I agree that parents should be watching their children, however, kids can get into mischief very quickly and it only takes a second to look away to check a price or something and something has happened. The carts should be looked at and someone should come up with a way to make them safer. The only other thing I found odd was that she didn't take a picture right away because it was bedtime? Does the child need to be awake to take a picture of her ankle? Get her ready for bed, take the picture...not time consuming or difficult and seriously, the few extra minutes past bedtime is hardly going to damage the child anyway.
To answeringyourquestions...if someone only has 30 dollars on their debit card and the total came to 30.31, then obviously they need to pay the difference another way. It is an easy transaction, if the cashier knows what they are doing. You can type in .31 cash first and then the total is 30 dollars and they swipe their card for the rest of it. Or, type in 30 and hit debit and it will prompt that they still owe 31 cents. It's not difficult at all. As for the comment that if you have a debit card you won't need to make change, you need to understand the difference between debit and credit. You can't take more money from a debit card than what you have in the account.
Hallie Jay...some people are on a very tight budget these days and 50 cents here and there adds up very fast. When we use money from our checking account we round off in the checkbook register, not counting the change involved. (Write a check for 10.25, put 11.00 in the register. Deposit 400.12, put 400.00 in the register.) About every 3 months I add the hidden change back in. We save about 25 dollars a month, 300 dollars a year, that way. So, change does matter. Also, in Minnesota and I'm sure other states as well, there is no tax on grocery food and clothing.
First, not all people who get WIC are lazy bums. I know people who work full-time jobs for crappy pay because there aren't any better jobs out there who get WIC to help supplement their income so that their kids can eat. It's not a bad program, it just needs to do a better job of verifying income and making sure the people being helped really, truly need and deserve the help. The cashier should not have been rude about it. It would be helpful if they had different colored shelf labels or some kind of signage for Wic-approved products. Cashiers at the Walmart in our town have brochures that show them the items that are accepted and not accepted in case of confusion, but the register won't ring it up at all if it isn't covered. In our store, if someone accidentally picks the wrong size or brand of something, the cashier can call a supervisor over who will run and get them a replacement. Rudeness is never excusable.
As for motorized carts, there are only so many in a store and if other people are using them, what do you expect employees to do? Take one away from another customer and give it to you? I'm sure that would go over well. I agree, if you need one that badly, you should try to get your own.
As for not being able to carry your groceries to your car...all you usually have to do, at the Walmart in Winona, MN anyway, is tell the cashier you need assistance and they will call for an associate to come help you take your groceries out and put them in your car for you.
You may have to wait a few more minutes for them to find someone who is free to help you, but they will get you the help.
First of all, if the manager is in one department and the hourly employee is not directly under their supervision, it is not against Walmart policy. Same as family not being allowed to supervise other family members. They simply make sure they are in different departments. Regardless, Walmart can't possibly keep track of all their employees' personal lives and nor should they. If they weren't cheating with someone at work, they'd be picking up hookers or meeting women in bars. A cheater is a cheater.
I just got fired from Walmart on Wednesday. I'm very hard-working, very customer-oriented and polite and friendly. I do, however, have medical conditions that affect my mobility at times. I do not complain, I simply work hard and do the best I can. I constantly got coached for not being able to do the work of 2 people, being tired and making minor mistakes(Putting a shirt on the wrong rack for instance) even though the erratic scheduling and lack of sleep was the obvious cause for that particular issue. They allow supervisors to make discriminatory and harrassing comments to associates and claim they reprimand them, but one supervisor in particular has had numerous complaints against her yet still has her job. (I'm the, I believe, 5th associate under her to either quit or be fired within the last year or so)...The whole respect for the individual is a joke. I actually got reprimanded for "wasting too much time assisting customers causing me to get behind on my real job" at one point. Never mind that in the back by the time clock there's a big poster that says we should go out of our way to help customers with anything they need. As hard as it is right now to not have income coming in, part of me is a little relieved to be out of that hellhole. (oh and on firing me I was told I was rehireable after 31 days...so, guess I'm not a horrible employee? Whatever.)
Walmart allows leeway for punching in and out. You don't get written up for being late as long as it's 14 minutes or less. You don't get written up for leaving early as long as it's 9 minutes or less. Not sure on the lunch one, offhand, but you probably would have been better off punching back in 4 minutes late, then punching in on time and then going back to eating your lunch. Walmart has an extremely generous 1 hour lunch break...most employers give you 20 or 30 minutes, some even less. You obviously need to work on your time management skills. What were you doing for the majority of your lunch break that you couldn't finish eating in an hour? Even if I eat a big lunch, I can do it in 20-30 minutes easily and I'm a slow eater. Something seems slightly fishy about this story.
As for the person who said they haven't seen anything clearanced for under a dollar, go to the Walmart in Winona, MN sometime. There are quite a few items for under a dollar at times. Especially gloves and hats and things like that. As for a bra for 15 cents, that does seem odd, but if it is an older one from a year or more ago, it's possible. Also, sometimes only specific sizes or styles get marked down and with clearance, you take what you get. They don't have to give you a different size if the one you want isn't on clearance. You have to look at clearance items like you look at a garage sale. It's left over stuff that nobody wanted to buy at full price to begin with and they're marking it down to get rid of it so they can bring in newer items. Try things on before you buy them or ask a fitting room attendant for a tape measurer so you can determine the correct size in the first place. They don't owe you a brand new bra at 15 cents.
I used to be a cashier at Walmart. Part of the job description is: Smile, be friendly and polite, make small talk with customers. If you're really finding her that offensive, let a CSS or CSM or higher management know. She is not doing her job as the job description requires and will be reprimanded about her attitude. But, keep in mind, it's a low-paying, unrewarding job and she's probably feeling miserable...have you tried smiling first and saying something nice to her? She may respond to that and you may just make her day a little brighter.
