Devil Labelers, Bitter Spinsters, and Greeters who want to end it all...

Yesterday I had to take back the last batch of baby stuff that we had gotten at the shower and couldn't use. I had put it off as long as i could and now it was time for the inevitable. I hate taking stuff back to walmart. It's a pain and a hassle and I've never had a good experience with it. Even when I do manage to accomplish taking back items without incident the people that you have to deal with are never nice. Greeters, who never seem to greet and customer service who is frankly not that 'customer' or 'service' oriented.

It used to be a simple process. You took the items in, the greeter begrudgingly gave you a yellow smiley sticker to prove that you hadn't just picked the item off the shelf...the utmost in anti-theft protection... Then you took your sticker and item to customer service and they scanned it and gave you back sweet cash in the form of a walmart gift card.

Now however they have a new system. The greeter has to take each item, scan it with a machine and print out a label/sticker thingy. This presents problems on so many levels. First of all the greeter (who wasn't too happy when all he had to do was hand you the sticker), inevitably is not sure how the machine that spits out the label/sticker thingy works. He tries scanning things different ways, he tried pushing different buttons, he tries shaking the friggin' thing...finally it laughs in computer language and gives him a sticker...except UH OH the label says "$0.00". FREAK. Now he must start all over...

I don't blame the greeters per say. In my opinion walmart as a whole is screwing the process up. I mean seriously if I was in management and looking for someone to run complicated label/sticker machinery would I pick my employees who were 85? Probably not. My grandparent's generation (God bless their old hearts) did not grow up with computers. In fact I'd bet its safe to say that most of that age group despises computers and wants nothing to do with them. So really, seriously walmart, why did you pick the "age advanced" group of employees to run the brand new labeler that is inevitably out to get them.

And while we're at it wouldn't greeters be the first line of defense for a shoplifter? I mean you're running out the door with your stolen 'My Name is Earl' dvd and really what is the greeter to do? Run after you? Knock you down? Trip you with their cane perhaps? I don't know, maybe walmart has given this more thought than I'm giving them credit for. Maybe one of the handicapped electric wheelchairs is actually equipped with James Bond type accessories that the greeter can turn on and then he would have a fighting chance...I mean basically you don't want to get over by one of those electric carts...it hurts.

Now in the greeter's defense I had a crap-load of stuff to return. Because it is such a very big hassle I had put it off and just kept putting things Cooper couldn't use or had grown too big for in one rubbermaid container. So there was like a thousand little things... The greeter looked in the tub, looked and me and *sighed*. I felt kind of bad for the old guy...

We started the long process of going through each item. I would pick it up (so he didn't have to bend over), he would scan/push/shake until it gave him a sticky label and then we'd start all over with something else. Meanwhile Cooper was starting to freak out. He was looking around warily like why am I in a cart and not moving? Who is this old guy and why does he have a crazy look in his eyes like he wants to run his electric cart right through the customer service desk and end it all? And why do strange people keep stopping to stare at me and ask how old that "little girl" is? (I swear Cooper, I'll never dress you in the green onesie with stars again. I thought it was metro but I guess not).

Maybe it was because Cooper was fussy. Maybe it was because of the sheer volume of playtex nipples that i was returning or maybe it was just that he gave up and decided no job was worth this, but whatever the reason he finally said the devil labeler had "quit" and he would just explain to customer service why half of my items weren't marked.

We made our way to customer service. Ugh, "customer disservice". Methodically she started scanning the items with her gun zapper all the while muttering about how she hates baby showers and the fact that half of the crap always gets returned and makes her job harder, blah blah, service with a smile, blah. And I wanted to say "look I'm sorry I'm inconveniencing you by asking you to do your job but I'm not going to keep a thousand vent air nipples when I'm clearing using playtex drop ins"...not that she would know what any of this meant because I'm pretty sure by her attitude she must have been a bitter spinster...

One of the items wouldn't scan. "Oh sorry, I said apologetically, that may have come from another store, these were gifts so I wasn't sure." She answered with "probably the dollar store". "Okaaay" I thought, that was weird. Then something else wouldn't scan. She handed it back, "this came from the dollar store too". What? Seriously? Finally after about 400 things that scanned correctly we were on the last item. It wouldn't scan. She looked at me and said, "this definitely looks like it came from the dollar store". Okay I have nothing against the dollar store, I love it, I do! But ALL of my baby shower gifts did not come from the dollar store and I thought that was a really, really crappy way of trying to insult someone. I mean seriously walmart girl, are you insulting me from getting a present from the dollar store? You scan things for a living. Are we really that different?! I think not.

After she handed me my giftcard she proceeded to say what sounded like "I have 2 returns left on my social security number". I had heard about this happening. It happened to my aunt. Apparently after you return so many things to walmart then they ban you and you aren't allowed to return anything else...Oh darn, I guess I'm on my way to being black listed from walmart's customer service...

For this I say, I'll just take my business to the dollar store.