let me start off by saying i made a conscious effort about 6-8 (maybe more) years ago to stop shopping at walmart. there are many reasons why i made this decision, but the main reason was their horrid customer service. just horrid. all the time. everytime. so when a friend and co-worker emailed me today asking if i knew where the walmart on dorchester road was, and if it was close to my house, i was hesitant to tell him it was right around the corner from my house until i knew more of why he was asking. long story short (well, this part of the story), he was planning on buying four 5-shelf bookcases on walmart.com, and the closest walmart with those bookcases in stock was the one near my house. since he lives on the other side of town, he asked me if i could stop by and pick them up for him. no sweat! even though i loathed the idea of going into that store, i know he would do the same for me any day of the week. what are friends for, right? plus, how painful could it be? he placed the order, put my name down as the person making the pickup, and forwarded me the email.
on the way home, i stopped off at this walmart, my 9 year old daughter in tow, to make the pickup. the first thing i noticed when we walked into the first set of doors was the "greeter" who promptly said absolutely nothing and avoided eye contact like that was her job, instead of saying " welcome to walmart!" or "hey, what's up?" or "good afternoon!" or "hi." or "welcome to hell." (this last one was what i imagined she would say had she said anything, based on the look on her face). but hey, we all have bad days. she was wearing a huge walking cast and they had her standing up greeting customers all day for god's sake. i don't blame her. but still.
as we made our way to the back of the store where the "walmart.com service desk" is located, i took out my phone to pull up the email that my friend had forwarded to me earlier so it would be ready to go. as we approached the desk, there were no employees in sight. fair enough. there were no customers either. i waited there with my daughter for 5 minutes or so before someone popped their head out of the back room. she seemed surprised, then realized she had not logged back in yet from her break, so she went back in the back room again for another few minutes. when she came back out, she signed into the register, asked me for my receipt and ID, and looked up the order. here is a good place to say that i go by my middle name, Layne. my ID has my first name, middle initial, last name. she first says that the order is under Lynn Harvey (that's how she pronounced it), and the name on the ID is different. i told her i go by my middle name, Layne, and that is what the 'L' middle inital stood for. this was baffling her but i hung in there.
i explained that i was there picking up a few shelves for a friend that purchased the items online, and that my name was specified as the pickup person on the email that she was looking at on my phone screen. she said my address did not match. i told her i was not the person that made the purchase. we went through this a few more ways and times before she went in the back room to locate the shelves.
realizing they were heavy, she came back out, said they were very heavy, and that she was going to get a "MAAAN" to get them - that's how she said it. she disappeared for another 10 minutes or so. meanwhile, another customer had lined up behind me. as we stood there at the empty desk, no fewer than 10 employees walked by, trying their best to ignore us. now, i know i had already been helped, but they didn't know that, and the guy behind me was getting more and more irritated as each minute passed.
the lady finally returned with a young gentleman pushing a shopping cart. as they were walking to the back room to retrieve the shelves, he spotted a large wheeled cart. he set the shopping cart aside and headed for the larger cart. the lady told him, while we stood there in ear shot, to not use the bigger cart unless he wanted to push the shelves to the front of the store for us. he grabbed the shopping cart again and disappeared into the back room.
while he was back there, the lady was struggling to find out the series of key strokes necessary to print a receipt for me (that i would undoubtedly have to show the aforementioned "greeter" as i walked out to make sure i wasn't stealing something). she couldn't figure out how to print a receipt for all of the items, so she printed a receipt for one of the shelves and handed it to me without a word:
when the gentleman came back out with the shelves they were tossed into the cart, one on the bottom rack of the cart. now, these boxes are about 4 feet long and weigh about 50 pounds a piece, and each one had the "team lift" logo on them:
...so, the fact that nobody offered to help me get these to the front of the store at the least had me a little miffed, but i'm an easy-going (if not slightly sarcastic) sort, so i rolled with it, literally, to the front of the store, in the shopping cart, with 200+ pounds of MDF... in a shopping cart. instead of a readily available cart made and designed for carrying/transporting heavy objects with the greatest of ease.
as we walked toward the exit, i readied my incomplete receipt and braced myself for a 20 minute conversation trying to explain why i had four bookcases in my cart and only one bookcase on the receipt. but then, the darndest thing happened. the "greeter" didn't say a word, avoided eye contact at all costs, and just simply looked like she would rather be dead.
when i got to the car with my daughter, i struggled with getting the shelves into my car, and vowed i was going to call the store manager to make a verbal complaint. i didn't want anything out of it except to get it off my chest. i mean, i haven't shopped there in years and don't plan on shopping there in the future, so you know... i got everything loaded in and spent the car ride home explaining to my daughter why i was going to call to complain, and about my frustrating history with walmart, and why i stopped shopping there in the first place.
as soon as i arrived home, i came in and called the number on the receipt (the store's direct number). the store operator answered, i asked to speak to the store manager, and she said she would try to get one of the managers on duty and see if they would pick up. really?! i waited in dead silence on hold for nearly 22 minutes (no hold music, nobody cutting back into the call to let me know someone would be with me soon). just an occasional chk! sound to make me think i was being disconnected every few minutes. because i had to pee, i hung up and called back a few minutes later, waiting an additional 15 minutes the second time. i finally gave up and decided to write this blog post.
so walmart, you can suck it, as you have sucked it for so many years. you are back off of my radar where you belong, and i couldn't feel happier as a human being to be able to say that.
