<p>The other reason it’s annoying to bring so many items to an express lane at wal mart is the way the lines are set up. Every wal mart I’ve seen has very small areas for express. No conveyor belt and a small square to put items on. If you had to fit six people at a table for two at a restaurant you would probably be annoyed and it would be difficult to eat. Same concept.</p>
<p>Yes, WalMart caters to the masses…actually so do most retail stores. Of course, the OP could try working in an expensive store. If you or they think working for high end customers is easy, that will be another lesson.</p>
<p>I would agree that getting an education and moving on is a great thing to do. BUT that does not mean escaping being able to deal with customers. Virtually every employee has customers and has a high emphasis on pleasing customers. I worked in a nerdy high tech job and still found myself dealing with customers on a daily basis. How I did that was viewed by upper management as more important than my techie contributions. I think that emphasis is true of most jobs.</p>
<p>Hey edad, what do you think the employee should’ve done in this story? </p>
<p>[These</a> Wheels Don’t Revolve Around You](<a href=“http://notalwaysright.com/these-wheels-dont-revolve-around-you/29782]These”>Not A Be-Liver)</p>
<p>OP, I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Unfortunately they happen from time to time.</p>
<p>At my company, if someone is swearing at you over the phone, you give them a warning that if they don’t stop you will hang up. I’ve hung up on multiple rude people.</p>
<p>I’ve had customers make me cry. It’s a bad business to be in.</p>
<p>That being said, not all Walmart stores are like yours.</p>
<p>On a side note, I always count my items and I go to the other line even if I have 21. Good to know they don’t count that closely.</p>
<p>Keep your head up.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with Walmart’s policy either. I think express lanes are there for a reason and should be enforced for everyone’s convenience. However, Walmart chooses not to enforce their own signs. That’s Walmart’s poor decision, but it’s not for an employee to go against.</p>
<p>The reason I asked why the OP was stressed out and annoyed is that serving all customers in the express lane, even when they were buying more than the required number of items, was the store’s policy, both stated and understood. I agree with edad to the extent that despite this previously stated and understood policy, the OP apparently asked the customer to step out of line. The customer violated the rules, but so did the OP. </p>
<p>There are so many ways to deal with this. If people in line are annoyed, you can smile to the next customer and say how sorry you are for the delay, but it’s store policy not to ask people to leave the line. Just acknowledging their annoyance usually takes the temperature down a lot.</p>
<p>I think the reason the OP may have had problems is that calling people out in public is a type of public humiliation and rejection. People become overly defensive in these situations. The OP him/herself almost quit after being dissed in front of others. But in calling out the customer in public, the OP himself humiliated them and that usually does not generate a good reaction.</p>
<p>This is why on an airplane stewards never say “please put your seat up”, which puts them in the position of correcting the passenger. This tends to humiliate and upset people. Instead, they say “could you please put your seat up for me?” That small change of wording takes it out of the realm of correcting, and puts into the category of asking the passenger to do the steward a favor. Voila - no one gets humiliated.</p>
<p>In response to what I take the OP’s original question to be, I would say “Yes, it’s a glimpse into the future in the sense that in any job, you will at times have to deal with difficult and unreasonable people.” </p>
<p>As M. Scott Peck put it, “Life is difficult.” </p>
<p>Or in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “Hell is other people.” </p>
<p>Or in the words of an unknown savant, “non carborundum illegitimi.”</p>
<p>Hayden, I didn’t see anything where she called the customer out or did anything wrong. She told her she had to many things, the customer said a manager told her she could check out there, and she checked the customer out.</p>
<p>The manager came over later and then the customer threw her under the bud. She was the one checking the customer out. The customer was cussing at the person actually helping them.</p>
<p>It’s not being rude or disrespectful to tell someone they are in the wrong line. I’d they done want to leave, then you wait on them. You don’t turn them away. Which, she didn’t turn them away anyway.</p>
<p>Wait for the next customer to throw something at you, whip out your phone and call 911 and tell them you’ve been assaulted and a policeman needs to get there right away, and see if you can get them arrested.</p>
<p>Might as well go out in a blaze of glory.</p>
<p>"I agree with edad to the extent that despite this previously stated and understood policy, the OP apparently asked the customer to step out of line. "</p>
<p>Just like fendergirl, I fail to see where the OP states that in her post #1.</p>
<p>OP:
</p>
<p>fendergirl:
</p>
<p>I’m used to reading between the lines of other people in their early 20s, and I’m not sure I see the same thing you did, fendergirl. I just don’t buy that a polite comment, immediately followed by ringing up the customer, generates such conflict. (Not to mention, a comment which store policy says should not be made.)</p>
<p>" I just don’t buy that a polite comment, immediately followed by ringing up the customer, generates such conflict."</p>
<p>I totally buy it. You would be surprised what can tick off a nasty, grouchy person…</p>
