09-14-03 @ 11:54 am EDT

Well okay, don't go quite THAT far...but at least give them a piece of your mind if you can. My opinion of Wal-Mart employees has severely diminished because of what happened yesterday when we went shopping.

Yesterday morning Dad and I decided to go to Wal-Mart to pick up a computer stand that Ma has been interested in for her birthday. She had pointed it out to me and everything, so I had to go along to point it out to Dad. Present-tense switch to increase dramatism. (Yeah, it's not a word. So sue me.)

We enter Wal-Mart and go to the computer furniture section to pick out the stand. Only after Dad pulls it out off the shelf do we realize, hell, this thing is HUGE! The box had not looked so big when it was on the shelf, but it's like six or seven feet long, and weighs 180lbs. Far too big for our cart, which we brought along to put it in. Dad puts the box back and we decide to pick up the other things he needs first and to come back later and ask for a flatbed cart to transport the box out to his vehicle.

Dad goes and picks up the other things he needs while I abandon the shopping cart halfway through the store. (I hate doing that, but I didn't want to take it all the way back. With the way everything else went, it's probably still sitting there!) We then head back to the computer furniture section and again pull out the big box. We stand there for a moment, trying to figure out who to ask for assistance.

A Wal-Mart employee goes walking by. *gag* It's my old BUS DRIVER, Mike. Have I ever told you the bus driver story? Well, brief explanatory detour. This guy was an ASS. For some reason he had something against stopping at my bus stop. MY stop, and ONLY my stop. Back then, mine was the very first stop on the route and he just seemed to take every chance he could to miss me.

My stop, at the mouth of a dead-end road facing the highway and that early in the morning, was not the best one in the world. In winter I had to deal with snowplows so I had to stand far back from the road, and as it was still dark early in the morning, yes, it would have been hard to see me from the highway. This should not have mattered. In school bus safety lessons in elementary school they even TOLD you to stay like fifteen feet away from the road; and hello, it's a BUS STOP, operative word being STOP, meaning, you are supposed to STOP there whether you see somebody waiting or not. Did this matter to my driver? Hell no. Often he would drive right by me and only slow down and stop further up the highway once he'd spotted me on the way past, and I would have to JOG to catch up with him--no way he'd back up for little old ME! (Though on one occasion he drove BACKWARDS up the highway, in the middle of the DAY, maybe a hundred yards or so to reach a stop he had missed!)

Well, one day it was the last straw. It was the dead of winter, of course, and I stood far enough away from the road to avoid being plowed under by snow. Here comes the bus. I stand and wait and...zoom...he goes RIGHT BY! Not even slowing down! I stand there and wait to see if he will stop further up the highway...but he doesn't! I have to go back inside and have my MOM take me to school. Did you miss the bus? No, Ma--he missed ME!

The next day when I got onboard I asked him in disbelief, "Why didn't you pick me up yesterday? I was standing right out there!"

"I didn't see you!" he snaps. "You have to stand closer to the road!"

~>:( That in itself would not have been so intolerable...if it were not for the fact that with one of the OTHER earlier stops on the route, he would take every liberty he could with those kids. THESE kids would wait INSIDE their house until the bus drove up, and only then would they go outside to meet it! Not only were they able to wait in the warmth and light of their own home--not having to walk down to the end of the long drive, thus making the driver go even FURTHER just to reach them--but they did not have to wait practically out in the middle of a highway with plows going every which way (they lived kind of in the backwoods), and if they were STILL not coming out of the house when Mike drove up...he would WAIT FOR THEM!! I kid you not! Once he even drove up and they were in no hurry to come out. He HONKED THE HORN to get their attention, then patiently waited until they came out and got onboard. I was SO beyond pissed off. Me, I had to stand out in the snow and brave the plows, plus ignore the bus safety lessons and stand even CLOSER to the highway just so he could see me and determine whether he should even bother to SLOW DOWN or not...them, they could sit inside and eat Pop Tarts until they heard him honk before bothering to put on their coats and come walking outside!

To this day I do not know what Mike had against me. I never acted up or did anything to deserve a grudge. I always sat as close to the front as I could, never yelled or raised my voice or ate food or stood up on the bus, was just the perfect little bus rider. For some reason he just hated making that first stop. Never mind that it was his damn JOB to STOP, not just slow down, much less drive past if he didn't SEE somebody...he didn't care about that. And if I had to wait far enough away from the road to avoid being hit by plows, in the dead of dark, it must have been my fault for being the first person on his route. Sorry, Mike! Not like I enjoyed it much, either!

