Walmart

About 18 months ago, I was shopping at Walmart, and picked up a can of Folger's Vanilla Cappuccino mix. I noticed immediately that the can was WAY too light. I removed the lid, and noticed that the protective seal was gone, as was 3/4 of the product. I did nothing except put the can back on the shelf--an action (or rather, inaction), which I regretted just hours later (that nagging guilty conscience I have). Today's events have cause me to revisit my regret.

Today, while shopping at Walmart, I was looking for some lotion. There were two female employees who were stocking shelves in the makeup aisles, which are right next to the lotion. To my horror, one of the employees walked over to the lotion, and pumped out some lotion from one of the bottles to use on her hands and arms. She did not hesitate to do this in front of me and another customer. She also did not need to twist the pump first in order to open the bottle. Therefore, the bottle had been used before.

The fact that the employee did not hesitate to get lotion from the bottle combined with my previous experience with the cappuccino makes me wonder just how often this type of pilfering goes on at Walmart--and by their employees no less!!

So, today, I decided that I would act. I got home and immediately got on Walmart's website to send the store manager an email. I utitilized their feedback system, and typed in a brief explanation of what I had witnessed (along with my declaration that I would no longer shop there). When I hit submit, the feedback did not go through. It told me that there was an error--supposedly a field was left blank--but all fields were filled in. So, their website is just as useless as their employees.

A few months ago, Walmart was fighting like mad to get zoning approved to build a store in Zionsville. The residents of Zionsville fought it with every fiber of their being because they thought that the unique stores in downtown Zionsville would not be able to compete with Walmart. I never bought that argument because those stores don't sell anywhere close to the same merchandise as Walmart. We're not talking about a mom and pop tv store that would lose to the retail giant--we're talking antique stores, specialty gift shops, and high-end clothiers. I actually wanted Walmart to win the battle because I hate shopping at the 86th street location. But, now that I know what kind of people they employ, I'm glad Zionsville won!!

I don't usually like to rant about things like this (at least on my blog), but this has been an extremely long week, and I feel like I'm hitting brick walls at every turn. I would probably be more justified in ranting about Medicare/SSA (LONG story), but for some reason, it is so much more enjoyable to rant about the things that don't really matter.