Fly On the Walmart: Confessions of a Young Walmart Greeter

Kristin Ph.D. Mango

Description

A man who crapped his pants, an old lady who whacked an employee, a redneck arrest and more are all in one place in this book. Fly on the Walmart: Confessions of a Young Walmart Greeter contains numerous stories of the crazy and hilarious things Walmart customers do.

This book is not affiliated with the company of Walmart. So many other books talk about the company and the boring fiscal details. The customers and their antics are so much more interesting, and they are what this book talks about! Their real antics are revealed through the eyes of a young woman who saw these people every day as an employee and a fellow customer.

Sujets

• Humor

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456604295
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fly On the Walmart: Confessions of a Young Walmart Greeter
 
by
Kristin Mango
 


Copyright 2011 Kristin Mango,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0429-5
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
BEFORE WE BEGIN
I am Kristin Mango, and I was a twenty year old Walmart people greeter. In high school, I was an honors/AP student with an above 4.0 GPA. I was also an academic decathlete who won third place in overall score out of two hundred forty two decathletes in one of the toughest regions in the nation. I’m earning my bachelor’s degree about two years after graduating high school.
Now, because I am a Walmart greeter, many assume that I am a raging idiot, and some even let me know what they think of my intellect. I’ve found that casually mentioning that I’m a college senior will shut those people up. They’ll excuse you for holding such a position if you’re a student. After all, you’re trying to better yourself, and those are the only types of jobs within a student’s ability to attain.
This job has been truly humbling.
The following is the story of my life as a Walmart greeter. Some passages are generalizations of experiences working as a people greeter while others are specific stories about interesting and bizarre occurrences. Enjoy!
 
THE BEGINNING
My husband was working nights at a gas station, I was unemployed and living with him, and our wedding was one week away. I absolutely abhor being dependent on anyone, so being unemployed was driving me crazy. Burger King, nanny jobs, and banks are only a few places that received my resume. No bites.
While my husband was at work, I would fill out as many applications as possible. I worked only by the light of my computer screen since we were on a very tight budget.
I reminisced about my college days in Kentucky. The university I attended was surrounded by cornfields, and a college student had few places to go to hang out. My two best friends and I used to go to the Walmart to hang out, and the memories created there were some of my best. Walmart was the place I wanted to work, or so I thought.
At around midnight, I filled out the Walmart application, which took me about an hour to complete because of all the personality test questions. Walmart also requires that applicants pass a test in order to be considered for any position. I passed the test and said a few prayers that they would hire me.
My prayers were answered a mere nine hours later when I received a call from Walmart asking if I could show up for an interview the next day. On New Years’ Eve, four days after I submitted my application, I got my people greeter job offer.
 
RESPONSIBILITIES
Like many people, I erroneously believed that all a Walmart people greeter had to do was say “Welcome to Walmart” and, occasionally and by some mystical system, check receipts. This easy job is performed by old, retired geezers. Such an image has been popularized by Jeff Dunham’s Walter’s famous phrase, “Welcome to Walmart. Get your shit and get out.”
Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the job actually entailed a lot more responsibility. In addition to greeting each person as he or she enters and exits the store and checking receipts, I also had to pull out carts for people, help cart pushers guide the carts, clean trash out of the carts, scan items to be returned and give labels for the returns, maintain the scanner and printer, keep track of which power carts were fully charged, help old and disabled people move the carts in and out of their places, keep the floors well swept (and well dry mopped, too, when it was raining), place a sticker on items customers brought in, make sure cart wipes are always available, collect “go backs” from 36 registers, place returns back on shelves, cheerfully and respectfully deal with disgruntled and disrespectful customers, ensure people don’t smoke or bring alcohol into the store, and whatever else the supervisor told me to do. All for $48 to $60 per day.
Walmart is an excellent company to work for. They take care of their employees, take extra precautions to make sure their employees and customers are safe, and provide good benefits.
 
