Walmart once prided itself on customer service. Blue-vested workers constantly approached and offered to help. These days, not so much.
I’ve been told operations like that still exist, at Ebensburg, Somerset, and other outposts. At the Richland monument to retail, not so much.
In the past I’ve had the unpleasant repeat experience of seeing empty shelves where cat litter should be. This was explained away as people buy a lot of it and I’d need to get there right after they unloaded the truck to get some of the precious stuff.
My first response was, since they seemed to be selling all they got, perhaps they should order more.
Second, I needed to know when the truck arrived, so I could plan my life around acquiring cat litter. Alas, that information was not available to the public. The cat died before Walmart got the cat litter supply chain sorted.
On another front, my wife and I try to patronize checkouts manned by humans, in an attempt to protect their jobs. One particularly surly checkout female was told point-blank by my wife she was trying to keep her employed. Responded the ungrateful tart, I wish they would fire me.
When that’s the attitude you bring to work, and project onto the customers, well, you should be fired.
The worker bees at Walmart now seemed to be concentrated on filling orders for pickup or delivery. The people who actually opt to shop in-person are treated as just so many roadblocks as they scurry about.
I’ve taken to ordering Walmart goods online and getting them delivered to my home, not by the local blue vests or independent contractors, but by traditional services such as FedEx, UPS, the postal service.
Monday, I ordered many things and, inexplicably, one of them was tabbed for store “curbside” pickup, a misnomer since there are zero curbs. In my case, also no parking space, or pickup, so far.
I tried to call the Richland Walmart, multiple times, and have yet to have the call answered. You painfully go through the phone tree, are transferred ostensibly to someone, and the phone rings a long time before a recorded message tells you tough luck, try again sometime. I got this same response for all options I tried, including just trying to get a store operator.
Remember what I said about customer service? Apparently non-existent.
The item in question, a pack of towels, was in-stock at the store, an increasingly rare phenomenon these days. But, I’ve ordered in-stock items in the past and it didn’t default to store pickup.
Regardless, instead of exploring the vagaries of an apparent change in the ordering process, I just submitted the order.
I was told the “curbside” order would be ready at some odd time, like 2:43 p.m. It was ready early, I found out in a later email, which meant exactly nothing.
Allow me to explain. I called a cousin to get the details about this pickup process. He told me to pack a lunch, one waits a LONG time for the goods to be wheeled out to the cars, which are parked in the rows of designated spaces.
Helpful hints in the email suggested better times to arrive to speed the process. I decided after 6 p.m. was best for me, and presumably them.
I arrived after 6, maybe 6:15, to find all the allotted spots filled with idling vehicles and some other vehicles circling like vultures waiting for an opening.
I drove to Tractor Supply to kill half an hour and returned to find no change. This prompted me to pull into a spot in an adjacent row so that I might talk to one of the workers delivering crates to a van.
I asked if going in myself would speed the process. He emphasized it would not. I then asked what sort of wait I was facing if I somehow was lucky enough to find a spot to pull into. I began with 45 minutes, an hour?
Responded the worker, at least that and probably longer.
I did the right thing and left. Supposedly one has four days to collect “curbside” orders.
Ironically, some of the items I ordered for traditional delivery will be on my front porch before I am able to retrieve my “curbside” item.
The emails, for what they are worth, indicate this service is available until 10 p.m. I guess I will go up again tonight, very late in their window, and hope all the other people have been serviced by them.
If not, I really don’t have a life, so I can take up residency in the parking lot in the off chance someone might be willing and able to bring a pack of towels to my car.
Pray for me.
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