<p>Lighten up, Frances</p>
<p>This is so true. I wonder about the posters here who are berating the OP for being upset. I’ll never understand the mentality of “well, I can take a beating, so you should be able too.” The manager definitely needs additional training, the customer shouldn’t have gone out of the house without taking her meds, and the OP definitely needs to quit working at Walmart. Get out while you’re still young!</p>
<p>There are two sides here.</p>
<p>One, Walmart is a store that teaches the customer is always right. ALWAYS. There are some stores, which it sounds like the OP was taught from, who put more focus on making sure their employees are happy and thus work harder and provide better service. Walmart and other large corporations don’t have to care about that because, as OP said, there are plenty more where they came from (Walmart’s view, not mine.)</p>
<p>Two, some people just don’t understand what it’s like to work retail. A friend of mine and I used to joke that some countries require military service at 18–the US should require six months to a year working retail or food service. People would be so much more polite to the workers.</p>
<p>BUT. Keep in mind, OP, you also don’t know what else is going on in these people’s lives. Maybe they got reamed out at work and want to take that out on someone. Maybe their significant other left them, or they lost their job, or they don’t know how they’re going to get through the month. Maybe they just had a really horrible day. (Or maybe they’re just a jerk. It’s possible.)</p>
<p>Unfortunately in retail you deal with more of all of the above, simply because you work in customer service. </p>
<p>You’re going to have good days and bad days at any job. I had a woman scream at me, my superiors, and my “subordinates” if you can call them that (I co-supervise a University Residence Hall) this past Fall because her daughter didn’t have a bed loft when they arrived AFTER the deadline to pick up the loft. </p>
<p>Was it a stupid thing for her to throw a fit about? Absolutely. We still provided her service, wandered around the hall until we found enough pieces to put a bed loft together for her, and helped her daughter move the rest of her stuff in. Move-in weekend is extremely emotional for parents, and we are still in the business of providing customer service (they are paying for their daughter’s space and are therefore customers.)</p>
<p>Try and look at it this way: if you ignore the “hissy fits” and still provide good service, you could make that person’s day. Even though they’d never tell you. Retail is a thankless job, and part of you does just have to put up with it unless/until you’re willing/able to look for a different job.</p>
<p>And the oddball customers give you great stories to tell your friends later. ;)</p>
<p>Also, google “Not Always Right.” It’s a web site where people who work retail can send in war stories about ridiculous customers. It definitely makes me feel better whenever I have to deal with difficult people.</p>
<p>Last but not least, if you felt the management was out of line, you should (and have every right) to talk to them or Corporate. Make sure you do it privately, and make sure you come at it from the right angle. I personally would come at it from an angle of “I’m not really sure what happened the other day with X incident. Could you help me understand why you reacted the way you did, and maybe help me understand policy on this issue so it doesn’t happen again?”</p>
<p>That way you’re not directly criticizing or calling out your supervisor; you’re just asking them to help you understand. It’s worked for me in the past. If they’re not willing to help you out or talk to you about it, that’s when you go to corporate.</p>
<p>I also agree that it’s a good idea to join a union. That’s what they’re for.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing, though–from the OP’s story, as well as some others written here, It’s not any customer who’s always right–it’s the obnoxious, making-the-scene one. So if the customer who wants to check out a hundred things in express is allowed to, then you’re telling every one behind him or her that they’re chopped liver.</p>
<p>And if you nicely speak up about it but the other guy is loud and obnoxious, and management sticks up for that guy, then there’s a message–loud and obnoxious wins; courteous and abider-of-rules can take a hike.</p>
<p>So they do seem to be picking their customers, and not all of them are treated like they’re “right.”</p>
<p>It’s a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. If the customers behind this person in line all said “Excuse me, but you have more than XYZ items,” then management would have to step up and support those customers. But no one in this case did (Except OP, and like I said, Walmart is not in the business of supporting their employees over the customers unfortunately.)</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t really personally care all that much about the two sides to the story when someone is throwing things at someone, which is actually against the law.</p>
<p>OP, if someone ever throws anything at you again, just call the police and file a report.</p>
<p>Walmart CANT fire you for that. And, maybe they’ll get their rules in line with the current laws of the country.</p>
<p>Carry on.</p>
<p>Hisgrace–another poster told a story about speaking up nicely about a guy buying a whole bunch of things in separate transactions in an express line. She was basically told to shove it–the other guy was spending more money than her.</p>
<p>Also, management KNOWS that letting the guy through with the ton of stuff inconveniences other posters. You shouldn’t have to be a squeaky wheel in order to be treated fairly. And if a store thinks you do, well, message received. I’d go elsewhere.</p>
<p>I recommend that you look at difficult people (customers, managers, co-workers) as a great opportunity to practise the spiritual virtues of patience, charity, and non-judgmentalism.</p>
<p>It is up to the customers to decide how much nonsense they’ll take before they go elsewhere. The American public has shown its willingness to take an immeasurable amount of crap in order to save a dime.</p>
<p>Yes, and buy an immeasurable amount of poorly made junk, as well.</p>
