• Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I don’t know if this is just my area, or of it’s Walmart in general…but EVERY employee in the Walmarts near me treat every customer like an asshole.

    During Black Friday I got reminded why I never shop Walmart anymore. Their website forces you to create a profile. You can’t shop as guest. On top of all that, they at some point began letting unregulated 3rd party vendors sell things on their website. So you don’t even know IF walmart carrys the products on their own website. That in turn makes it hard to use their website to check if an item is in stock before you leave your house. Because you search for something, and you get 5 results from 5 different vendors, but they’re all the same product. One of them may OR MAY NOT be sold by walmart directly. You now need to look at each listing individually. Calling the store directly is even more useless, as the employees will just leave you on hold for 20 minutes. Then you go there in person, and see employees turning red in the face SCREAMING at old ladies who don’t understand their keycard screens. She’s just trying to pay and asking “where’s the tap thingie?” And this employee just screams “IF YOU DON’T PAY AND GET THE FUCK OUT I’M WALKING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!! JUST PAY!!!”

    “But where do I…”

    “JUST PAY!!!”

    “I’m trying to, but it isn’t…”

    “JUST FUCKING PAY, BITCH!!!”

    Eventually the machine took. And this employee is yelling “YOU’RE LUCKY MY SHIFT ISN’T ENDING! I’D BEAT YOUR ASS IN THE PARKING LOT, AND SMILE WHILE I DO IT!”

    She was just trying to buy 3 video games and I have no idea what happened before I got there, but I already decided long before it was my turn in line that I wasn’t shopping here. I only stayed because I wanted to make sure this guy wasn’t going to actually punch this elderly woman.

    I came for this $39 tablet, but even if they DID have it, I wasn’t buying anything now. This is an extreme example, but most of the employees I see are just angry and hostile all the time. Most of the customers too.

    I can’t even remember this EVER happening at Target, which is right across the street.

    • s1ndr0m3@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Walmart is toxic. I worked there for about a year. It was the most stressful and aggravating year of my life. The breakroom was always filled with employees having breakdowns and anger-venting to each other. Don’t blame the employees. Don’t shop there. The Waltons do not deserve your money.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I have worked in toxic jobs like that before. I took it out on my bosses. The only customers who I took it out on were the ones who were asking for it. Which most of what I’ve seen from Walmart employees just isn’t true.

        I worked at Target twice. Two different times, each about 10 years apart, and at two different locations with totally different people. It was the same exact experience both times. Management playing favorites, and playing games with employees they don’t like. Unfair expectations from some management team so far up you don’t even know their names or faces. Coworkers who all claim to be just doing their best, but then you find out they’re politicing behind your back. All of this for barely above minimum wage.

        My first time was when I was 19, and also working with my girlfriend. I didn’t tolerate people treating her poorly, and so I walked out with her, when we both realized what was happening. She was getting bullied, and I was getting smile to the face knife behind the back sort of deal. 10 years later, I wasn’t with her anymore, but got basically the same experience. Which leads me to believe that once you’ve been there a while, Target culture leads you to act this way.

        I also remember watching the same anti-union video both times upon being hired. Like…the literal same exact video 10 years apart.

        But, to get back to the point, yeah, I do blame the employees if they act like that to everybody. At Target, I can’t remember a single customer acting so far out of line as for me to yell at them. It wasn’t until years later that I worked at a shady hotel that I had to put some customers in line.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I hadn’t been inside a walmart in like 10 years. And I was at the point where I was like “Wait…why don’t I shop here anymore?” Then I stepped inside and it was like “Oh right…”

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Seriously. If they had two brain cells to rub together, they could actually do really well by distinguishing themselves from Amazon in online retail. Amazon’s infestation with fake items not actually sold by legitimate brands is a huge strategic vulnerability for them. Walmart could stick to legitimate products actually carried and sold by Walmart, and suddenly they would gain a big advantage in online retail. And Walmart is big enough to actually go toe-to-toe with Amazon.

          • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Not only that, but they’d also be one of the only retailers that actually carry items IN THEIR SHOPS!!!

            I recently bought a 4TB SSD 2.5" for my PC. Take a guess at how I bought that drive. Just mentally lock in a guess at how my purchase happened. Have you tsken your guess? Ok, cool. You’re wrong. I don’t even need to know your answer before I know that you are incorrect.

            First I tried Best Buy. I wanted to just go to a store in person, buy a drive, and be back home in about an hour. Best Buy does not sell the WD Blue 4TB in store. You can ship it to store, but it’s not just already there. Same with Target. Same with Walmart.

            So I figured “ok, I need to buy this on Amazon.” Amazon was filled with so many sketchy listings. I know people sell fake drives especially when you get up to the shit in high capacity.

            So I tried to find listings where Western Digital was the seller. I figured that’s my best bet. Couldn’t find them. Everytime I found them, I’d click their product, and in checkout it would say some shit like “Sold and shipped by S.A. Industries”, or some equally unheard of company.

            I couldn’t even FIND anyone claiming to be the official Best Buy Amazon store.

            So I thought “Maybe I can find the Western Digital store on eBay?”

            I could not. I did however find the Best Buy official ebay store selling it with free shipping at MSRP.

            Now I COULD have gone through BestBuy.com, or Target.com, but they’d have charged me shipping. In the Walmart and Amazon pages I felt overwhelmed with the barrage of fake listings. On ebay, pretty much the same until I found an official ebay seller for a legit brick and morter chain, selling merchandise that should be inside their store, but isn’t.

            I still need to buy some smaller SSD’s, and I’m already exausted just THINKING about it. I’d gladly walk into a legit trusted store, and buy at MSRP from trusted brands if I could.

            I don’t know why these massive size stores want to be massively empty. Best buy got rid of physical media a year ago, and now their isles are like 19 feet wide and empty. Are they expecting an elephant parade? They used to have a room specifically to experience projectors, and home theater. Now that room is just closed and locked.

            If Walmart just ACTUALLY sold goods, I might shop there again. I wish I lived closer to Microcenter.

            • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              I blame MBA brain rot. The people that run these companies are all from the same handful of business schools and consultancies, and they all lazily copy each other’s homework. They’re all just trying to copy Amazon. They are utterly incapable of original thought.