So...back to Wal-Mart. When I see Mike is the one Dad is going to talk to, I turn around and hope he didn't see me. He is just such an ASSHOLE I don't want to deal with him. Dad asks, "Can you help us?"

Mike halts just long enough to say, "I can find somebody who CAN!"

ASSHOLE! He's wearing the Wal-Mart vest, yet again it's not HIS job to stop for somebody. Some things never change!

"We need a flatbed cart to move this box," Dad says, waving at the stand. Mike glances at it and turns to another employee walking by and repeats the request.

"I'm kind of busy..." the other employee says, or something; they both walk off briskly. A moment later we hear Mike over the PA calling for a flatbed to be brought to the furniture section, so Dad and I stand and wait for assistance to arrive.

While doing so...I suddenly discover that all of the CDs, computers, VCRs, DVD players, keyboards, and TVs in the computer furniture section...are completely fake! They're all made of CARDBOARD! O_O I had just...assumed...they were all real! Sure, I felt the TVs had pictures pasted over their screens...but I'd really thought they were REAL TVs! Huh. Just goes to show you what you can miss if you never pay attention...

Well...five minutes pass. Then ten. Dad starts to mutter his ultimatums--"If they don't come in a few more minutes, screw it. Ma will have to think of something else she wants." I sigh to myself; I hate it when he acts like that, like getting a birthday gift is all about HIM. Though the waiting is starting to bother me, too.

This whole time...employees are walking by. Left and right. Front and back. Men and women. They keep passing us, and a few times--at least twice that I can recall--we make eye contact. More than a few look right at us. One guy even starts to slow down before walking on again. NONE of them come over to see why there are two people standing in the computer furniture section, holding a giant box between them, looking like idiots.

We wait. And wait.

No flatbed cart comes.

Dad said he saw Mike even walk by again, but of course he did not stop.

We wait some more.

A female employee wearing a jacket and looking ready to go out someplace spots as and pauses. "Do you need help?" she asks in a mildly irritated-sounding voice.

"Yeah, we called for a flatbed cart about twenty minutes ago," Dad says (I think he was wrong--it was more like twelve or fifteen minutes, but still).

"They called for it over the PA?" the woman says.

"Yes."

She walks off...I assume to go call again, or check on the status of the cart. We never hear from her again. Five or so more minutes pass. In the meantime more employees walk by, looking at us and moving on. Nobody approaches. No flatbed cart arrives.

"Maybe if I look suspicious enough they'll send somebody over here," I suggest, looking up at the hidden cameras. I've gotten so tired of standing (I can't stand for long periods of time; makes me pass out) that I've taken to sitting in a computer chair that is too high for me. I long ago grew bored of checking the slots and tabs on the fake computers to make sure they were assembled correctly; the novelty of the cardboard electronics has just worn off.

"Grab one of the fake computers and run for the door with it," Dad says. Hell, it's as good an idea as anything. I can just picture myself making a break for the exit with a fake computer stuffed under my jacket, tripping over the threshold, and falling and crushing it flat. Would the alarms still go off? Would I be tackled by the friendly old greeter? What would the charges be? Grand theft cardboard?

More time passes. A bald man and his wife, who had been in the same section when we arrived, show up and pull out their own big box. It's smaller than ours and so more easily handled. "You're still waiting?" the man asks.

"Yep," Dad says. Take a look, even the CUSTOMERS noticed us before the employees did!

In the meantime I hear at least two or three calls over the PA requesting help in OTHER parts of the store--"Somebody is still waiting in Such-and-Such"--"Help still needed over in So-and-So." What the hell are all these employees up to, anyway? They certainly don't look too busy, but none of them are coming our way!

And no flatbed cart ever arrives.

Dad and I left the box sitting in the aisle, went to pay for his own things, and drove home.

Wal-Mart lost out on a $150 sale yesterday morning, and Ma did not get her present. She will have to go back and find a way to get it on her own...IF she can find somebody to help her with it!

Dad was seriously pissed. "Paul Harvey," he said, naming the guy on the morning radio show he listens to. "He's always on there extolling the virtues of Wal-Mart--'The customer service is so good, the employees are so helpful'--BULL PUCKEY! I'm going to write him a letter."

"I made EYE CONTACT with two of them!" I exclaim; this is not something a shy person like myself normally does. "They looked RIGHT AT ME! I was getting mad enough to go find somebody myself, if I'd only known what department to go to. I should go online and submit a complaint!"

Well, I'm here writing an entry in Skew instead. So sue me.

