Walmart, What?!

I found this article the other day.  I can’t even remember now how I found it.

http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/get_it_together_walmart/get_it_together.html

After finishing it, well, that’s a lie – just a few pictures into it, I began to see that the person writing this article had some issues.  By the time I looked through all 100+ pictures he had collected of this “trashy” Walmart,  I could only shake my head and think, “You are either missing something upstairs or you have a tremendous grudge against Sam’s clan.

I am not going to go into long, tedious details about the pictures that this person found so utterly “trashy” that he would spend page after page on them.  It had to take a small fortune in time to simply down load and then comment on them.  Have you looked at, at least, the first dozen or so?  Do you see my point?

These pictures show nothing!  I mean, my driveway gets dirtier than a lot of these pictures of the outside of the building.  A cup?  A small, smashed food container?  OMG!  Call the police!  This is indescribably terrible!  A travesty.  Actually, the travesty is that I, actually, spent nearly 1/2 an hour looking through all this.  I even did most of it twice, trying to figure out what the problem was.

I figured, at first, that it must be the inside of the place that looks bad.  So, I continued on.  The inside of that Walmart is nice enough that I would be happy to shop in there.  There was one picture of a display that had a box, cut in half, lying on top of it.  Wow…that’s…horrible.

I mean, really, can’t you do better than that?!  Then the author went to two more stores and took pictures of the same thing!  It was a waste of time.  If you were a Walmart inspection team, yes, you would write these things up.  You would, as part of the Walmart force, tell the store to clean up the toothpick on aisle 7 or whatever.  But, to come in from the outside, take over 100 pictures of 3 stores and proclaim them to be totally unfit as a store?  Get real!

If this article really wanted to make an impression, then he needed to come back 2-3 weeks later and see if those same things were STILL there!  Now, that would be different.  As it is, he got thrown out of the last store for taking “pictures of the women,” at least, that’s what he was reported for.

I hate to tell him, but, since 9-11, it is pretty much illegal to take pictures inside of any store or mall.  They are afraid of terrorists taking pictures to get a layout of the place, I believe.  So, his entire effort was not only ridiculous, but the police could have confiscated his camera had they really chosen to do so.

How do you feel about the cleanliness in a store?

Do the customers have any responsibility here?

Namaste,

Scott

You don’t want to WHAT?!!!

I went to Indy today to see my stroke therapist.  I see her about every 3 months.  She was pleased with my progress and my acceptance of the way things are.  I am upbeat, outgoing, and moving around a bit, trying new things, and adjusting well.  But, you all knew that already.  I have blogged about it all year and last year!  So, that’s not what this is about.  It’s about what happened after that.

I stopped and ate at Cracker Barrel (My treat when I drive all that way and back), then headed back to Anderson.  When I got there, I decided to stop in at Wally Mart (that’s Wal-Mart to the uninitiated).  I picked up a few things (more than I meant to – lol), one of those being several packages of high fiber, low carb nutty crunch breakfast bars from Kellogg (which were on sale and had 50 cents off stickers on each package!).

I gathered my things and went to the checkout area.  Now, normally, I am getting all my groceries and have 30-40 items.  This means the long checkout lanes, people.  However, here, I only had 16-18 items and the “less than 20 items” lines were calling my name.  No, not over the intercom, just in my head…

Anyway, I looked.  There are 6 of those lines and 4 had cashiers!  Two had fairly long lines (3+ people), one had two, and the one closest to me had 1!!!  I jumped on that one.  The man in front of me who was walking upright, thin, less than 70, and seemingly intelligent was unloading the last of his items.  I looked, stopped, looked again.  He had, at least, 4 bags in the cart, 2 on the unloading area, and the cashier was ringing up his last 4-6 items.  Now, I know that I only taught middle school math and my math scores on the SAT were only in the top 2% of Ball State Students, but…I knew there were more than 20 items there!

