The Walmart Shrug

The clerk handed me back my keys and, when I asked him about what might have caused the leak that flattened a tire Walmart put on my car only a week ago, he shrugged and replied “I couldn’t say.”  It took every ounce of self control I possessed not to reach across that counter, grab him by the ears, and shove his scrawny neck down so he could permanently adopt that position. I’d probably be doing him a favor because I’m certain this was not his first or last shrug of the day. Why not save him the effort?

Last year, I walked into a Walmart seeking a reusable water bottle. I couldn’t locate one easily and didn’t want to waste time wandering the store, so I approached a clerk. Silly me. The idea of a reusable water bottle seemed foreign to the employee, so I was reasonably dubious when she sent me across the store to the grocery section. Sure enough, I found bottled water. No reusable bottles. I then approached a second clerk, who vaguely pointed to housewares, saying they’d be there “if they had any.” On my way back across the store, I asked a clerk for good measure who shrugged and responded “I don’t know where anything is. I just work the cash register.”

History repeated itself this Christmas when I spotted a little’s boys rug with a town scene at a friend’s house. She told me she’d purchased hers at Walmart and thought she’d seen them there. We located the sku number and called the local Walmart customer service line to ask if they stocked this item. The woman who answered the phone agreed to look the number up. When it didn’t work, she made no effort to try again or resolve the problem. I then asked if she knew if they carried the item I was seeking. Her response: “I have no idea.”

Here’s the thing. If I walk into a Target and ask the gentleman working in the toy department where to locate an item, he will personally walk me there. That is if he hasn’t already inquired if I need assistance. If he isn’t sure they carry an item, he will go look in the area he thinks it would potentially be in. If the clerk doesn’t find it, he apologizes and might even try calling someone else to double check. If I ask someone in housewares where to find a specific storage unit, he will personally escort me to the right area and find a clerk to help me.

At Walmart, it seems they hold a special training course on learning the minimum possible to get a job done. Maybe it’s different in larger areas where stores provide more competition, but in a small town such as this, the clerks seem to look at you like, “We are the cheapest. You don’t have very many other places to go. I’m doing the minimum possible today. Deal with it.”

I used to be staunchly anti-Walmart. I’d watched the documentary, fought for parking spaces on a rainy day, bought shoes for the kids that always wore out too soon, and frequently left the store disgruntled. But some of that seemed to improve over the years. And, frankly, when your choices are limited and you have one to two kids in tow, an affordable one-stop with fairly good generic brands if very appealing.

Still, I am not totally converted and shop elsewhere, like Aldi or Target, when I can. My bottom line definitely matters. But I would rather support a store where shrugging, saying “I don’t know,” and vaguely directing a customer to an area where something “might be” is unacceptable.