Leave it to Wal-Mart to make me cranky today

[Muttocracy]

I left work early to run some errands at small local stores that close relatively early, planning to come back into work later to finish up. My mom asked me to get an item at Wal-Mart that she can't find elsewhere while I was near it (she doesn't drive). I rarely go in Wal-Mart and hate it. I realize in some areas some of you are stuck with it being the only reasonable thing in driving distance, since it has killed many other stores (nationally and locally).

I noticed an extra large number of "greeters" near the front, but not friendly old folks - I assume they're actually shoplifting control. But I digress. Got the stuff. I was headed to the checkout and passed a stack of local newspapers for sale. I thought, why don't I pick up one as a memento for my nephews. So I carefully looked through the pile for one that wasn't crumpled or ink-smeared and headed toward the self-scan lanes. I'll admit it - I prefer checking out and bagging my own stuff, even though I realize those have replaced human jobs. Too much bruised produce at the grocery store, and tired of clerks who are baffled by things like handing someone $5.26 for a $5.16 bill so I don't get a bunch of pennies back.

A teenage checkout clerk cut me off at the pass and said "I can take you on this aisle!!" Not wanting to be a weirdo, I said “Umm, OK”. I gave her the other stuff first and then the paper. She picked up the paper and flopped it over the scanner and all the inside sections fell out. I grabbed them and put them under my wallet but she unfolded the paper and waited for me to stuff them back in. Then while my debit card was pending she ran her hands over Barack's photo and said, "I just love this picture, I might have to hang this on my wall!" She passed it to her grouchy teenage co-worker bagger who said, "I just hope this doesn't mean everything's going to be black and white now." (not sure what she meant by that) Too late I squeaked "Can we please not crush it?!?!" as she folded it and stuffed it into the same bag with the other stuff and pulled the handles together. :banghead: I snatched the bag from her to try to salvage it :grr: Now they *really* thought I was a nutcase and put on various attitude faces and snark. Crusher girl said, “Well, how ‘bout those Yankees?” Checkout girl replied with “Yeah, how ‘bout them”. I just walked out.

I got out to the car and opened the trunk and in the dim light of the trunk, indeed Obama’s photo was crumpled and so was I. :cry: I started to walk back into Wal-Mart to buy another paper and thought, heck, I can get it somewhere else. I went to the grocery store, picked one out, used their self-scan, and carried it out carefully myself. :)

When I walked my dogs afterward, their poop went into the Wal-Mart bag, so there was some justice in that. :)

[iamjoy]

1. Show A Little Compassion

How do you think Wal-Mart offers those low prices? They don't bother to train their cashiers in how to count change back, but put fear in them of what will happen if their drawer comes up short. They don't train their baggers either. Hey, why waste money on any more training time than needed, right? And as a country we certainly don't invest enough in education to help teach kids to count change without a calculator or computer.

These workers make pitifully low wages and probably have all kinds of concerns about how they are going to pay their bills. You said it was a teenager, but she could have been in her late teens or early twenties and just looked young. Even if she's a kid living at home, maybe she's worried about college or helping her parents with the bills.

It's a sad state of our society, but I try not to blame the workers.

[snappyturtle]

2. I just read the first reply and I agree more with you. I'm sorry these

workers receive little pay, don't we all? Few make what their work is worth as far as I am concerned.
Wal-Mart tics me off almost every trip.

A tip: take the rumpled page with Barack's picture on it and place it face down on a few sheets of paper toweling or a linen cloth and carefully press with a dry med. hot iron (no steam). It will help to make it a decent enough copy to keep. I have old newspapers with the moon landing for example that I've wrapped the entire paper in saran wrap and they're kept beautifully all these years....never stored in damp or hot areas. Good luck!

[Muttocracy]

3. I bought another one so it's OK. I have to laugh at myself for being so protective

of a piece of newspaper with Obama's picture on it :)

Thanks for the preservation tips! Maybe you should make a post about that - I know other DUers were saving papers.

[snappyturtle]

5. You can laugh and that is good however, the picture is important

and it's dated material so I don't blame you for feeling protective. I'd put a post up but I don't want to be responsible if someone doesn't have as good of luck as I have had...worked for me though. All the talk in the scarpbooking world about acid vs. non-acid papers,etc. pushes me away from being an authority on the subject!

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Dogs always seem to know how to cheer their owners up! n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. Your post is forcing me to share a bizarre checkout experience I had last week

I went to a local grocery store I don't usually go to because it happened to be the first one on my way home when I took a different route. For some reason, I have just never warmed up to this particular branch of this chain. There is another store in the same chain that is slightly farther that I much prefer. This store just has bad karma for some reason.

Anyway, I pick up my small list - I was just picking up a few things to make something specific that night for dinner. One of my purchases was a single large, ripe, perfect tomato. Aside from that, I had about 12 things total.

I approach a checkout lane and begin unloading my things onto it after first placing one of those order divider dohickey things between my stuff and the stuff of the lady ahead of me.While getting things out of the front of the carriage, I had my back turned to the checkout person, a young woman in her mid-twenties. I hear this loud bark "I don't need that!". I thought, huh, what? I turned around and the checkout woman was glaring at me. "I don't need that!" She was pointing at the order divider. I was entirely flummoxed since this is standard operating procedure at every grocery line I've ever been in.

A few things ran through my mind, like - what is her problem? Why her intense dislike of order dividers? I thought of standing up for my right as a consumer to have an order divider, but then I just thought it was too small an annoyance to squabble about with someone I would most likely never see again. I mumbled "O- kay . . . ." and put the offending device back. Then she began ringing up my order.

In a moment an older gentleman appeared and began unloading his groceries onto the conveyor belt after first grabbing and putting down the order divider. She barked at him exactly the same way she had barked at me and he too looked a little shocked and also put back the divider.

At the end of ringing up my order, she left my head of lettuce in front of the man's order and on the wrong side of the scanner. (In other words, it looked like she had it with his stuff and that it hadn't been scanned. The man pointed at the lettuce and said "That's hers" meaning me. The checkout woman looked at him and "I got it." I looked at the lettuce and said, "Yes, that's mine"
and she looked at me, rolled her eyes and said loudly "I GOT IT!". Of course I'm thinking, "well, if you 'got it' why isn't it sitting on the other side of the scanner with my stuff?" I look at the display of my purchases and I can see that it is true, she did scan the item and then she PURPOSEFULLY placed it back in front of the manbehindme's order

And then it dawned on me that this was actually someone who is disturbed who is fighting some kind of imaginary power struggle with everyone who comes through her line. I wondered how many times a day someone refused to capitulate to her demand that they not use the divider and how many times she enjoyed saying "I got it!" when she put an item she had scanned back in front of someone else's order. Very, very weird.

Of course, the topper to the story is that when I got home and unpacked my groceries, my one perfect tomato hand been completely smashed on one side. The only way it could have gotten that pulverized is if she had smushed it on purpose into the counter when she put it in my bag.

I'm sorry this is so long, but it was a weird and unsettling experience. My husband was amazed that I didn't stand up to her and I told him - She is doomed to run into a shopper that is even more disturbed than she is.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

7. At least you paper had Obama's pictire on it.

HopeStar barely covered the story.

McCain won Hempstead County with 4,252 votes over U.S. Senator Barack Obama, who tallied 2,861 votes to mirror the trend across Arkansas, where McCain won with an estimated 52 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press.

:grr: Living in Bible-Klan-belt...