Okay, I understand. Walmart is great. It’s wonderful. It’s awesome.
Now, will that shut you Wal-bots up for a second?
Not everybody likes Walmart. I’m not part of the left-wing “Oh Walmart is a big company and therefore evil” group. In fact, the fact that the left hates Walmart kinda makes me on Walmart’s side.
The thing I don’t like about Walmart is … well, how much time you got?
Tell you what. Let’s just focus on my latest encounter with Mr. Yellow Happy Face Discounter.
A couple of weeks ago, on June 15 to be exact, I decided that I wanted to move a computer from the living room, where it was supposed to be serving as a media server (I never used it as such, though), into the bedroom, where it could be a desktop computer. Only, I needed a desk.
I didn’t want to spend a lot. Just something simple to stick in the corner and hold my desktop computer. So, I went online and found that one of the Walmart stores in Columbus had a sub-$50 desk in stock.
“Okay, Self,” I said to myself, “I can go ahead and order it and pay for it online, then pick it up later. It’ll be there waiting on me.”
“Brilliant plan, Self,” I then said to myself.
So, I did. At least, I did the first two things: I ordered it and paid for it online.
After a couple of hours, I decided to meet someone for lunch, called her, and we met at a restaurant near that Walmart. But then, Walmart decided to be Walmart.
As I approached the restaurant, at 12:57 PM, I got a text from Walmart. Turns out the desk wasn’t in stock.
Great. There’s more than one Walmart around, so after lunch I’d run to another one and see if they have it. Totally not what I had planned to do, but hey, I’ve had worse days, right?
After lunch, I went to several Walmarts and, sure enough, found one in stock, bought it, took it home, and put it together.
As soon as I had finished and set the computer up, I opened email and read the email they sent along with the text. They didn’t cancel the order. No, they were gonna ship another one from the warehouse. Not point me to a nearby Walmart with the desk in stock. No, they’d have a desk for me in 3-6 days to pick up.
So, I went online to cancel the order. There was no “cancel” option. I wrote them. They told me that it was too late to cancel, and that the desk was coming, come hell or high water. They didn’t exactly say it like that, but that’s what it meant.
Two days later, I got notice the desk I didn’t want had shipped. Two days after that, I was notified that it was ready for me to pick up. And, they warned me:
Any items that are not picked up by the date specified above (July 3) will be cancelled and a refund made to your original method of payment.
Which is what I wanted to start with.
So, it’s still sitting at the Walmart, taking up space, awaiting me to pick it up. And, tomorrow, when I don’t pick it up, they’ll return it, and eventually give me my money back.
That’ll teach me to buy from Walmart.
No, really.
I hate Walmart, too. Mostly because of the traffic congestion they create, despite the fact that there’s one every five miles or so around here, and the fact that the newest one in my area is maybe a year old and it already looks like parts of Detroit. Or the way they seem to draw out some really, uh, interesting characters.
But the real kicker is that they’re not even actually cheaper a lot of the time. With club cards and sales, my local grocery stores are usually a better bet, and for most everything else, I’ve got Amazon Prime.
i like walmart. walmart brings things to small towns in a variety and at a price not possible before walmart. i like small towns. i have chosen to live in small cities and towns since finishing my surgical residency. is walmart perfect? nope.
do i shop exclusively at walmart? nope.
is my life better because walmart chose to come to this town? yes.
@1 i don’t have one”every five miles” more like 25 miles. a couple of low end grocers are cheaper on commodities and house brands. the thing is, if you took them away, walmart can pick up the slack. take walmart away and i got nothin’. i’ve got amazon prime, too. guess what? they aren’t perfect either.
basil, you got your table, at your price and all you need to do is not pick up the other. i had a similar experience at lowes. they tried to make me happy and did.
It seems that each year Wal-Mart’s slave labor suppliers produce goods that are even MORE shoddy. I prize products bought there a decade ago because they actually function. Much like Winston wandering the Proletariat areas looking for razor blades, I foresee the day that yard sales will be the only source of reliable, safe household goods. I have no use for Wal-Mart.
