It seems like a while since I've posted a Wal-mart Experience update, so I thought I'd take a moment and explain.  Since the baby's arrived, I think I've only been to Wal-mart twice.  I wrote about one of them, and I was so tired I completely forgot about the second one.  To be fair, it was pretty uneventful with relatively short lines and only a few stinky people.  I did walk down to Wal-mart today to pick up some low-carb lunch stuff and discovered something terribly interesting about a North Raleigh Walmart...

Since I was on the grocery side, I was looking for a lane in that section to go through.  Every lane was backed up into the main aisle, so Jim (my co-worker) and I headed down towards the other entrance to check out the lanes there.  We were able to walk straight up to a self-checkout and we were out in less than 5 minutes (including the walk to the far side and back).

I'm not sure this had anything to do with Wal-mart at all, since they obviously had enough open lanes to support the amount of customer traffic for that time of day.  It does point to my previous points about how much people are like sheep.  As always, follow this general rule:  If you see a large congregation of people, head in the opposite direction.

That advice would probably save your life in a zombie uprising.

Craig 6, Walmart Experience 1

...has been awesome.  I can't believe it has been so long since I made an entry.  A lot has happened since my last post but the main thing is I'M A DAD, so hopefully you can forgive the absense of posts.  I've only had a couple of sleepless nights and we've mostly offset that by sleeping during the day.  I've been off work since the July 14th and won't have to return until August 4th thanks to my very awesome boss.

We were in the hospital for almost a week and for two days of that stay or so, I was taking care of my wife and baby instead of just helping with the baby.  While it shouldn't come as a surprise, it never fails how things don't work out the way we expect them to.  We got home and I went back out for Elizabeth's pain medications, and fell asleep twice on the way home.  That's when I decided I had to either crash in bed or I'd wind up crashing into something.

I went to walmart yesterday.  I can't believe it but I've only had 1 bad experience with walmart out of 5 trips.  This is starting to confirm my suspicion that I'm letting a few bad experiences (plus my time employed with them) ruin my feelings about walmart.  Maybe they've taken steps to improve their customer service in this economic downturn.  I'm calling it Craig 4, Walmart Experience 1.

My son will be 2 weeks old on Sunday.  Wow time is flying.

 

I went to wal-mart this evening for groceries.  For the most part it was very uneventful, but I got lucky because the cashier closed her line after I'd already unloaded my groceries on the belt so everyone else behind me had to find another line.  That's at least 5 for the Walmart Experience, but that's also 5 for me since I didn't get screwed in the process.  That's a wash for a total of +0.

One minor thing that did annoy me a little but really wasn't such a big deal is they started restocking efforts at about 8:00 pm.  That means they drag all the pallets to the big aisles and work off the pallets to deliver food to the shelves.  This had the unfortunate effect of trapping customers along the wall of meat with no way to get back to the regular food aisles - since they blocked every single opening.

Now, I fully understand the need to have adequately stocked shelves.  I also realize Wal-mart is a 24 hour store, and never has a "closed" timeframe to restock like other grocery stores.  What I can't figure out is why they wouldn't shift restocking to hours when there are fewer customers in the store - say between midnight and 6:00 am.  I mean, if you've got to be open anyway, why not take advantage of the lull in the crowd and do your stocking when you won't inconvenience customers.

Again, it's just poor management.  My wife was with me and that helped make it not so annoying that it ruined my trip - it was just an observation.  Craig 3, Walmart 1.

I didn't realize I'd have so much to write about, but unfortunatly due to some issues with my 14 year old car and the fact my sick cat was out of wet food, I had to go to walmart again today.  I had to hunt for a parking spot that wasn't in the next county, but finally settled on the next county. 

I walked through the doors on the side closest to the automotive section (not the tire and lube entrance though) and tried to grab a cart...except they were all covered in something resembling filth.  I say resembling filth because I think filth was cleaner than what was on the carts.  The carts that weren't covered in what my wife and I refer to as "Fung" were all taunting me with their lopsided baskets and their broken, free-spinning wheels.

I finally found an acceptable cart and got my shopping done.  Except for an occasional customer who plows through an intersection without checking to see who's coming, there were no incidents.  I approached the checkouts closest to my exit, but lo and behold - ONLY THE SELF CHECKOUTS WERE OPEN.  That's right...no staffed checkout lanes to accomidate the people who can't handle the admittedly sometimes cantankerous technology.  The lines were naturally backed up to the merchandise aisles with customers pushing full carts trying to use the self checkouts.  I started walking...

Midway to the other entrance, I found a single cashier in the cigarrette section who was checking out about 6 customers each with full carts...I kept walking.

The other entrance was no different, except there were no people here.  There were plenty of self checkout lanes available, but I guess I just happened to find it empty.  It just goes to show you that adopting the herd mentality and falling in line behind others doesn't pay off.  Actually, I'm thinking that normally leads to a slaughterhouse...

Anyway, once I found the open checkout spot it was smooth sailing.  I don't understand walmart sometimes.  Why would they let customers endure long lines when other checkouts were available at the other end of the store?  Why would you have a total of 1 cashier on duty, and then only in the cigarrette section when you obviously have enough business - judging from the full parking lot - to justify having 3 or 4 more?

