<p>I’m from the south so I alternate between cart and basket, haha! We only have the big rolling shopping carts/baskets. She had two rolling ones with her.</p>
<p>Oh, I completely understand her frustration… one of the biggest mysteries of Walmart is why only four lanes out of twenty are the only ones ever open. But while that may be true, why could she not wait like everyone else? Everyone else was in line, waiting their turn. I saw her get into a line, wait for three minutes, then she took off in a huff. I saw her ten minutes later after she came into my line, demanding to be checked out. She wasn’t waiting an hour or four hours to get service.</p>
<p>Yes, the entitlement bugged me. What made her so different from the other customers, the ones following all the rules and being respectful?</p>
<p>She didn’t have an issue to complain about. She created one and manipulated her way into being checked out before others who were more patient. She berated me, acted like a toddler and still got her way.</p>
<p>I don’t believe I have a chip on my shoulder; I just think she was in the wrong. And the fact that Walmart caters to that behavior says more about them than me. I’m done with the company.</p>
<p>I could have dealt with the situation differently… but I didn’t, and that’s where we are. Could it have made a difference? Maybe. maybe if I hadn’t have politely mentioned what line she was in everything would have gone smoothly.</p>
<p>But I do know (as I was there) that all of us bent over backwards to help her (the CSM and manager included) and she was still getting an attitude with them as well. So who knows.</p>
<p>The customer clearly behaved poorly…but
She went home and I doubt she gave the incident much further thought. You went home upset. You lost. Next time an incident occurs, which sounds like it will be soon, you also need to “win” and go home after work feeling good.</p>
<p>That sounds really neat! The parents that I know with kids aspiring to med school say it’s important to have hospital or medical and/or research experience. If that’s true for dentistry too, maybe you should consider a switch out of Walmart into something closer to your field.</p>
<p>Well yes. I didn’t feel like a winner after having been bashed and having food thrown at me. But the next time, maybe if I smile and welcome it, I’ll go home feeling better about myself and feel like I’ve done my job well :)</p>
<p>I like Colorado mom’s suggestion to find something to do for work in the field in which you want to work. I see no reason to stick around Wal-Mart if it makes you unhappy to be there. I’m sure somebody else would want the job.</p>
<p>I don’t care if you like the job or don’t like the job. This is just the job. </p>
<p>You aren’t going to change the Wal-Mart job. Honestly people have been suing them for decades trying to change the job. </p>
<p>It’s definitely been a crazy few years! It’s funny because I didn’t realize how much I was putting on my plate. But luckily with work and school I’ve had a lot of balance; at least if I got stressed out with one or needed a break I could throw myself into the other one.</p>
<p>I’ve had two major internships related to my major, and a few shadowing experiences for my career path. I’ve never had a job related to any of that though… like I’ve said, I have mostly just worked in retail. I’m just not sure where to start as I feel a bit stuck. Sure I’ll have my degree, but my references and resume points elsewhere, lol.</p>
<p>MarinaDiamond, I asked earlier why you were so stressed and annoyed, and now you have answered. A lot of the other posters said it was obvious you were annoyed because you sympathized with the people being kept waiting behind a customer with too many items.</p>
<p>But now you yourself have answered my question. Clearly from what you’re describing, you’re primarily upset about the injustice of this person getting around the rules, and the injustice of her getting you in trouble with the manager unfairly. Both valid. It annoys me when people get out of line in stop and go traffic, then drive to the head of the line and barge in again. You either deal with it or you’ll drive yourself nuts. Outrage is if someone does it once. But where something is routine behavior, you just learn to deal.</p>
<p>Customer service is more than being nice to people. Being nice does not always address the underlying problem. </p>
<p>None of us fits everywhere. I got fired from a job during high school once for acting the same way that got me an executive position at an international company now. Good luck with studying dentistry. It sounds like a great fit for you.</p>
<p>hayden, yes, those were things that annoyed me. But, I have repeatedly stated the main reason for my frustration: My manager did not back me up in a situation where I was being abused by a customer. Abused as in cussed at, treated extremely poorly, and had things thrown at me. customer service and policy be damned, I deserved protection from my boss.</p>
<p>edit: I think that maybe expanding my thoughts on the entire situation was a bad idea. I was just trying to give a little background information on where I was coming from, and why i reacted the way i did. For me it is not an issue of justice, or whether or not i thought the lady didn’t deserve our time or attention. I honestly don’t care that she ran to a manager and figured out a way to get what she wanted. That’s not what truly bothered me, though I do find it questionable.</p>
<p>Had she not been rude to me, thrown things and spat obscenities at me, I would have not carried it with me. i probably wouldn’t have made this post. my frustration was never with her, but more with my management supporting a customer behaving badly toward me.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m not good with explaining “feelings”, so maybe my point isn’t understood. But that’s the only way i can explain it.</p>