FICKLE FINGER
By my second day on the job, I discovered that Walmart, like many other institutions, changes its mind about the rules and procedures constantly. During my first day on the job, I was told to scan each item, place the label on the item, and print out extra generic labels in case the machine malfunctions. On the second day on the job, I was told to scan each item but not place the labels on the item, and not to print out extra generic labels unless I hide them well. The last rule came about because some people pick up items from the shelves, bring them to customer service, and ask for their money back for an item they never purchased. Someone that morning had stolen a general label from the man who worked before my shift, taken an item from a shelf, and taken it to customer service for a refund. Sometimes I marvel at the things people will do to get money that isn’t rightfully theirs.
Greeters are also required to stand during their entire shift. I was informed, however, that greeters in the garden center are allowed to sit. Later, they changed their mind about that, too, and one of the supervisors made me take away the stool greeters were sitting on.
 
WALMART BABY
It’s my second day on the job, and I was in the middle of one of our endless returns at the time. I heard what sounded like a combination of a moan and a scream coming from inside the front of the store. I jumped. By the time I looked toward where the noise came from, a crowd had formed near the customer service area. A girl of about 18 was bent over, clutching her gut.
“It hurts!” the girl screamed.
After a few moments, her poor boyfriend had come to the realization that his girlfriend was in labor with his child. Immediately, the boyfriend went into panic mode. He ran back and forth for a while before finally making it out the door to get the car. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered around the young woman who continued to scream.
 
CRAZY LADY
This is the story of how I got whacked by a little old white lady in a wheelchair.
It was one of my morning shifts when I had worked the night before, and I had only been working at Walmart for a month. I was going over someone’s beautiful baby when I heard I shrill old female voice say, “Help me with one of these carts over here.”
I smiled and hurried over to the old lady who was in a red power chair. I was going to compliment her on her beautiful blue knit blanket when she barked at me to help her into a Walmart electric cart. As I attempted to get out a proper cart for her, the crazy lady continually yelled at me, telling me that I was doing the job wrong. I had no idea that there was one right way to retrieve an electric cart.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“One month,” I replied.
“Oh, well,” she said curtly, “A month here is a day…wherever.”
I wondered if she had ever worked a real job in her life.
Finally, and with her “assistance,” I got the cart out and properly situated for crazy lady, who probably inspired the saying “bat out of hell.”
I was relieved when she left only for a moment until I realized that should would definitely be coming back to retrieve her power chair that she left at my door. Unnerved, my hands and voice were shaky for several minutes afterward.
Too soon, the woman returned with two giant bags stuffed with merchandise. I found out later that all the cashiers knew her as “Three Bags.” She refused to accept her own merchandise unless it was triple bagged in the giant bags and stuffed to the very top.
Not wanting to deal with the old woman, I tried to ignore her, hoping that she would just leave the Walmart cart anywhere. “Help me get my bags,” she croaked instead. Without a word, I started moving the two giant bags to the woman’s wheelchair. All the while, the old bat yelled at me and directed me on how to properly put the bags on her wheelchair. She wanted the bags to be placed in a larger bag she had, one handle of which was already around the head rest, and the bag I hadn’t picked up she wanted placed in the bag first.
“You just do whatever you want!” she yelled.
“I’m trying to help you, ma’am,” I told her as calmly as I could.
“No, you’re not! Oh! You’re an awful, awful girl!” she cursed me. Meanwhile, I was trying to pull the other too short handle over the head rest. Despite the fact that I was young and exercised every day, I had to strain to get the handle on; the old bag had insisted on the bags being too full to handle easily at all. I was pissed that she dared treat me like that when I was working much harder than necessary for her.
All of a sudden, the old lady started whacking me repeatedly on my hand!
“I would really appreciate if you would stop hitting me, ma’am,” I said.
The woman yelled more and called me more choice words. “I hope I never see you again!” the woman said.
“The feeling is mutual, ma’am,” I replied, finally getting the handle over. I quickly turned to my station without another word. Before she left, and after I greeted several customers who had just entered, the woman screamed insults at me. I tried to ignore her; the customers stared at her, puzzled, then back at me.
To my extreme embarrassment, I started bawling, and within minutes, it seemed all my fellow employees knew the story of how Kristin Mango received a visit from Three Bags and lived to cry about it.
 
WITCHES
It wasn’t long at all before I discovered that witches lived in Florida. It rains all the time in F