My WallyWorld "mishap"

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07-13-2010, 07:00 AM

#211

pstoner

Senior Member

Join Date: Mar 2010

Location: Solon, Iowa

Posts: 860

Agreed! It's not just one store, one "named" store, it is customer service everywhere. I can't believe the way the economy has changed the way our "services" are handled. It's not just Wal-Mart, DQ, LQS, it's everywhere...why has our mentality changed to...I'm just here to get a check..and I don't really care..have you watched the commercial for McDonalds and the customer service employee says that it's his "my time" when a customer is complaining and it's Not His Fault...

It's become a social issue.

I am sorry if I have said something that offends someone. That wasn't my intentions, I was making a point that our society has changed it's idea of customer service

07-13-2010, 07:04 AM

#212

PuffinGin

Senior Member

Join Date: Nov 2007

Location: Minnesota USA

Posts: 493

Quote:

Originally Posted by OdessaQuilts

Patrice, I certainly understand your point and I agree with you, up to a point. However, when I posted my frustration, I did not "automatically assumes the every location is the same". I simply was so very frustrated that I just could not hold it inside any longer. To do so would have been detrimental to my health.

Many of the members here look upon this board as a friendly place to share, chat, and yes, even vent our frustrations. It's like having a neighbor to chat with over the back fence. When I made the original post, it was nearly 36 hours after the incident and I was still furious with the lack of common courtesy I experienced. I did not ask for "solutions", although I did ask if "... this [is] typical of your fabric department experiences in Wally World???" I have noticed that there have been others who have posted that my experience is NOT typical of their fabric department experiences there. Sadly, that may be because too many of the WalMart stores have discontinued their fabric department altogether. Even more unfortunate is the number of posts that confirm poor treatment at WalMart fabric departments all over the country.

I must tell you, this thread has been quite cathartic for me. I have laughed -- hard -- at some of the solutions others have suggested. They are very creative ways to make a point without "going postal" at the place. It has reaffirmed my feeling that humans are generally decent people. And that quilters in particular have incredibly creative solutions to most anything that comes our way. Most of these solutions would be acceptable ways to make the point that Customer Service SHOULD BE #1. It DOES bring people back to your store. .....

Thoughtful, very well-stated reply, Odessa. I too appreciate Patrice's comments. However, your points about needing to vent on issues that are still with you after a few days as a cathartic, solution-seeking outlet are so true. I can think of several instances where I felt wronged and did nothing about it (not related to fabric/quilting but once to medical records having been "borrowed" without my permission.knowledge from my official file and data not being available when I came in for appointment w/ my doctor to discuss said condition). I felt much better when I finally talked about it with my book group members when we wandered into talking about our experiences with the health care system.
BTW, I also know that we shared good experiences as well during that discussion.

07-13-2010, 07:11 AM

#213

catmcclure

Super Member

Join Date: Jun 2010

Location: Bay Area near San Francisco

Posts: 1,213

Quote:

Originally Posted by pstoner

I substitute teach at a local high school. Ask any school teacher about this and they will probably say that it's endemic to our culture. I would estimate that at least one-third (possibly more) of the students are not there to learn anything, haven't any interest in learning anything, and only want to socialize with their friends, go to the football games and parties, etc. They expect to be passed on to the next grade with little or no effort.

We allow these young people to develop extremely bad work habits and ethics for twelve years and then turn them loose on the public working for places like WalMart and then we want to complain because they aren't polite, enthusiastic, helpful and knowledgeable. We need to get real. This situation is only going to continue to go downhill until the schools and parents get a wakeup call.

07-13-2010, 07:39 AM

#214

badger

Member

Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: North Fl.

Posts: 33

Catmcclure sure hit the nail on the head. Our whole culture has a problem. Kids are taught by newspapers, movies, tv etc. as they grow up, that they do not have to bother with math, english, history etc., just learn how to hit, throw or kick a ball and they can make millions. Aren't you sick of picking up a paper and reading that someone just quit his twenty million job because someone else on the team was offered fifty million? And we wonder why they have the attitudes that they do. Sickening!

07-13-2010, 08:32 AM

#215

BATmama

Member

Join Date: Mar 2010

Location: Texas USA

Posts: 80

I agree with Catmcclure. I also beleive that we can't lay all the blame on the schools. We parents need to start teaching our children early. My son just turned 5. He gets a dollar for each year of his age for an allowance. He receives 1/2 in change for his bank (savings) and the other 1/2 for trips to Wal-Mart. But he has to earn this each week. He has jobs like picking up toys, staying quite in Sunday school and helping to fold laundry etc. (He folds wash cloths.) He's been doing this for nearly two years now. We feel that he will be a better man someday if he doesn't expect to have everything given to him. This is just my opinion I don't want to start anything.