I waited; he took his time.  I waited; he didn’t say anything to me.  I waited; the cashier didn’t say anything to me.

I let him get out of earshot and said, “20 items?!”

She smiled, shook her head and said, “No, 42.”

I looked at her and said, “Do you have to check them out when they have that many?”

“Yes,” she said, sighing just a bit.

“Why do you even have the lines then?”

“That’s what I keep asking.”

“So, they don’t want to make anyone upset?”

“Yes.”

I couldn’t help myself.  “Well, I am upset that I have to pay for my groceries.  Can I have them free?”

She just looked at me.  I smiled, paid, and left.

Now, to his credit, I saw the man in the parking lot and he walked all the way back into the store to return his cart.  That’s the only credit I will give him.

However, I can’t really blame him.  Why not do it if no one will stop you?  How is it really his problem if he tries something and the store who makes the stupid rule doesn’t enforce it?  It makes me angry because I don’t go through the lines if I am more than 1-2 items over and then it is usually an oversight.

It makes me smile now because I sent out a forward today that said,

“The only reason for someone to hate you is because they want to be just like you.”

Hmm, yes, I want to be like him.  In fact, so that I don’t get angry anymore, I will up my limit to 25 items before choosing the other line.  That’ll teach ’em!

Got any store pet peeves? Here’s my top list:

1)  leaving carts in the lanes of the parking lots or in spaces.

2)  more than 22 or so items in the “20 or less” lanes.

3)  parking your shopping cart in the middle of the aisle while walking up and down the aisle to shop.

4)  opening packages to “sniff” or check for freshness, then putting them back on the shelf.

5)  putting spoilables (fruit, eggs, milk, etc…) on regular aisles instead of returning them.

6)  holding a conversation in the middle of the aisle so that it is blocked.

7)  walking in the “out” or out the “in” doors when someone is going the correct way and not stepping out of the way for them to pass.

8)  cutting line

9)  ***when a service rep ignores a customer in order to talk on the phone or some other task without even acknowledging they are there.

10)  two or three people walking side by side down an aisle and getting upset because you are trying to move your cart down the right side and they have to move.

Namaste,

Scott

Well, Lookie at what I, Finally, did…

No, thank goodness this wasn’t the problem.

Several weeks ago, when I got the idea in my head that I needed a new, bigger hard drive for my computer – I should have had my head examined…

Buying the hard drive was easy.  If it had all been that easy…but it wasn’t.  I believe I did two previous posts ( one and two ) on this computer glitch, disaster, problem.  Read them at your leisure, then finish it up here.

Wal-Mart allowed me to order online my new monitor and a copy of Windows 7 for home.  I was even allowed to have it sent, for free, to the Anderson store.  The monitor came in first and I was able to set it up on my computer with the old hard drive in about an hour, shorter than the time to get ready, drive there, get it, and return home.  It is so nice to be able to, actually, “see” the print in the emails and posts.  The in-transit monitor was a huge and heavy clunker a whopping 13 inches across (wow!).  I did save it, just in case…

My copy of Windows 7 came in yesterday.  I decided to wait until today to pick it up.  I, of course, browsed the computer games while there.  They had a copy of “500,000 Games” that sat in the $9.96 spot and I “just had to have it”.  When I went to pay for it, the register rang up $21.96.  I looked at the young man and said, “No.” and gave him the package.  He was a kind soul (or didn’t want to bother putting it back up – I don’t care), so, after showing him where I found it, he said it was in the wrong spot, but that he would sell it to me for $10.  This was excellent; I took him up on the deal and decided to head home.

Windows 7, I decided on the upgrade option, took about 3-4 hours, during which time I watched two of the hundreds of movies I have that I haven’t watched yet.  It, pretty well, loaded itself and would have been much quicker if I hadn’t saved so many files and settings.  When I got it all up and running, I found that my email still wouldn’t run and, without paying around $139, I wasn’t going to get Outlook to work.  I looked at Google, of course, and after about an hour, decided to use my Comcast online account and supplement it with a program called “PSTViewerLite”.  This nifty little baby allows me to view all my saved emails without loading Outlook.  I get to try it for about 15 days, then it is $29.95, a darn sight better than $139.  We shall see.  What has happened is what always seems to happen with upgrades:  they fix some things, improve some things, and mess up a lot of good things.

