17

Burdens of Shopping for Less

April 9th, 2009 - Uncategorized - 17 Comments »

walmart2I think I figured out Wal-Mart’s secret ambition. It’s not higher revenue. It’s seeing how much crap they can get away with and still have people shop there. The lower the prices, the more frustrating they can make the experience. For instance…

Customer Service – I’ve only seen one Wal-Mart employee smile. Come to find out it was because her shift was almost over. For some odd reason, these people have grown to hate life more than toll booth workers. How did this happen? I have a rule of thumb when shopping there – Never believe employees. Whenever one tells me they don’t have something, I spend the next 20 minutes trying to find that item (regardless of why I originally came). And then, when I do find it, I make sure to walk past that employee with the item, and give a sarcastic Who Knew? shoulder shrug. I realize this makes me a jerk.

Handicap Parking Spaces – Is it really necessary to have 97 of them? Has this been a big problem in the past?

Showing the Receipt - This is the most unnessesary hoop that you have to jump through…in life. You hand an elderly man a four foot long receipt with no less than 75 items, he looks at it for 0.25 seconds, gives your cart a passing glance, and legitimizes the whole thing with a pink highlighter. Is this the best they could come up with as a last line of defense?

Shopping Cart Quandary – Not only is there a total absence of functional carts, but the internal debate always arises about what to do with them once you’re done. There’s already a few carts out here anyway – what’s one more? The cart return is so far away – no one can be expected to make that trek. Besides, the milk I just bought will probably go bad if I don’t leave right this second. Next time I’ll take two back to make up for it.

It’s alright Wal-Mart. Amidst all of these frustrations, I will forever be faithful to you.

What are your least favorite things about shopping there?

  • http://taftastic.wordpress.com Lee Taft

    I don’t like the other customers. At our Wal-Mart, there is a direct correlation between a person’s weight and the amount of Spandex they wear. For every pound over 200, the % chance of that person wearing inappropriate spandex goes up by 2%.

  • http://www.joshlafayette.com Josh LaFayette

    1. Disregarding all of Sam Walton’s original ideals
    2. Ruining local economies
    3. Further advancing to economy of our Chinese soon-to-be overlords
    4. Contributing to an evil, corporate giant

  • http://volcrazy.livejournal.com brad

    I can’t handle the “little rascal” motorized shopping carts. I actually would have no problem with them, IF they occupants were legitimately handicapped…however, in my experience, the average rider is a lazy extremely overweight hillbilly who take up the entire aisle and their “little basket” in the cart is full of twinkies, moon pies, and blue bell ice cream.

    I also hate the 55 check out lanes…45 of which are NEVER OPEN. Why in the *%&%* do you build them if you NEVER USE THEM. It makes me angry just typing this!!

    I do like the candy isle where you can put in a nickel and sample some caramel squares though. :)

    • Stella

      Where I'm from there's no Walmart but the 'having a hundred checkout lanes and only three open' is a national plague-supermarkets, banks, etc, you name it. It drives me INSANE!

  • Bryan

    Disregard of aesthetics, the fact that they are still busy at 3 a.m., 3 of 36 registers open, flourescent “science lab” lighting, and how they aren’t Target*.

    *I’m not sure why I like Target so much since the things I just named, other than aesthetics, apply to Target as well.

  • nate

    wal-mart is the lowest common denominator. if you would like to surround yourself with people who have surrendered to elastic waste bands and lunch at Ci-Ci’s; go to wal-mart.

  • Kyle

    Along the lines with customer service, I can’t stand it when the check out lady tells me, while im in line, that her line is closing. Im standing there with a stick of deoderant and a twix and she will NOT ring me up. And she will not reason with you. She might fight you before she has to scan those two items in the matter of 3 seconds. Also she has 6 inch nails while using a cash register. It’s impossible not to type in two numbers with one press of the button.

  • Aaron

    I loathe WalMart, and so I thought this was pretty funny: recently I was on a long roadtrip, and one of my compatriots desperately needed to, um, well, defecate. There was no sign of any rest area coming anytime soon, and so i did a googlemap search in my iPhone to alleviate his shituation.

    This was just all too perfect. Looks like Google feels the same as me.

  • Aaron

    Oh well the image must not have posted. Here it is.

    http://files.me.com/aaronkeyes/illixg

  • http://www.robshep.com Rob Shepherd

    I had one of the old people who checks reciepts mark up and down my shirt with their highlighter as they were checking my reciept. It was an accident but her hand followed her eyes. Whenever her eyes looked down the reciept her hand marked down on my shirt. She was at least 90 years old. I stood there…paused…and then laughed because I knew there was nothing i could do about it.

  • philly

    Yes, but let us not forget the best thing about Walmart: the insurance policy included with every purchase. (This makes Walmart much better than Target, Bryan.) As I learned from DWB, if any item you buy from Walmart fails in any way (even if you broke it yourself), you can take it back and say “This Broke.” And it will be replaced.

  • Pingback: Still in Business « …

  • http://www.stevewulf.com Steve Wulf

    The thing that absolutely drives me crazy is none of the carts work right – EVER! One of the following always occurs. The wheels wobble so bad that it shakes your whole upper body. The cart either pulls to the right or the left causing the muscles in one of your arms to get extremely fatigued from trying to compensate. One of the wheels don’t turn. There’s always trash in the bottom of the cart. And here’s the clincher…I’ve never been to a walmart that didn’t have this problem.

  • Leigh

    If I had read this post yesterday I would have voted it “most favorite” I happen to love Wal Mart for the low low prices everyday (Insert yellow smiley. Their new asterik logo stinks) But the meat department. Sick-and I don’t mean the good kind of trendy new way to use sick. I mean NASTY. “Please ma’am. Step away from the brown steak infused with 35% water!”

  • Pingback: tylerstanton.com » Pet Peeves IX: Stores

  • http://allenmadding.blogspot.com Allen
  • Dan

    My uncle said it best, "Wallmart is like the sidewalk after a long rain. You find yourself asking, 'where do all these worms come from?'"