Again, as a former Walmart employee, they have a 10 foot rule. Those employees were not doing their job. First, they should not have been standing around talking instead of working. Second, if a customer comes within 10 feet of you you are required to smile, acknowledge them and offer assistance. This customer has every right to be upset.
That's why the Winona Walmart has tags in the baskets that will set off the door alarms. You cannot leave the store with the baskets at all, so they are seated just past the door security alarms, normally, not out in the shopping cart area.
Deleted items are a huge source of cutomer dissatisfaction. Our local Walmart got rid of maternity clothing all together, for one. Also, it's not always reasonable what they delete. There is a deli item called buffalo ranch chicken wings. They were constantly selling out of them as they are very popular. (my personal favorite as well). Recently, the deli associates had started making them again but were forced to stop because it wasn't allowed...even though they were selling like crazy.
That's odd, in my experience if one door has carts and the other doesn't, a supervisor is radioed to go get one and bring it to the other door. If it's busy you still may have to wait a little while until someone is able to do it, but again, it is a courtesy and sometimes they are all in use and you won't be able to get one until another customer brings one back anyway. People need to stop expecting to have one available every time they shop...other customers use them too. Get your own or a wheelchair and you won't have to rely on others for anything.
Seems odd...our Walmart still has benches. The store is huge and we have a large population of older and disabled people in this town, so hopefully they won't take out the benches here. I am sure they would lose business.
That's odd...not that someone didn't show up for work, but that someone in electronics or a supervisor wasn't able to help you. Usually, when there is no one in photo, an electronics associate will help the customer.
The Walmart in Winona, MN is just as bad. I found it extremely frustrating as a cashier that you could put in the action code to call a supervisor over to help if there was a problem or you needed change and the customer would end up standing there for sometimes more than 10 minutes waiting and you'd see CSS's walking around with the clipboard trying to look important and ignoring the pages for help. The upper managers will ignore phone calls from customers, you walkie them 2 or 3 times with no response and the customer keeps hanging up and calling back before someone finally helps them. Also, their hour long manager meetings are more important to them than customers and associates. If anyone needs to speak to a manager, whether it's a customer complaint or an associate with an issue with a supervisor or anything, they will make the person wait until the meeting is over rather than have one manager come out and help the person. Really? A meeting is more important than customer service and associate issues? Something is seriously wrong with the system.
My question is, how old is this kid, what is he doing by the adult swimming pool by himself, where are the parents? Ultimately, if you take your kid on vacation with you, you are still responsible to keep an eye on him. As for the ambulance, how far is the place from the nearest town? If the pool was only for adults and marked as closed, there would be no reason to have a lifeguard, either.
I agree the returns policy is a pain to deal with. Walmart simply assumes that everyone is a thief, mainly because they get so much stuff stolen from them...it's shoplifters that ruin it for everyone. Plain and simple. One person commented about door greeters sitting down, however...door greeters and cashiers are only allowed to sit down if they have a paper from their doctor that says that they need to be allowed to sit. It's called reasonable accomodation for disabled people, allowing them to be able to work when they otherwise would not be able to.
I think the point was that they had no way of knowing what time they'd be open the next day since nothing was posted and there was no phone message telling them the opening time. It doesn't sound to me like they were upset about them being closed on Xmas, just that they wanted to know what time they could go to the store in the morning. Seeing as Walmart is normally open 24-7, there IS no regular opening time to begin with to base any assumptions on. The Winona, MN store reopened at 6 AM the following day, but that may not be the normal time for other Walmarts. It's not unreasonable to ask for them to post their Christmas Eve closing time and day after Christmas opening time on the doors.
Don't complain, some Walmarts don't play music at all anymore. (Except for November and December where they play the same Christmas music CD over and over and over and over...) I almost quit my cashier job in November because listening to the same 20 songs over and over, each and every shift was making me crazy.
I've seen the loss prevention guys watching and following people when I worked at Walmart, but NEVER saw them get real close to the person. They normally stay behind things out of sight and just monitor suspected shoplifters. They don't approach them or confront them unless they actually see them take something. I find this story a little hard to believe. They don't dress in Walmart clothing and don't call attention to themselves, it would defeat their purpose.
Walmart has security cameras and asset protection associates. They watch ANYONE who is behaving suspiciously or that has behaved suspiciously in the past. Color has nothing to do with it. I know quite a few white people, and not all of them are teenagers, that get followed around and watched by security in Walmart. Not everything is about race. If you act like you are guilty of something, people are going to keep an eye on you.
Actually, you cannot buy cigarettes at any other line. At Winona Walmart, anyway, if you want cigarettes, you have no choice but to stand in line at register 14 and wait. It also is a speedy checkout, so technically you have to shop at 2 different registers if you have more than 20 items, but most people don't follow the rule and the cashiers never enforce it. So, if the person in front of you has 40 items and you only want cigarettes, you're stuck standing in line.
However, is it really worth waiting for? Cigarettes are way over-priced at Walmart. You're better off buying your groceries and then stopping at a gas station or convenience store on your way home for the smokes anyway.
Walmart does not have to provide anyone a personal shopper. Sometimes, if there is someone available that can help, they will have an associate walk around with the person and help them, if possible. This is a courtesy, however, not a requirement. If you can't reach something, you may have to look around for someone to help you with that item. I am short, I have occasionally had to request help from associates and even other, taller, customers to reach something for me. It's annoying, but that's part of life. Most people, if asked politely, will help you get something that is too high or too heavy.