I never would have believed it if I hadn't been there to see it myself. I have NEVER had any problems with Wal-Mart or its employees. They've always been helpful--witness my older entry with the guy who helped us decide what CD player to buy, the trouble he went to, and just the night before, during grocery shopping, another one had gotten a ladder to retrieve a puzzle high on a shelf for me. (Yah, a puzzle! SO SUE ME!) Sure, they are not always the FASTEST help around, but at least they HELPED. Aside from Mike making that one perfunctory call over the PA, and that woman who for whatever reason asked us if we needed help...NOBODY even bothered to lift a finger for us! Unbelievable and intolerable!

Dad didn't find it so hard to believe, and had his own theories on what had happened. It was a Saturday, and any employee could tell just by looking at the box that it required heavy lifting--"Nobody will bother with you if it requires hard work." I didn't buy this theory because how much hard work does it take, really, to just call up a flatbed cart and bring it over? All one has to do is give one tiny lift, and then drive. It was the pinnacle of laziness not to even bother bringing a cart over and letting US lift the damn box if it was so hard for them. "Ohhhhh myyyy Gawwwwwwd, this switch is so hard to flip! Oohhhhhhh the painnnnnn!" Sheesh, whatEVER.

His other theory made much more sense. As a boss himself, he knows that if you do not assign a task SPECIFICALLY, it will not get done. It's the mob mentality: When responsibility is shared equally amongst many people, everyone feels their own share of responsibility is less--that somebody else will take care of the problem--and so as a result, nobody acts at all. Remember the woman in New York who was beaten nearly to death in front of many onlookers. She screamed and screamed for help, and the guy was even scared off once...only to come back and RENEW HIS ATTACK. Still, it was a long time before anyone even BOTHERED to call the cops, and she nearly died. Oh, there were plenty of witnesses. When the cops showed up and started asking them why the hell they hadn't called much earlier, the answer all around was the same: "I thought somebody else would do it!" And so, once everyone had convinced themselves that somebody ELSE would take responsibility for the woman's welfare...everybody refused to act, and nothing was done until it was almost too late.

Calling a flatbed cart to lift a heavy box in a Wal-Mart does not compare to a woman getting beaten nearly to death in New York City, but you see the point I'm making. Nobody in SPECIFIC was instructed to help us out, and so nothing got done. However, this is STILL no excuse for what happened. I think the REAL excuse was what Dad had suspected from the beginning: just pure LAZINESS.

Like I said, I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it. We stood in the middle of that store for a good fifteen/twenty minutes or so and even though at least a dozen employees looked right at us, none could be bothered to lift a finger for us. And so they lost out on a sale, and REALLY pissed off two of their better customers. (We shop there every week.)

No, we will not be boycotting Wal-Mart. But I've lost a lot of respect for their employees--many of them at the Cheboygan store strike me now as being lazy, selfish, and stupid--and even though this does not affect their sales, as we'll still have to shop there, I still think they should be concerned that they have truly disappointed some of their customers with the (lack of) quality of their service. If merely one employee or two had refused to act, it would have been all right. THAT MANY people walking around with nothing better to do on a Saturday morning, and not even enough sense of mind to call out a stupid flatbed cart just to help us with one box? No excuse for that, and I hope that a Wal-Mart customer or employee sees this entry and takes this point into consideration.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS! If nobody seems to be taking care of them, don't assume the problem is being handled--HELP THEM OUT! It would have been far better for us to end up with TWO flatbed carts than with none--and if you had been the employee to FINALLY give us a hand, I would have been even MORE grateful to you. I would have possibly been here writing about how GLAD I was with Wal-Mart customer service, rather than posting about my newfound disappointment. There were so many of you employees in the place--what the hell were you all doing, anyway?? I'm sorry to have to sound so rude, but we were treated very rudely ourselves, and as a result my mother has yet to get her birthday present--I hate to think what SHE will have to go through just to get that thing out of the store!

Employees: As much as you may hate your jobs, WE are the ones who ultimately determine your pay. If the customer is not being an obnoxious asshole (and we were being VERY restrained and polite, considering!), then do your best to make them happy. And they will make you happy in return. Because you will be getting PAID. If you don't want to work in a Wal-Mart, then go work for McDonald's where there is no heavy lifting required...but don't laze out and assume somebody else will do your work for you! You will lose sales, and bam, there goes your salary. When you are finally sitting at home without a job and without a paycheck, will you STILL be thinking it was not worth it to lift that finger to help someone?

I never had any reason to complain about Wal-Mart until now. And yes, I am seriously peeved. I was right when I complained about NMO and Consumers. The customer matters less and less in this world every day!

...and wouldn't you know it, last night Saturday Night Live aired the Jennifer Garner episode with the Wal-Mart that was so huge it had its own weather systems, government, and indigenous languages. For some reason that REALLY made me laugh. O_o