<p>Sorry edad but you are way, way off-base with this one. I was fortunate enough to have a job with a high end retailer in a VERY high-end venue (think supreme court justices, senators, media celebs, etc). Without fail, 99% of the time the customers were gracious and well mannered. Certainly they expected excellent service, which we provided and if any of them had a problem we went way out of our way to correct it. That said, on the rare occasion when a customer became nasty or abusive our store manager had no problem whatsoever in backing up the sales associate who was targeted. She would try to appease them up to a point, but beyond that point she was happy to hold her ground and if they left in a huff that was fine. Even if she did think an associate could have handled the situation better, she would never address that in front of a customer or even other employees.</p>
<p>In my experience, it’s the low end stores like Walmart where the clientele skews toward people who have less education (and sadly, manners) where the managers cannot handle difficult customers properly. This contributes to a very unpleasant atmosphere in which to shop and it must be sheer hell to work there. I sympathize with MarinaDiamond entirely and hope she gets out of there soon.</p>
<p>Marina, if you ever want to work retail again I suggest you try to find something at the opposite end of the spectrum from Walmart. That’s where you will find the managers who are truly professional and who are great to work for.</p>
<p>At Whole Foods market, cashiers often point out, they have too many items to be on the express lane. I guess they allow their employees to be a bit autonomous. However, if the company policy is to let customers have their way, it would help if emplyees cooperate. Management may have chosen not to bother to correct this kind of wrong. If it happens infrequently and correcting it makes a scene, is it worth the bother?</p>
<p>I don’t like it when customer service gets too pro-active and take matters in their hands beyond their job description. It happens with phone reps with me. I would call in to ask how one proceeds, for example how to open an account on something or other. They jump to should you open an account or why would you want to. It takes forever to get the simple answer and off the phone. I get the feeling they are overqualified for the job.</p>
<p>Added, lizard I agree. I think Whole foods deals with far fewer customers and has less need to streamline their operation than Wall Mart. Wall Mart has to run like a military to operate smoothly. They have big volume for low margin.</p>
<p>Enough people have commented on the Walmart is evil, and rich customers are as bad as poor customers angle so I will give you another perspective. You obviously need the money generated from this job to accomplish your goals. So whether you keep this job or get another while completing your degree, use this experience as a motivating factor to achieve your career goals. There always going to be bumps in the road and plenty of bad days but overcoming them and persevering is the key to success.</p>
<p>Igloo, I guarantee the phone reps doing what they do is in their job description. And while they may have not gotten you to sign up, they will get others. They have to ask you all that crap, per their job deception. If they don’t, they will be fired. Everyone is customer service now does sales.</p>
<p>I wish people understood this and were more patient on the phone. Trust me, those reps don’t want to tell you that stuff any more then you don’t want to hear it. Get them on and off is a thing of the past, unfortunately.</p>
<p>As for being overqualified, most of our phone reps have bachelors degrees. There are some with masters. Some with associates. Some with no degree and the company will pay for you to go get one.</p>
<p>That being said, we have great customer service and our customers love us. But you still have the entitled ones who cuss and treat you like uneducated crap who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Newsflash customer… If you knew the answer you wouldn’t have called. ;)</p>
<p>I do think the problem is Walmart. And OP would have a far better experience (and managerial support) in pretty much ANY other retail/service environment. </p>
<p>What’s the point of having express lanes if the store policy is not to enforce the policy stated on its own signs re: express lanes??? That’s poor customer service all around IMO.</p>
<p>Oh and OP, I thought of you when I went through an express lane yesterday. No conveyor belt and only a three bag station to bag stuff. I made sure to move my seven items along for the lady and told her to have a great weekend.</p>
<p>I think the Walmart checkout line where they sell the cigarettes is the fastest moving line because Walmart knows many of the people waiting to buy cigarettes get real itchy after waiting too long and Walmart does its best to move people through the cigarette line the fastest.</p>
<p>A properly trained manager would have handled the OP’s situation in a way that both the customer and the employee could feel that they “won”. </p>
<p>The manager should have stepped in and personally handled the irate customer, because that’s part of his job. After the customer is taken care of and gone, then you council the employee on what happened, and discuss skills that she can try the next time a situation like this starts to develop. But you do this in private, not in front of other employees, not in front of customers, it should be done in private. This is the professional thing to do. You don’t force the employee and the customer to continue in an already volatile interaction. That’s just stupid.</p>
<p>I also work at Wal-Mart, even though I have a college degree. I am actually a vendor for Wal-mart so I frequently get caught between my company and the wal-mart managers. I have been yelled at, called useless, told it wasn’t wal-mart’s issue (when it clearly was) and all around made to feel like a pile of crap. I don’t see how people can stay at a cashier/floor level position for 20+ years.</p>