Wal-Mart Musings

[hafoc]

* My feet hurt.

* The slack-jawed, vacant-eyed teenager in front of me is lifting items from her cart, one at a time, with her left hand. Her right hand is holding a Pepto-Bismol-Pink cell phone to her ear. She is oblivious to her surroundings because she is blathering non-stop to some other victim of inbreeding or of lobotomy by low-level radio transmission exposure about, as far as I can tell, nothing at all. And when the call finally ends, she STILL puts items onto the checkout belt one at a time, so slowly, with her left hand, while HOLDING THE CLOSED PHONE AGAINST THE SIDE OF HER HEAD WITH HER OTHER HAND. This has definitely gone too far.

* I'm thirsty too.

* And hungry.

* A spoiled brat can emit a squeal that would rupture the eardrums of most mammalian species at ranges up to 350 meters, and yet the dullards who spawned it can't even be bothered to notice. Verily, it is time for me to introduce the Electro-Cute Remote Control and Noise Activated Child Control Collar.

* The rutabagas are sold out. They had a bin of rutabagas and somehow they sold every last one. Somehow, the people of this region bought hundreds of pounds of rutabagas. For god's sakes, WHY?

* This is two days before Thanksgiving. Yet I have somehow managed to get into the checkout lane of the one person in the Known Universe who could have a job at Wal-Mart two days before Thanksgiving and yet have NO IDEA HOW TO RING UP A TURKEY. One conference with the manager, then the meat section boss, and then one of the grunts who works in the meat section later, they finally managed to instruct her on what key to push. And I could leave.

* My feet hurt.

Comments

[silussa.livejournal.com]

As someone who has run a cash register most of his adult life....

* low-frequence lobotomy, definitely. I have customers talking about passing out on the toilet in line in front of me loud enough for the entire store to hear.

* See above.

* Wal-mart will be hiring cashiers through to not long before Christmas...doesn't mean they have a clue.

* You build it, I'll see if we can order it and put it up for sale. :)

* perhaps there's a fad for Rutabega Soup for Thanksgiving in Wisconsin?

[palabrajot.livejournal.com]

While your personal trials in the retail market are smusing to me, your experiences are hardly exotic. For instance, there are often new hires around peak seasons- this in conjuction with what I understand to be a shortfall of labor and the fact that Wal-Mart is not the first choice of anyone with options even in the retail market. Which leads me to my next obervation:

Wal-Mart?

Dude.

Wal. Mart.

I can't expand that last point any further. You'll just have to imagine your screen filling up with interrobangs.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Wal-Mart is what we have. And I knew somebody was gonna give me hell about it.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

I've shopped Wal-Mart. Thankfully, they're all supercenters here, which means I can shop at what I consider a reasonable hour for traffic....4 am or so.

[palabrajot.livejournal.com]

I won't give you hell. You already shop at Wal-Mart.

If anything, you have my sympathy.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I wish the downtown gave them competition, but our downtown here is all golf and ski and knick-knacks and fudge. There's another place going in next year that might be worth patronizing, I think. We'll see.