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<p>Oh I do. Absolutely. Where I work, we have only one computer and it is password protected for confidentiality reasons. We have women who asks us to use it, we say of course, but ask them to stay on the other side of the room for a moment while we get the computer ready. This can trigger an EXPLOSION by the woman even though we’re doing exactly what she wants. </p>
<p>People are crazy and unpredictable.</p>
<p>Here’s what you do. You either follow company policy and not question the customers who are in the wrong line or you find another job. Perhaps the reason the employees are not supposed to correct customers after they get in line is to avoid just the kind of thing that happened here. The customer is probably telling this story from her point of view with an entirely different spin on it and I suspect the truth of it is in the middle. If the employee feels strongly enough about a policy to try to change it with the customers, then the employee should go to the manager away from the customers and tell the manager that he/she intends to enforce certain rules on the floor, whether the store likes it or not. Then the manager has the opportunity to either fire the employee before a problem arises or give permission to break store policy. You can guess what might happen. </p>
<p>However, if the manager observed cursing and throwing things, then the manager should tell the customer to refrain from those behaviors and if she doesn’t think she can, to please take her business elsewhere.</p>
<p>I have never liked Walmart and reading these posts makes it even more likely I won’t shop there. The Walmart executives probably will not care but it sure seems from this small sample they are losing business from people who are fed up with their store policies. </p>
<p>OP you are being called out by several posters who are not flexible in their thinking. Sounds to me like you are mature in many ways and had an overwhelming day. Just because a customer is supposed to be always right, the bad behavior shouldn’t be rewarded. Since you can’t change the policy just move on. There is no winning with that behavior and lack of support.</p>
<p>A few things I should probably clear up:</p>
<p>Yes, I was aware of the policy that we have to accept all customers coming through the register, regardless of how many items they have or what lane they are checking out in. However, it was also mentioned to me that we can mention to the customer that 1.) they have more than twenty one items and/or 2.) that they are in the 21 items or less lane. Normally, mentioning in that is enough for the customer to walk away and head to another lane, even without directing them to another line. What we cannot do, however, is not take them and tell them to go to another line.</p>
<p>I did not tell the customer to go to another line, nor did I tell her that I couldn’t take her. I just politely said, “Maa’m, how many items do you have? This is the twenty items and under line.” She responded something like, “It doesn’t matter how many items I have. You’ll check them out because your manager said I could be here.” I started checking her out without questioning the authenticity of her claim; no point because I was going to have to check her out regardless.</p>
<p>To expand on her situation: She had been at the other end of the store, tired of waiting in one of the five main checkout lines that were open. She saw that one of the express lanes were open. She attempted to go into an express lane, and the cashier turned her away and told her that she had too many items for that lane. She got huffy, and ran to blab to a CSM. The CSM instructed her to go into my lane, and that I would “gladly” check her out. The woman had apparently requested to speak to a manager about her experience because while I was in the middle of checking her out, the CSM and our main manager came over and started speaking to the lady, asking her to recount what had happened to make her unhappy. The woman then started complaining about having to wait in line, that she was tired, angry, and that she had been turned away by the last cashier and that I, had just told her to go to a new line and that I wasn’t going to check her out.</p>
<p>My manager nor the CSM even requested my side of the story, just proceeded to scold me and left me to be berated by this unhappy customer. Hence, my frustration.</p>
<p>I’ve forgot who said it, but someone here put it better than I; when my manager reprimanded me in front of the customer like that, I lost credibility with her. She knew she had me. She taunted, smirked, and made rude comments because she knew I had no choice but to put up with her. She had all the power. She could have treated me however she liked.</p>
<p>The point of my rant never was about dealing with customers… I do understand that it’s part of the job, and this wasn’t my first rodeo. I was frustrated with my lack of support from management in a situation where I felt like I needed them to step in. I was also upset that instead of the manager dealing with the disgruntled customer, she walked away and let me deal with it.</p>
<p>It seems that many of the folks who have commented on this thread want to support the OP. A couple of reasons keep coming up. </p>
<p>First is the idea that lots of customers are impossible to deal with and the OP just fell into a bad situation. I don’t buy that. Again I was a technical person who often dealt with customers to resolve technique issues, complaints or just to provide information. That was only a small part of my job but I probably averaged 15 such personal encounters or phone calls per day for 30 some years of work for several different companies and in different States. The last 20 years I worked in the NYC area which has a well earned reputation for pushy demanding clients. Only once in all those years did I encounter an impossible situation I could not handle. It was a phone encounter with lots of curse words. Truly impossible clients are really rare. Bad situations with clients can be frequent and someone with some skills can usually defuse those situations and make the best of them. The OP does not appear to have any of those skills but instead wants to impose their sense of right and wrong. </p>