07-13-2010, 10:05 AM

#216

pstoner

Senior Member

Join Date: Mar 2010

Location: Solon, Iowa

Posts: 860

Quote:

Originally Posted by BATmama

Whole heartedly agreed. Someone sent me an email about the differences between high school in 1957 and 2007 and I had to agree with most of what was said.

07-13-2010, 10:47 AM

#217

patricej

Administrator

Join Date: Nov 2006

Location: Southeast Georgia, USA

Posts: 9,109

Quote:

Originally Posted by PuffinGin

Many of the members here look upon this board as a friendly place to share, chat, and yes, even vent our frustrations. It's like having a neighbor to chat with over the back fence.

i absolutely understand the need to vent in a supportive environment. any one of my friends here in non-cyberspace can testify to the fact that i am a championship venter. walls melt when i'm on a tear.

however, that's in the privacy of my "real world".

our back fence here at the board is very much in the public eye. thousands of people read our posts - not just the people we know we're sharing with. everything we say and do here can have a ripple effect none of us could predict. i know of at least one case in which a rant here about a commercial product was so devastating to an employee of the company that she nearly quit her job - even though she had personally been working very hard to solve the problem. do you want to be responsible for a thing like that? do you want to cause that kind of humiliation, heartache and despair for a person who happens to work at walmart but not the one(s) you don't like?

what we say and do here reflects on the entire membership and the impression we create for our unseen audience.

i beg you to remember that.

07-13-2010, 11:53 AM

#218

betlinsmom

Senior Member

Join Date: Feb 2008

Posts: 792

I have been blessed to make friends at each Walmart I have ever shopped in. They are most always understaffed but as long as they let me hang around and look and touch the fabrics I dont mind waiting for someone to show up to cut my fabric. I have gone to Walmart in the midnite hours and sometimes at 3 or 4 am and there was no designated person to work Fabrics so I just walked around with my fabric choices and asked who ever I saw if they could get someone to cut fabric for me. They always found someone to help me and lots of times it was some guy who dint know anything about fabric so I coached him and actually this happened often enough that the manager s had instructed that in such instances the employees should cut slightly more for us than what we asked because it was not cut accurately. I think this is great because I can always use a bit of extra fabric!! Honestly my beef with walmart is on the corporate level. Local employess dont make the decision to ignore what customers want or need.Corporate Wal mart has gotten too big for their breeches.

07-13-2010, 12:26 PM

#219

grannym37

Member

Join Date: Aug 2009

Posts: 30

next time get on the phone and tell them you are going to measure your own fabric. but you are not sure you well get it right. Help comes in a hurry

07-13-2010, 12:58 PM

#220

marla

Super Member

Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Charleston, SC

Posts: 1,640

Perhaps it is the area you are in. While in MI and in a Walmart, a customer behind me was angry as the customer before me was asking for a price quote. The customer behind me was very irrate because she had to be somewhere and was late and everyone was holding her up, she said. I felt bad for the checkout gal to have to bear it. Another time, in the same state and area, a customer pushed me out of the way cuz she wanted to be first. (In a hurry, ya know). Perhaps the gal with a cart was upset that she almost hit someone with her cart? Whose to know what her face and feelings are.
When I can't find something in the large stores, I find someone to ask for help. Kindness has to begin somewhere.I hope you feel better and find your fabric.
Sorry to put in my 2 cents. In SC I am always treated well and always with a smile and courtesy at Walmarts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OdessaQuilts

Yesterday I had to stop at my local Wal-Mart for some things. While I was there, I stopped at the fabric counter to pick up some basic WOW cottons. Well, as I came around the end of one aisle, the girl from the department comes barrelling around from the other side and nearly runs me and another customer over with her enormous cart. With a surly look on her face, she managed to give the other woman a look that could kill and the customer moved. She then went to re-stock shelves or something.

So I go up to the cutting counter, ring the bell and wait.

And wait.

And ring the bell again.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

And wait.

And ring the bell again ....

well, you get the picture. After nearly 7 minutes of this behavior, I pull out a scrap of paper from my purse and write a note. It said something to the effect of "This is typical. I have stood here for over 5 minutes, periodically ringing the bell, to have no one show up and wait on me. My time is valuable and I have no more time to waste today. It's a shame you don't find this department important enough to staff it adequately. It's clear that you don't care about your customers." I left it pinned to the top bolt of fabric I was considering purchasing.

What's really maddening is that in the next department over (menswear, across the aisle), there was a manager telling 2 employees to go and do a "good floor mopping" in another area of the store. They clearly saw me standing there, they heard the bell ringing. But none of them were apparently capable of helping someone in the fabric department.

Is this typical of your fabric department experiences in Wally World??? I'm so frustrated and incredibly dissapointed with my treatment. In hindsight I should have left my name and phone number on the note, but I was so exasperated at that point that I couldn't see straight, let alone think straight!