Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Is there a tax on contrariness?

Some woman held up my line for 20 minutes Friday afternoon because she bought an iPod in Kentucky (do they even have electricity there - wait, stop, it's a JOKE!) and now was returning it.

The problem is that the state and municipal tax rates from the Wal-Mart she bought it at and the Wal-Mart I work at add up to different things in the two locales, so I owed her an additional one percent of tax. And bigod, she WAS NOT LEAVING before she got that additional $2.48 in tax. If returning this iPod was such an issue, I don't know why she didn't do it before she left.

Not that I blame her — that's a gallon of gas — but really, $2.48?

So anyway, I cannot toggle tax rates on my register. I can turn the sales tax ON/OFF, but I can't set the tax rate to a specific percentage.

I call a supervisor over and tell them the correct way to actually perform the transaction. It involves paperwork and the accounting office and all sorts of mess. I know. I've looked it up. I do my Wal-Mart homework. :)

What sort of answer do I get in response?

Supervisor: "That's now how you do it."
Me: "Um, yeah, I think I'm right. That's what the Front End Guide said."
Supervisor: "No, you just press these buttons."
Me: "Start pressing then."
Supervisor: "I think it is like this ...." pressing buttons, register complaining "well, maybe like this ..." more buttons "try this ... maybe this" more buttons "well, I don't know." And walks away!
Me: "They're still waiting. And they're not leaving."
Supervisor: "Just figure it out."
Me: "Ummmm." I'm thinking — that's not really my job, now is it? I TOLD you what to do, and you're ignoring me right in front of these people.

Finally, I just added a little to the price of the iPod and had it come out to what it needed to so that these people could get their $2.48. Sheesh.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This made me snort and now I can't stop laughing! By golly! GIVE ME MY 1% NOW!!!! On top of all that aggrevation, the manager gets paid for knowing and doing less than you. What a country. Chin up, at least you are trying to do what needs to be done.

Anonymous said...

That was one expensive IPod at 248 dollars....

- Jon

Anonymous said...

You were right, the money comes from the accounting office, and write on the cft board.

Anonymous said...

I work in Accounting...you have to figure out what the difference is that they are owed. You then go to your friendly CO Associate and tell them that you need a sales tax refund...they take the money from the drawer in the CO, give it to you, you sign for it (or have customer sign) and that's it...It's a pain in the ass for the Service Desk people. I feel for you...especially if your CO is staffed like mine, and there is no one in there from 3pm until 6pm...or on weekends it's from 3pm til 10pm.... WICKED pain in the arse!

Anonymous said...

This is such an awesome blog---I worked for w-m for 3 years doing cust. serv. and experienced all of the same crap you've gone thru. Is there any way for me to contact u? I've been thinking of writing a book about w-m's cust. serv. (I only wish I had kept a blog myself......), and would love to use some of your exerpts.
Christy

segfault said...

Not only do we have electricity in Kentucky, we have BBC America on DirecTV.

Patrick Flanagan said...

Charming! I love it: "save them all and let Buddha sort them out."

Keep up the good writing.

I swore off Wal-Mart and McDonald's years ago and haven't looked back since. Though its tougher to avoid W-M's customers (and above mentioned managers) altogether, they can make a mean mob when all at the same place!

weas said...

This whole episode somehow reminds me of the John Cusack movie, "Better Off Dead", where the paperboy chases him for the entire movie, shouting "I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!"

Melissa said...

Since you brought up ipods, what is Wal Mart's return policy on ipods? I ask this because I bought one and could never get it to interface with my computer correctly (probably the firewall at work according to Apple) and with my receipt I took it back to W M and it had been 13 days and I was told that after 10 days you have to get a refund through Apple. Is this a W M policy? I still got my money back because they called the manager and she told them to return it anyway, but I was wondering if the 10 days was correct.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen an ipod yet at the local walmart,then again I'm in the local walmart maybe once a year. And yes there is electricity in Ky,and Dish Network and broadband. :D

Anonymous said...

If your store is following the new front end flight, a CSM could have done the CFT for you. Accounting isn't supposed to do them anymore.