Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Hamming it up

I hate Sundays, especially Sunday mornings, because working the early shift precludes going out the night before, unless I want to drag in looking like death on a cracker. And some days, it is all I can do to get to work on time, much less at 7 a.m. And when the 9 a.m. person doesn't show up for work, that means I'm stuck working at Customer Service all by myself for at least four hours on a Sunday morning.

So there's always a line becuase people who don't shop during the week come out of the woodwork on Sundays. I'm doing returns when this woman walks up with six packages of ham, salami and turkey from the deli.

She throws it on the counter in my general direction and goes "Read the date on this label."

I give her a look, but I go "Ma'am, it says sell by Nov. 19."


HER: "Now what day is it?"
ME: "November 19th."
HER: "Are they trying to sell me bad meat?"
ME: "Ma'am, it says sell by Nov. 19th. Today is the 19th. You can still sell the meat today. Do you want to return this ham?"
HER: "I haven't even bought it yet, but I don't want to pay full price for this meat." And now we get to the point of the discussion.
ME: "Ma'am, I can't mark deli items down. You can buy the meat or not, but I can't give you a discount just because it is close to the sell-by date."
So I get a dirty look and she stomps off.

Like 20 minutes later, I see an assistant manager and I tell her what happened. She calls the deli and sure enough, no one has changed the date on the label printer for three days. All this meat is perfectly good and in no danger of spoiling.

And the assistant manager pages the woman back to customer service and offers to let her have the meat for half-price, because she did make a point about the sell-by date.

So the woman comes back. The assistant manager tells her that the meat is perfectly good. The problem was with the label machine, which had not had the date changed. And that the woman can get a discount on all the luncheon meat she had the deli slice for her.

Instead of being gracious and taking the meat at a discount, the woman starts angling for a FURTHER price reduction. She argues with the assistant manager for a while about "Every time I get meat here it is bad. It always goes bad early. I think it made my son sick one time. I don't like to shop here because I think the meat is bad." OKAY. If the meat from the deli is so bad, why did you just have them cut six packages - almost two full pounds of ham, salami and turkey - for you!

The manager finally realizes what I realized when the woman first walked up. The customer is just making stuff up to get a discount on the meat. So the manager brings the meat back up to me, says "Give her half off. If she takes it, fine. If she doesn't, fine. I've got work to do."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am surprised you have not started cutting yourself.

Unknown said...

You write this well and you still spend your days behind a counter at Walmart?

Anonymous said...

blair...I've thought the same thing many a time.

This blogger is extremely knowledgeable, obviously literate, has excellent command of the English language, is a quick thinker, is nearly impossible to con, can smell a "rat" a mile away, etc., YET works at Walmart.

Something is amiss!

Anonymous said...

Has it crossed anyones mind that walmart might actually have :::gasp::: smart people working there because and idiot couldnt cut working with the assholes (like you two) of the world

Anonymous said...

To the above poster: I'm sure Walmart has its share of intelligent employees.

You obviously are not one of them!

Anonymous said...

This is the one thing about some people that drives me NUTS! They assume that because I work at Wal-Mart, I must be a moron. They think that I am beneath them because I work behind a counter. It never occurs to them that I have a four-year college degree, and am only working here until my child is ready for school. At which time, I will be high-tailing it out of Wal-Mart, never to return. But, they wouldn't know that...they just assume... and you know what happens when you assume.

Blogger said...

Get your access to 16,000 woodworking plans.

Teds Woodworking has more than 16,000 woodworking plans with STEP BY STEP instructions, pics and diagrams to make all projects simple and easy...