Fly On the Walmart: Confessions of a Young Walmart Greeter. Kristin Ph.D. Mango
me with his presence again.
“What’s your name, beautiful?” he asked.
I said nothing.
The genius decided to try to read my name tag. “Christian,” he said.
Close enough, I thought, but I said nothing.
“Hey, Christian,” he said again, grabbing his friend’s phone. “How about your number, beautiful?”
“Sorry,” I said, showing him my ring. “I’m married.”
“Oh, so your husband doesn’t allow you to be friends with other guys?” he said.
“No, I have friends who are guys,” I said. “I just would never cheat on my husband.”
“You just won’t date black guys,” the man insisted, storming off.
WINDOWS OF THE SOUL
Perhaps the most heart breaking part of the job was seeing obviously abused women come into the store. I had no proof of who was abusing them, and I had no idea what to do for them. Some had red rings around their eyes; others already had black eyes. Most had been crying but smiled and acted cheerful to hide their tears. Most of these women came in the store alone. One, however, brought her child with her, and she affected me the most.
The woman was stunning in a simple, pure way. She had black, blood-shot eyes, and she held her daughter close before placing her in the cart seat. Even then, the woman maintained closeness with her child.
“Hello, how are you doing?” I asked.
“Good,” she replied with a smile.
Her daughter said nothing.
EPIC
Few customers looked at me today, despite my greeting them cheerfully. Those who did take the effort to look at me, however, complimented me on how beautiful my smile was. I marveled at how people admire the smiles of those who are closest to tears.
One woman I greeted with my usual “Hello! How are you?” and received the response “Eww. That trash can really stinks!”
Later, I was confronted by a grinning man who was probably in his late forties. “You are the best greeter,” he said.
I thanked him, smiling.
“It’s so nice to come in here and see someone smiling,” he continued. “So many people who work here, you ask them a question and they act like you have two heads.”
I wanted to tell him about some of the customers we employees have to deal with every day who drive us to that but decided against it. “I’m sorry,” I told him instead.
“But you know the store manager, Bill?” he asked. I told him I did. “I know him; he’s a good friend of mine! I’m going to see him tomorrow. I’ll tell him about you then, and tell him what a wonderful greeter you are.”
I love karma sometimes.
FLIRTATIOUS SHORT STUFF
After a couple weeks, guys stopped hitting on me so much. I figured out what triggered it. I stopped wearing makeup, wore my hair up in a simple pony tail, reserved the smiling I had for other customers from young men, and played with my wedding ring so as to call attention to it. All these measures combined were very effective.
But one day, it happened again. This time, however, I liked it so much that I even told my husband about it.
“Hey, honey,” I said when I got home that night, “another guy hit on me at work today. You want to hear about him?”
My husband sighed. “Yes, Kristin, I really want to hear about the guy who hit on my wife.”
I giggled. “Trust me, you want to hear about this one. He was so cute! He had dark, curly hair; big, dark eyes; he was about two feet tall— “
“Ah, a midget,” my husband interrupted.
“And about eighteen months old!”
DOSE OF ADRENALINE
After a month on the job and not one attempted theft, I began to believe that theft very rarely, if ever, occurred. It has happened over the course of a month that people protested or ignored me when I asked for their receipt, and they had paid for the items. So when a man pushing a shopping cart with five large camping items and no Walmart bags ignored my requests for a receipt, I did not think much of it. Some people had a difficult time hearing my soprano voice, especially over the noise of the busy Friday afternoon store activity.
A sympathetic customer tapped the man on the shoulder just outside the door and told the man that I was trying to get his attention. The man stopped and looked at me as I hurried over.
“I’m sorry, sir, but can I see your receipt?” I asked.
“Of course,” the man said cheerfully as he searched through his wallet, then his pockets, producing no receipt.
“You know,” he said, “I think the cashier still has my receipt. I’ll be right back.”
He pushed the cart, with me following, a little past the entrance door, on the side of the building out of my line of sight. When he walked back into the store, I brought the cart by me at the greeter station. Naïve, I expected the man to return momentarily, but after fifteen minutes, I realized I had probably stopped my first thief. I could feel my adrenaline rising. I told a fellow employee what happened, and he took the merchandise back to customer service for me. It felt like the word spread quickly after that that the new girl had caught a thief.
The second theft occurred only a couple hours later. This time, I was ready and still on an adrenaline high from my first catch. Interestingly, the second theft was almost a copy of the first.
ANOTHER DOSE OF ADRENALINE
About two hours after I caught my first thief, my second thief came along—a thirty something year old man carting himself out in an electric cart. The basket of the power cart contained an assortment of groceries. Obviously, I had to ask for his receipt, but he ignored me. As with the first thief, another customer tapped the man on his shoulder so that I could catch him. After telling him that I stopped him because I needed to see his receipt, he cheerfully told me that he would be happy to show me his receipt. He sifted through the groceries but could not find the receipt. A search through his pockets and wallet yielded no receipt either, just like with the first thief. Again, the man told me he had to go back inside the store. His “buddy” had the receipt. Ten minutes later, the man still hadn’t returned, and I caught sight of a manager.
“I think a man is trying to steal some merchandise,” I told her.
“The camping equipment? Yeah, I know about that,” she replied in a “don’t-toot-your-own-horn” tone of voice.
That’s old news, I thought with a smile, I’m on to the next thief now.
“No, another guy,” I said and described the man to her.
The manager left in search of the man I had described. While on break, the manager called me to talk. Apparently, the man in the wheelchair, just as I suspected he would, waited a while before attempting to leave through the other door where the other greeter also stopped him. Luckily, two other employees were nearby and forced the man to go through a checkout line, all the while protesting that he had paid for the items.
Meanwhile, his friend snuck into the back “employees