Employees - A Necessary Inconvenience

Yes, it's true. I don't want to have to believe it either but I was forced to against my will today at Walmart. It seems to be something that is becoming the norm now when shopping anywhere. But here of late it seems that every time I go to Walmart I have to go directly from the cashier to the Customer Service department without stopping or without passing GO.

It's a sad state of affairs when you go through the checkout line and you are trying to get your groceries or purchases off the spindle so that the cashier can continue bagging. You have to have someone with you to watch the items that are being rung up so that you can make sure that everything rings up properly. It's clearly a two man job.

Anyway, today I was wandering around Walmart for my weekly shopping run and was over in the sporting goods section. I bought a few items that were marked with red tags, meaning that they were of course being discontinued. I then went on my way and finished whatever shopping I had to do.

When I made it to the checkout line, I was rung up and had my groceries and proceeded to check my ticket line by line as I always do before leaving the store.

As has been the case for the last month or so I have had to go straight from the cashier to Customer Service. Last week it was tomatoes that they were charging me Heirloom prices for when they were in fact the low end tomatoes. That nearly required them to call Dick Cheney for approval to reimburse the difference.

This time it was a sporting goods article. 3 of them to be exact. When I checked my ticket I found out that 4 had been scanned when I had only bought 3. There were only 3 on the shelf. Off to the Customer Service counter I went.

Once there the associate promptly told me that she would have to handle that as a "Return" and that it required a Manager's Approval. Hello! Here it comes, the long and involved process of trying to get something so simple straightened out before it becomes the most confusing and complicated procedure known to man.

The Manager shows up and tells me that he can do two things. One - he can check inventory to make sure there were only three on the shelf prior to purchase, which by the way could take hours. Two - he could refund the difference of the 4th one on a GIFT CARD. I looked him in the eye and told him I wanted one thing and one thing only - MY MONEY. He told me he couldn't do that because of what the item was. He told me that it is considered a Return and they don't do returns for some sporting good items. I told him that it wasn't a return because you can't return something that was never in fact PURCHASED! I asked him if Walmart was now in the business of NOT GIVING BACK MONEY? He said no that was not the case. It was the item and the item is considered a Return. I told him I was just at the cashier and it was nothing more than a scan problem that needed to be VOIDED. He told me that if we were still at the cashier's isle it could be handled as a VOID and this situation would not be happening. I told him the options that he was offering were unacceptable. I would not stand by and let him call what was CLEARLY a VOID a RETURN. He called his Manager.

After some whispered chatting between the Manager at Customer Service and the MYSTERY MANAGER he hung up the phone and told the cashier there to REFUND THE MONEY. HELLO!

He apologized for the inconvenience and told me that he hoped this would not happen again. I told him he needed to retrain his cashiers. He admitted that more than a few needed to be retrained. At that point I left the store, knowing somehow that this was going to happen again one day.

Something to pay attention to when doing business out in public now is that companies have started offering GIFT CARDS in place of money. The reason is because by giving you a gift card they give you nothing essentially. If the store goes out of business before you can use it then you have a gift card that is totally worthless. You let the store trade you a useless piece of paper for your money. If you turn right around and use it immediately then you are okay. But if you choose to wait for any reason and the store closes up then you are out the money with no recourse. The store got over on you. Once more the store owners play on the fact that the customer likes convenience and doesn't want the hassle. It's a gamble but the chances of it benefiting the customer are much smaller than the company. Shrewd con game and it works quite well.

What dawned on me as I made my way to my vehicle to leave is that businesses nowadays are increasingly refusing or at least looking for ways to avoid returning any money. I understand why they are doing it. I would even go so far as to recommend to them that they train their cashiers and stockers and pricers to become like nazi's about entering in correct information because this is where the problem begins and ends really.

But the real issue is that employers will not give their employees any incentive to do a better job because anything that they have to offer the employees to do better takes away somehow from their profit margin. They don't want to have to give up one red cent more than absolutely necessary to the employees. The employers would actually prefer that the workers work for free.

This is why I say that EMPLOYEES ARE A NECESSARY INCONVENIENCE. They have to have them because they cannot seem to find a way to do business without them. Oh you have your self checkouts. But even they require a human. When the self checkouts break down or the customer makes a mistake or age verification is required for alcohol or cigarettes you need a human to override the transaction and get the line moving again. You simply cannot 100% automate the retail industry, it cannot be done.

This frustrates business owners who are nowadays in business solely for the bottom line. They are only concerned with what their profit margins are. Any loss, anything at all that they can determine or interpret as a loss is frowned upon and fought against.

That's sad. But this is what business is coming down to. This is what greed has done to the human race. Not just this country. The world is like this. People want what they think is theirs RIGHT NOW and if they have to wait one milli-second they are extremely mad and start dialing their lawyers and looking at possible lawsuits. It's madness. People are in fact quite mad.

But no one will do anything about it because everyone is on their own trip and worrying about ME. They do not care about you or anyone else until YOU keep THEM from getting what they think they want when they think they should have it. Very selfish.

But then what are humans if they aren't selfish, foolish, greedy, self righteous, hypocrites?