I will get used to using online email.  I enjoyed the mail rules and all the little things that made Outlook so great a tool for someone who enjoys saving and sorting emails.

Sam (Everyday Aspergers) was excited the other day and told me how she enjoys my tales of dating that I post off and on.  I told her I might have another story or two soon to tell and she was very happy.  I need to give it some time and see what happens for now.  I am also trying to finish up the “I-am-behind-about-a-hundred-posts-to-read” fiasco.  The email reader will help.  Thanks all of you for your support, your kindness, and your love – those are the things that help keep me smiling when I would like to scream.

Namaste,

Scott

The Right of Way – I say RIGHT!

I had a very busy day today.  I went and had lunch with a good friend of mine.  Then, on the way home, I stopped at Wal-mart to pick up the first half of my fix-it order: a new 19inch monitor.  I decided that I could do groceries, get the pork chops I am making for New Year’s Day, and my nose spray while there.

As I entered the store with cart in hand (well, pushing) a large woman came walking out the in door and I had to be the one to move my cart!  Right of way!  In America, you take the right side to leave and enter, making us- supposedly – in different doorways.  This happens at Wal-mart all the time.  I asked the greeter if it was legal for me to knock someone down with my cart if they went the wrong way.  He smiled and said, “No”.  Doesn’t sound right.

Now, topping this off, people in the grocery aisles do not stay on their side of the lane with their cart.  A lot of times, they drive down the middle and block both ways!  Again, Right of Way!

Tonight, when I was leaving with my monitor (which 3 different store people sent me to 2 very wrong spots) I came down the aisle on the right side.  One set of 2 ladies approached on my left (excellent) and another large woman, her guy, and a child came right at me on my side!  It was good, I guess, that the two women passed me and gave ME time to MOVE to the WRONG side so I didn’t get run over.  Worse, the Woman with the cart looked at me as if it was my fault.

That was my original thought  for my post tonight – BUT, it does get better (or worse, depending on whether you were actually there or not).  I picked up my groceries and realized I had forgotten my nasal spray.  It, of course, is on the other side of the store.  I went over there, had to get down on my knees as it is on the bottom shelf, and they were out!  I could not even find a sticker for it.  I went quickly to the Rx counter and asked if they carried it.  “It’s on the shelf (right shelf).  If there’s no sticker, then we probably don’t carry it anymore.’  I gave up and just started off.  The woman called after me, “Sir, I found it!”   They had changed the box and moved it one shelf higher! (Argh – lol).

Then I got in line was 3rd person back and the woman took forever (not really, but a long time).  Then the people in front of me not only wanted to buy a few things (why I got in that line), but also cashed their Social Security Checks!  This took even longer.  Just before this I realized that I had bought ice cream and it had been sitting in my cart for almost 30 minutes and I wasn’t even being checked out yet!

Got done and headed to the car.  It had begun snowing several hours early!  Needless to say, the car was covered and I had to clear it off before I could head home (even more time).

When I arrived home, it took 4 trips to carry in the items and I had to go slowly on the snow.  So, now I get in here (finally!) and realize that I forgot the pork chops!  Tomorrow said my mind and I heartily agreed.

I just finished putting up my new monitor.  I was nearly in tears as I could not get the terminal plug to fit into the computer.  I tried several times, checked the adapter, had decided that I would have to either buy a new adapter or take the monitor back, and I looked harder – I had it upside down!  Long Day! lol

I don’t mind this so much after I share it with all of you – laughing at yourself is good for the soul – and, it doesn’t make a bad post either!!! 🙂

Namaste,

Scott