The world of Walmart

Hello faithful readers!

So I haven't posted much about it, but over the last few months I started working again. Lots of medical bills this year necessitated me heading back to work. The job that had the best fit for us right now based on hours turned out to be Walmart.

I've known a few people who worked at Walmart over the years, including my ex while we were married. I will say that I have heard some unpleasant things about working there. So I went into it expecting that I would merely be tolerating the job for as long as I had to do it. What I didn't expect was that I'd really enjoy it...

Yep, you heard me right. I actually like working at Walmart. I spend the majority of my shift chatting and laughing with customers as I check out their groceries. Not everyone of course. Some people just aren't talkative, some don't speak good English and some can be downright mean at times. But I would say that the majority of people are really nice and are happy to just have a chat.

I've had the occasional technical difficulty caused either by the computer or by myself making a mistake, that have inconvenienced customers. Most of the people handled those situations with grace and humor and a few handled it with belligerence and rudeness.

I've seen beautiful acts of kindness. When a person whose order I'd completed didn't have enough money to cover the expense and people in line checked their purses and pockets to contribute. I've had that sort of thing happen several times. Another time a young woman was using a voucher for diapers but didn't have the money on her to cover the overage. She had it in her car so I canceled the transaction so I could help other customers while she ran out to get it. But the people in line behind her turned out to be regular customers of hers at McDonald's where she'd worked before having her baby. When the man saw she needed the diapers, he paid for the whole box. So she was able to save the voucher to use another time. They commented on how she always took such good care of them and so this was their baby present to her.

I like the managers I work with and many of the people as well. No, they aren't perfect and there are definitely a few oddballs, but that makes it interesting.

The job is a bit hard on me physically. I've had problems with pain in my ankles for years, which are fine when I stay off my feet most of the time. But standing and walking for a full shift is rough though I'm getting used to it. The pain isn't more than I can tolerate so I just work through it. If it weren't for that it would seriously be a breeze. The job itself is easy. Scan and bag, scan and bag. Sometimes add money to a card or cash a check.

Some interactions with customers have been odd to say the least. One of our ways of keeping shrink (theft) down is by keeping certain products under lock and key. Obviously electronics is a no brainer there, but we do it with perfumes as well. When a manager gets a perfume or cologne out for a customer they take it and give it directly to the cashier where the person will be checking out. One customer had a huge problem with this recently and complained at me the entire time I was doing their order. He also didn't like our habit of checking peoples receipts as they went out the door when they have items in their cart that aren't bagged, such as large boxes of pop or other big items. He felt it was unconstitutional to presume him guilty with no evidence. I told him that a lot of bad people have unfortunately made it necessary for us to do these things but he just felt it was a bad policy. So we're just supposed to let people walk out with our stuff without paying for it? So we don't offend them? He told me as he walked away that I'd done a good job which was weird.

While Walmart is far from perfect (as a customer I still get angry when items I buy regularly are out of stock or they suddenly stop carrying certain products) it's really not as bad as you think. I'm sure different stores have different faults and staff can make a difference too. But as far as our Walmart is concerned, it's actually pretty good. I feel like they try really hard to make the customer a priority and that as employees we're treated fairly and well.

So that's a little bit about my Walmart experience. Who would have thought, huh? :)

Dawn