<p>^^One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. – unknown :rolleyes:</p>
<p>OP, I am sorry you were subjected to this.</p>
<p>The express line thing irks me though…Walmart, Krogers, et al are telling the customers spending lots of money on their many items that <em>they</em> are chopped liver. Time after time, my Walmart and Krogers have 4 self-service lines, 2 express lines, and ONE many-item line. That’s telling me they care a whole lot more about the guy buying a gallon of milk than someone with a full cart. Management needs called (figuratively) on that issue.</p>
<p>The Safeway I go to often has only one 15 items or less check out line open with a clerk. The others are self serve. I ignore the limit because the self check out machines are really wonky and it takes forever. They are also not designed for a lot of items - not enough room for bagging. They have it backwards. The people with a few items should self check and the people with a lot should go through the attended line. I make my own rules when it comes to that.</p>
<p>I won’t use the self checkouts. 1. It takes longer and I end up waiting for “help” and it annoys me. 2. I’m sick of jobs being automated and outsourced. 3. I’m sick of jobs being automated and outsourced.</p>
<p>I really don’t want to live in a world run by machines.</p>
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<p>Yep, me too. I hate self-checkout with a passion, and will wait ten minutes in an attended line to avoid it. However, I think too that it may have something to do with my age. It seems young people are completely unphased by impersonal machines with grating electronic voice instructions. My D, for instance, is perfectly comfortable with self check-out. </p>
<p>I’d rather interact with a cashier, exchange niceties, commiserate about the heat/cold/rain/icy roads, etc. I like chatting (briefly—only for as long as it takes to ring my items—so as not to hold up commerce) with the cashiers. I’ve worked retail occasionally, and understand how difficult some customer interactions can be, so I try to make up for the rude, cranky ones my checker may encounter during that shift. Marina, you have my sympathies. I agree there is no way you should have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse. Management simply should not have allowed it. </p>
<p>I’ll admit I shop at Walmart pretty regularly, but I also must say that I rarely enjoy the experience. I think my blood pressure rises from the moment I walk into that cavernously loud blue expanse of retail mediocrity and lowers commensurately as I pull out of the parking lot. My idea of hell would be working there for hours on end, several days a week. </p>
<p>As someone who has occasionally stood in line behind a customer in the process of brazenly disregarding the “20 items or less” sign, I always find myself becoming more than a little angry (at the rude customer, not the cashier). I think if I were one such customer who had been witness to the way your management handled the situation you describe, I might have sought them out, after having waited unnecessarily long, to ask why the rule breaker was apparently more valued than I and all the other rule followers standing behind her. If groceries weren’t significantly cheaper (on average) at Walmart, I would buy all my food at Harris Teeter. It really bothers me some days that I have to choose budget consciousness above overall shopping experience.</p>
<p>I know this sounds a bit paranoid, but what happens when Walmart knocks out all the competition? Whose to say those prices will stay cheap?</p>
<p>I buy my food, carefully and mindfully because we’re on a budget here, at the local Shop Rite. They treat the customers and the employees well, they have baggers (many of them developmentally disabled), they always have a ton of lines open–express and regular, and their prices are fair. Additionally, they are very active in the local community, supporting Little League teams, etc.</p>
<p>Keeping them financially stable is a win win for everyone.</p>
<p>I LOVE the self serve checkout. I live in NY and can’t find any supermarkets that have them. Nothing bothers me more than getting behind able bodied adults on line who refuse to bag their own groceries but would rather watch if the cashier rang up the item for an extra 10 cents. Life is too short to be standing on line. Get me in and get me out.</p>
<p>I like when places have self checkout when I only have a few items. It’s generally faster than having to wait for a bunch of people in any sort of line. The only issue I have is the ones where you have to immediately bag whatever you bought because there’s a scale to measure what you got. The real problem is all the local cities have banned plastic bags, so you have to use your resuables. No big deal, except the scales can’t seem to figure out how to tare themselves once you put your own bag on the table.</p>
<p>I was at a “Walmart Neighborhood Market” (basically a Walmart branded supermarket) that just opened a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t believe the difference in behaviors between that market, and the one two blocks further south. I saw a bunch of people using those little carts you could drive. One (a non-obese lady probably in her early 30s) nearly ran me over, then stopped by the watermelons, got out, picked it up, and walked back over to drop it in. An elderly lady asked her why she was using it, and the younger one just said, “I’m at Walmart, I like being able to do whatever. They don’t even care if I knock displays over with it.” After I had picked up my groceries I saw people using those carts to do donuts in the parking lot. Probably won’t be going back there again. =</p>
<p>Well, if it were actually a more effective system, I might agree, but it isn’t. The machines screw up and you have to wait for an employee almost every time. If you get more than a few things, the thing that weighs your groceries goes off and says, “bagged removed, bag removed” and won’t allow you to continue on until somebody shows up and fixes it.</p>
<p>it takes longer to do the self checkout than the line. One time, I was waiting fifteen minutes when they were busy and nobody came to help. I left the groceries there. </p>
<p>So, not a fan of ineffective automated systems.</p>