her a problem. Not once did she lift a finger to put so much as single can of soup into a bag.

My total was almost $400.00.

It was a large order.

A little customer service would have been nice.

Finally she sighed and said; “It’s $376.00…whenever you’re ready.”

I very quietly and coldly replied, “Yes, whenever I’m ready.”

I took my sweet time bagging. I held up the line. She just stood there the whole time. Not one single offer of assistance. When I was done and I pulled out my debit card to pay for it all her eyes got a little wide with surprise.

Yesterday was SNAP day, you know. Wally World was a bit packed.

Her eyes got a little sheepish after that especially when the POS read: Approved.Thank you.

I don’t care if I was paying with cash, credit, debit, or SNAP, anyone buying that amount of stuff from a store deserves a wee bit of assistance.

When she handed me my receipt there was nothing but dead silence between us. I’m not sure if it’s because she realized her very unhelpful and unprofessional error or if she was just aware that I was mad for some reason that was over her head.

We were going to go directly BJs after that as it’s in an adjacent parking lot but I was a bit too miffed….and the car was a bit too full…after my Wally World encounter.

The way I see it there are two real culprits here; a lack of proper training and the checkout system itself. It’s horrible. Always has been. When other stores started instituting that disastrous bag carousel thing I was mortified.Obviously, no one who actually shops came up with that pathetic idea and no one who actually shops approved it. All it ever did was slow everything down. It was only moderately OK when WW was just a department store but now that it’s a Super Center it really sucks!

Times change, Dear Wal-Mart. Even you must keep changing with them. So I’ll help you out by giving you a teeny tiny history lesson.

Once Upon a Time in a place called Niantic, CT there was a small locally owned grocery store called Pete Mitchell’s. It was a lovely little store at a time when it was perfectly acceptable to be just a little grocery store and not a behemoth trying to take over every piece of the retail industry they can find.

This little place had something utterly remarkable! Never again duplicated!

A grocery cart that was higher and wider than what we’re all used to.

This made it so much easier to get heavy things in and out of it BUT what it really did, where the true Magick Happened was at the Checkout Counter.

Yes, there at the register, the cashier simply pulled the entire cart right to them. One by one they took the items out,rang them up, and someone called a Bagger put them in a bag but that part’s neither here nor there.

The point is this, if the cashier pulls stuff out of the cart in this manner, in a Bagless State such as Connecticut, it allows the customer to easily bag their own shit and never ever hold up the line because they’re not responsible for unpacking the cart then running down the other end to hastily shove the items they’ve carefully chosen into a freaking bag.

I know. I know. It makes too much sense. I’m so sorry about that. But, ya know, I shop. I do. it’s people like me that places like Walmart should be consulting on such matters. Not Mr. Bachelor Degree who only knows how to use Instacart. He’s utterly useless.

Yet, it’s places like WalMart that make me nearly freakout when I go to some place like Big Y and the all elusive Bagger is just standing there waiting to do their job. I feel like I’m imposing on them. No joke, I really do. I meekly insist on packing my own stuff because want to bother the guy who is doing his job! How screwed up is that?

Any-hoo…off to BJs later today! After that, I will feel much better about that Coming Winter.

Tomorrow is my 57th birthday. OY. I got a few goodies coming from Amazon today or tomorrow including…

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and Merry Christmas Charlie Brown. I really wanted HR Pufnstuf…like so badly. Amazon didn’t seem to want to sell it to me. Best Buy does seem to be saying ‘come over here, sweet girl, I have what you’re looking for’. In case you’re wondering, terrible as it is to say, NO, I didn’t get them for my granddaughters (though I hope they will enjoy them). They’re mine. I’ve had my eye on them for years. I’s not Christmas without them but they can’t go into the Blu-Ray player until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi Plaza.

Rules are rules. 🙂