Was I terribly inconvenienced...no.  Did I wind up annoyed?  Well, from what you've read, you already know the answer is a resounding yes.  Nasty, broken carts + inadequate staffing + dumb customers + dodgy technology = +1 for Walmart Experience.

Craig 2, Walmart Experience 1

Tomorrow, they're supposed to release the opinion on the 2nd Amendment so I'll be posting some thoughts on a couple of interesting Supreme Court cases I've been watching. 

I walked down to Wal-mart today on my lunch break with my friend from work.  I returned a pair of jeans I bought a couple of weeks ago, which counts as interacting with the Wal-mart Experience Engine.  The return was quick and easy, despite not having a receipt.  There was initially a bit of a line, but someone noticed a line was stacking up and came up to the Customer Service Desk and broke the line down quickly.  They put the return money on a wal-mart gift card (perfectly acceptable since I didn't have my receipt) and I was on my way.

Craig 2, Wal-mart Experience 0

People who've followed my blog (or my conversations) know that I despise going to Wal-mart and would gladly choose Target whenever possible.  I've always stated "I'd rather pay a few pennies more at Target than have to deal with Wal-mart raising my blood pressure".

Unfortunatly, I don't live near a Target, and I can walk from my job to a Wal-mart during my lunch break so I find myself going to Wal-mart more often than I'd care to admit.  This got me thinking today - do I really hate Wal-mart that much, or am I letting a few bad experiences color my impression.  Surely I've had bad experiences with Target too?  Plus, with a baby on the way I'm going to probably start paying more attention to "a few pennies more".

Starting today, I'll be running a new feature called "Craig vs. the Walmart Experience".  It works like this:

Each time I go to Wal-mart, I'll write a brief entry on what, if anything, made my visit annoying or pleasant.  If I have a positive experience, that's 1 for me.  If I have a negative experience, that's 1 for the Walmart Experience. 

Please note, I'm not tracking whether Wal-mart is bad.   There are so many factors involved that I can't possibly comment about how bad Wal-mart is, except for when I worked at the one in Greenville...that was too bizarre.  I believe the Wal-mart Experience is a perfect storm of dumb customers, unmotivated employees, and insufficient staffing.  It has little to do with Wal-mart as a juggernaut, and much more to do with how individual stores are managed based on the guidance given to them by their home office.

I wanted to start today because, much like in windows solitare, I wanted to save my score while I was up.  Today's trip was pleasant because it was entirely uneventful.  I went through the self-checkout with a handful of items, I didn't have to stand in line because most of the other people were using the properly staffed checkout lanes, and there was no struggle with the self-checkout computer to get out of the store as intended.

Today's score Craig 1, Walmart Experience 0

I'm adding a link in the navigation section which will link back to this post.  The link will keep the running total, but for newcomers, they can click on the link to refer back to this post, where they'll find the rules and explanation.  I plan on running this for at least a year.  I believe I'll find justification for not going to Wal-mart anymore, but I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I broke my main cardinal rule last night:  Never shop at Wal-mart

Let me start by saying I don't have a problem with anyone who chooses to shop at Wal-mart.  There are a lot of people who have very passionate opinions on how Wal-mart has absolutely ruined small businesses with their super low prices (which gets somehow viewed as anti-competitive).  There are others who feel Wal-mart is just a monsterously notorious natural outgrowth of the general stores of old.  I see it like this:  My wife and I have cats...and we have Tommy.  Tommy is one of the biggest cats I've ever seen.  He eats as frequently and as much as he can, often nudging other cats out of the way (or absorbing them as needed).  Sometimes he really pisses you off by winding his way around your legs as you come out the door (probably so you'll fall and he can eat you too)...but our yard wouldn't be the same without him.

We actually had a relatively nice experience at Wal-mart, and their baby registry process is much easier than most of the other places we've visited.  We wouldn't have had to register at Wal-mart at all if my people on the coast had closer access to a Target or Babies'R'Us (management types take note).  So we get done with that, get our groceries and head to the checkout where I see about 400 people grouped together in the self checkout lanes, and two other cashiers in the entire store handling the other 400 people who have too much stuff to bother with the self checkout lanes.

I fall into the latter category, so I'm standing in line and the cashier looks up at me and goes "Sir, I'm closing".

Now, I realize walmart is kinda a pioneer when it comes to self checkout lanes.  So far in my experience, only Food Lion does a better job with letting you pay the store full price to receive no customer service.  And in my experience, only about half the people who use the self checkout lanes are too stupid to be breathing, much less shopping, so it's usually quicker and more convenient for me to check out myself (and possibly the stupid person in front of me who is taking too long to figure out what the computer means when it audibly says "please scan your item").

It ceases to be convenient when you use the availability of self checkout to justify eliminating open checkout lanes and cashiers who know how to handle quirky items or if you've got more items than the micronized self checkout lanes can handle.  Maybe Wal-mart's master plan is to eliminate cashiers entirely.  Maybe we can replace the stock clerks with robotic forklifts?  Ooo, how about I just email Wal-mart and tell them what I think I need, and then drive a truck through the store where they dump in whatever they decide I get after surrendering my wallet at the back gates.

Sometimes I forget why I stopped shopping at Wal-mart.  It's nice to see Wal-mart going that extra mile to remind me of just how much shopping there sucks.