Well seeing as no real American shops at target, and k-mart is just a sears store with even less sales people, Walmart has become the defacto store for items that can’t wait for shipping. Things like $5 movies and those little keychain things made in China. Besides, where else can you see a fat woman in Spandex and a man in a bra, without having to pay a cover?
Just got back from a Walmart. I think that every single person in there but me, maybe three other people, and a few of the staff, live their lives completely immersed in government. Social Security, housing, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, foster homes, nursing homes, subsidized municipal transportation, tax breaks from the town TO Walmart….
These people are so completely swallowed up in the twilight world of government benefits that they would never, ever even expect to be able to survive without it. That’s why they consider our existence to be an actual threat to theirs.
Hey you kids! Get off my lawn. No need to thank me as it needed to be said. http://youtu.be/z7X2_V60YK8
I’ve been in a Walmart maybe 5 times in 50 years and yet I have the exact same kind of experiences in just about every store on the planet. The problem isn’t Walmart, it’s the people who work there and everywhere else.
Went to
WalmartHome Depot and bought 2 roles of what I thought was C L E A R 6 mil plastic. big, heavy boxes, $98 each.Take one box out of van, inside, open box to use the C L E A R plastic and it in fact is
African Americanblack plastic.Take box back, “I need to exchange this because you people don’t feel the need to segregate your
African Americanblack plastic, and the tiny little rectangle that saysAfrican Americanblack is hard to see when you assume that the whole pile, in identicle boxes is in fact, what the sign says it is.”“you can’t exchange it, you have to return it”
“why, wtf is the difference?”
“For inventory purposes. Do you have the receipt”?
“No, I wasn’t planning on returning a box of plastic, here’s the card I used to buy it”
“It’s not on there”
“yes it is!”
“NO, it isn’t!”
FINE, give me store credit and I’ll go buy it, AGAIN”
“Do you have an ID?”
O_O
so, she hands me the store credit and it’s for……$98
Too bad when I bought it, less than 24 hours earlier, it was $98 plus 6.25% T A X
I said…wtf, to another future rocket scientist, she did something or other to the store credit and 30 or so minutes after I arrived, I walked out with box #3
So I’m now the proud owner of 2 big boxes of what is clearly labeled Creepy Ass Clear Plastic.
Stupid me, just because the box says it’s clear, doesn’t mean it is and sure enough, inside one box was
African Americanblack plastic.W
T
F
Went back for a THIRD time, showed the different person that the clear plastic was in fact
African Americanblack plastic, she said“ok, just go get another one”
No, I’m not making this up
@7. Your experience was not unique!
@4 Ok, alright…. I am TOO a real American!!
I love Target. I LOVE Target. It is the best place to buy practically everything. It has big wide aisles (ones you don’t have to wait your turn to walk down), it is CLEAN and organized and has fun, interesting merchandise…and if you watch prices…you can get much better stuff for much better prices than Walmart.
I have been called the Target Queen. I know their basic plan for merchandise markdowns and can usually get what I want for what I want to pay.
I love Target.
I usually avoid Walmart at all costs. Mostly because they are the OPPOSITE of Target.
@2 I live in a suburb of a large city, however, with lots of shopping choices. If I lived in a small town, I would certainly prefer Walmart to nothing.
But I would make a pilgrimage to Target as often as my circumstances allowed.
Did I say that I LOVE Target?
If any of you need something at Target just let me know. I’ll pick it up for you. 🙂
@10 – This is just a trick to pocket the 5% REDcard discount on all those “doing you a favor” purchases, isn’t it? 🙂
I stopped buying from WalMart 10 years ago when I found out they no longer care where something was made and make things cheap by paying their employees less. I don’t care what the excuse is, I gladly pay more from a small or family operation who treats employees better and makes a lot less profits. This kind of business is killing the nation! But the real fault is citizens stupid enough to buy things cheap without regard to how the laborers who make it are treated – like in China where they are treated like slaves.