New Covenant Family

Okay… technically this post is going to cover 2 reasons I hate Walmart.

I was in the Walmart in my town yesterday. They are clearing out the fabric area. After having driven every one else that handles fabric in my little suburb out of business, they are now going to quit carrying fabric because their profit margin isn’t high enough. It’s a little thing, I know, but still….

This morning, I left the house with Silas and realized that I had forgotten his sippy of juice. We needed to go to the pediatrician’s this morning, and its a long wait, so I went by the Walmart in our neighboring town on the way to see the ped. I got what I needed and left. Arrived at the pediatrician’s office and discovered that we only had one of his processors. HE HAD CHUCKED OFF ONE OF HIS CI PROCESSORS IN WALMART!

Double back to the Walmart….and start trying to search for them while holding an almost two year old.

I stopped at the cart area. The well-meaning people there were too busy to help me look for the processor, but weren’t too busy to ask me twice what it looked like while I held up the matching one and said IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THIS. The 8 cart boys on duty apparently hadn’t brought in any carts since I left and weren’t bringing in any now. (They were flirting with the cashiers instead. ) So the cart area attendant encouraged me to look in the parking lot some more.

I went to the customer service area. The two little girls behind the counter said no one had turned it in. They stared blankly at me and fiddled with their text phones while I tried to explain what it was, what it looked like, etc. I had to ask them twice to give me a sheet of paper to leave my name and number. They never offered to page the PA system and ask folks in the store to keep an eye out for it.

At this point, I’m somewhere between hyperventilating and sobbing. I’ve called Silas’ baby sitter who was going to meet me at the pediatrician’s and she comes to help me with Silas while I search. No one in the store is actually helping me look. Although they can all give you very good reasons why they can’t leave their “posts”, these reasons don’t keep them from leaving their posts to stare blankly at you while you search frantically for your lost piece of medical equipment. The cart boys can’t be found to help you search through the carts (hundreds of them that all look exactly alike). They are on their “break”. They’ve only been on their shift for 30 minutes, but they are “on break”.

I spent two hours in the Walmart this morning. Mostly alternating between crawling on my hands and knees and holding my son while I sobbed. Only in the last 20 minutes of this death march did anyone offer me any practical help. One of the little cashiers got someone to call out over the PA system about the lost “hearing aid”. Finally, the cart attendant who couldn’t leave his post to help me look for the darn thing came strolling over and handed it to me. The cart boys finally came off their “break” and one of them found it in the carts he was trying to shove in the little cave at the front of the store.

Thank the Lord it was found… But it is astounding the number of people who can and will just stand around and watch another person struggling in misery and do absolutely NOTHING but stare at them. I know this isn’t a WALMART exclusive issue. But their customer service leaves a lot to be desired when a customer requires genuine help.

I think I need a drink.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.