<p>I heard another reason we should support the OP’s side. Because after all she works for Walmart. Well I have been traveling throughout the US for the past couple of years and I intentionally look for Walmarts. I really like the supercenters for prices, selection, and even for quality. I have always been treated well at Walmarts. Once I returned a watch I bought in another location. I did not keep the receipt but the manager quickly accepted my word and gave me a replacement. It appears that Walmart spends some time training employees and trying to meet the customer’s needs. They have also brought really decent stores to remote parts of the country that were previously underserved and/or poorly served. I own no stock and have no connection to Walmart but I have had nothing but positive experiences. Of course, we are also discussing how Walmart treats its employees. For that issue I would rather hear from full time, experienced employees not from an immature, part time college student.</p>
<p>Sweet Tea, let me read between the lines once more. It sounds to me like “not flexible in their thinking” really means “several posters who don’t tow the line with the majority”.</p>
<p>Sure, I could be wrong. But I heard too much anger and stress in the OP’s post not to suspect that there may have been more than mere politeness in the exchange. As cartera said, I believe the truth is most likely in the middle.</p>
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<p>This is so true! You would think an authentic, energetic and happy attitude would please people, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes customers are just in a bad mood, and the nicer you are, the more likely they are to give you a hard time.</p>
<p>I worked the morning shift today and I was checking out a man with just a few items. After I gave him his change I said something like, “Here’s your change and your receipt, and you have a beautiful day!” (My normal response to bidding off a customer). He snatched the receipt, laughed to himself/at me a little bit and said, " You don’t have to be so polite to me… I don’t care about this or you or anything" The response was quick so I didn’t have time to react, and I just smiled at him and let it go. But his reaction just illustrates the point that sometimes no matter how nice you are to a customer, even a genuine politeness, it’s not going to always make for a pleasant transaction.</p>
<p>Today I was on the twenty item and under line, and as usual people with four hundred items insisted on being checked out. I wouldn’t mind so much if I had the space.</p>
<p>Marina, I just saw your comments. Maybe you should ask yourself how you could have done things differently. What would have happened if you told the customer you were sorry and took her side in the resolution of this issue? It sounds like she had a long frustrating wait trying to checkout and had already tried to get through a long line. I believe you said she was carrying baskets of items instead of using a cart. That must have been difficult to carry those baskets and then have to wait and then she was turned away by another clerk who had no one in their line.</p>
<p>I have seen a few here question my place in customer service and suspect that I’m not good at my job. Am I perfect? No. Am I good? I would say so… I’m always polite, nice, and ready to answer questions. I don’t slouch at the register and I don’t play on my phone when a customer walks up. I always greet the customer politely and ask them how they are, or if they have found everything okay. I normally know when to back off when I can visibly see that a customer is in a bad mood, and even though there have been times when I have gotten frustrated, I have never muttered comments under my breath or have taken it out on a customer. </p>
<p>I’m not happy every day. I doubt a lot of people in customer service are. Actually, they’re not. Trust me; I eat lunch and drink at bars with some of them. To throw a Heather’s quote out there, “If you were that happy all the time you wouldn’t be a real person. You’d be a game show host.” But I think there is something to be said about the art of people pleasing. I am normally a happy, chipper person. On the days that I’m not, it doesn’t matter; if i am at work on that particular day, I have to fake it, because you have to keep a positive and interested attitude when dealing with customers.</p>
<p>I have never blown up at a customer, even on the worst days at my manager’s positions. I have requested that people leave, but only in extreme situations where the customers were being loud, unreasonable, or were treating associate’s badly. My reviews have only ever been positive, and customers who visit time and time again get to know me, and I try to take an active interest to remember them. It helps, every bit of it.</p>
<p>Of course, I am biased, as I, after all, am talking about my own performance. And I have made some mistakes with customers. Specifically, with training associates and communication issues with customers. It takes a while to get all the bugs worked out. Rookie mistakes happen, and you learn on the job. But overall, my general attitude has never been anything but forthcoming and pleasant. I promise.</p>
<p>This was never about how good or how horrible I am at my job. How we got there I don’t know. I just wanted support from management when a woman was berating me and throwing things at me. It surprised me, as a former manager, that sort of treatment was tolerated.</p>
<p>But, you’re right. That was not my judgement call.</p>