We recently returned from a vacation trip to Utah, New
Mexico, and Texas to visit with family.
It may have seemed like we were gone a long time, but to us time by flew
by much too quickly. We didn’t get to
visit with half the people we would like to have seen.
We take a lot of flap for driving to our destinations
instead of flying. However, traveling to
our destinations serves as a destination in and of itself for us.
There are distinct advantages to driving. I think I’ve said this before. There is a lot more to see at ground level
instead of at 30,000 feet. We can stop
when we want. We eat what we want
instead of peanuts and pretzels. And we
can shop from a variety of stores instead of the highly overpriced Sky Mall
(which is supposed to be returning to seatbacks at an airline near you).
From its earliest days of business we have made Walmart a
stop of choice. They are easy to find
(the Rand-McNally Atlas always has an up-to-date address for all the Sam’s
Clubs and Walmarts in the country plus you can typically see them from highways
and freeways). Parking is generally
convenient. Store layouts are fairly
consistent. You can find just about
anything you need or want for your travels, especially if they are
supercenters. That is important if you
don’t want to spend all your time searching multiple stores for what you
want. By the way, we have discovered
that not all Walmart Supercenters are created equally. And, they have restrooms. Back to the restrooms in a minute. And, about 80% of the time you can find an
“associate” to help you find what you are looking for—that is if they aren’t on
their breaks.
Things have changed.
Shall I start with the restrooms? It used to be that you could walk into a
Walmart restroom and find it clean. I
swear they had restroom cleaning fairies that went in and cleaned them three or
four times an hour. In the last few
years I’ve noticed a significant decline in Walmart restroom cleanliness with
toilet paper strewn across floors, empty paper toilet seat cover dispensers,
paper towels on floors, motion-sensitive faucets that aren’t sensitive at all, and
dirty floors. I can’t speak for women’s
restrooms, but I know what makes men’s restroom floors dirty.
Now, I’m not saying that a retail store’s restrooms should
be operating room clean, but I would think that a bare minimum standard of
cleanliness should be maintained and it isn’t happening at a lot of Walmart
stores.
It used to be that just about every Walmart employee was
friendly and you could count on employees not texting or talking to their
friends on the phone while they were at the cash register. I guess I would expect the coffee clutch of
four or five cashiers that was discussing the newly purchased car or fancy hair
style to break up when 20 or 30 items start piling up on the conveyor belt to
the cash register. Now, I know there is
the whole issue of employee income at Walmart, and I do believe that opportunities
need to be given to employees to obtain merit increases. However, I join the growing ranks of those
who say that our men and women in the military deserve more than a Walmart
wage. That’s just a personal
opinion. You don’t have to take me to
task over the wage comment.
We’ve all seen the pictures of Walmart shoppers on social
media. They are the ones with the weird
hairdos and colors, pants down to the knees, boobs hanging out, and other
freaky things that are just too difficult for me to put into words. It’s getting worse. I noticed this in my very own Walmart the
other day and I had to ask myself this question. “Is this what I look like to others?”
I think the icing on the cake for me was when we stopped
during an early part of our journey this summer in the upper Midwest. An eighty-something woman collapsed to the
floor for no apparent reason. We
happened upon her just as she had hit the floor. I went to her aid and did all the things that
you are supposed to do when giving first aid.
(Check the scene—the scene is safe.
Check for breathing. Yep, she’s
breathing. Yada, yada, yada.) While there did not appear to be any visible
injury to the woman she was clearly incoherent.
In fact, at first she was unconscious.
Before long Walmart “associates” surrounded us as I cradled her head in
my hands. One employee ran off for a
pillow, which was helpful. A couple of
employees wanted to give the semi-conscious woman a drink of water. I guess they wanted her to choke to death or
something. And then the real kicker was
that none of the three employees I told to call 9-1-1 did so. To her credit, a store manager asked if I
knew first aid. I didn’t exactly say
“DUH!”, but I sure wanted to. Then a
nice young man representing their risk management operation secured the videos
of her falling and started gathering names and witness statements—from
everybody but me. In all fairness to the
risk management guy he got Susan’s name and our phone number. Meanwhile, a person representing the nursing
home where this woman was a resident showed up a half-hour after I had started
helping the woman. She called 9-1-1
while I continued to render aid and comfort the woman.
I spent the better part of an hour on the floor helping this
woman. Those who wanted to help would
have done something that would have killed her or at least seriously hampered
her recovery. Otherwise, nobody lifted a
finger to do anything to help. I don’t
know about anybody else but if somebody is helping a person who is in obvious
distress and told me to call 9-1-1 I’m pretty sure I’d do so.
When the paramedics arrived I gave them the particulars on
the woman and her status and they took over.
When I got up to leave not a soul bothered to say “thank
you, that was kind of you, jump in a lake” or anything.
I’m seriously wandering if Walmart is the store that it used
to be. I remember the early years of
Walmart when they took pride in advertising that their products were made in
America. They don’t do that
anymore. Yes, we live in a global
economy, but I thought that America was on the same globe as is China. Maybe I was wrong.
So, things have changed.
They’ve changed a lot.
I noticed something else on this last vacation trip. There is getting to be several more Target
stores out there. There aren’t as many
Target stores as there are Walmart stores, but you find them in larger cities
and there is getting to be more of them.
They have clean floors (even in the restrooms), are well-lit, and their
customers seem to cover more skin than Walmart customers. There doesn’t seem to be as many Target
employees as what Walmart has but when you ask for help you get it instead of a
shrug of the shoulders.
My loyalty is migrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment