Walmart is so commercialized they really don't care too much about their costumers. I personally like to shop at the smaller shops because A you'll get treated nicer, B the quality is probably going to be better, and C because I'd rather support a small business.
Walmart treats their employees very poorly. There have been massive lawsuits related to unpaid overtime, discrimination against women and minorities, and other nasty business. They offer overtime one week of a pay period, then cut the employee's hours the second week of the pay period so they don't have to pay the overtime.
I have noticed the same thing with my local Walmart. Some employees are friendly, but for the most part the employees look like they hate their job so much. You try to have a conversation with them and they kind of just blow it off or answer half-heartedly. It is understandable to have bad days, but it looks like their bad days are every day. I've had one employee get mad at me and my friends because we were laughing in the kids department. There were some cute toys and we were just having a good time but she was angry. Another employee got mad at me and my friends because we were laughing in the make up aisle. She thought we were opening the make up even though we weren't even touching it. We had been laughing because one of my friends said something funny. Walmart has some very interesting people there... but you can't really beat the prices.
I've never really had a problem at our Wal-Mart. They are not overly friendly but they are helpful if we ask for something or where something is. I love shopping at Wal-Mart. It is our go to store.
I must be lucky to have a good Walmart. I never have to stand in line to long. An employee went out of his way to try to find a product that I was looking for that they ended up not having. Only quarrels is it is hard to find an employee on the floor when you need help.
Think about the people who work at Walmart.... then go back to thinking about your issue. Do you see the correlation? People of higher social class, higher education, higher standards, etc.... do not work at Walmart. I am NOT saying that the people that work at Walmart are all low class, poor, uneducated and therefore bad people. But let's get real, people gets jobs that fit their lives. Large retail stores such as Walmart are usually entry level positions, available to almost anyone.... which may reflect on other things about that person.
Being a prior Wal-Mart worker I can tell you horror stories of some of the things management does to employees. Few people know this because walmart is so "customer service" promoting but the workers are actually punished for helping customers. By that I mean there is a set quota for all employees that x amount of stuff is to be done during their shift. If you bust your chops you can make the quota. If you help customers you can not make your quota. If you don't make quota you can be written up. Okay maybe not all employees you do have service desk and cashiers (they have a scan per minute) and managers run around doing their stuff, but the bulk of people that are around when you need something are people stocking. They may just not be the freindly sort, but they may have been before Wally got ahold of them. In order for you to actually not get in trouble for helping customers you have to go see the store manager and explain that you were helping customers and that is why you couldn't get everything done and you could still get wrote up for it! I also know they have cut back as much as they can and are basically running skeleton crews in most stores now. This places even more work on each employee there. I always tried to help when asked a question, but will admit there were times I just pointed people in the right general direction. This is supposedly a no no during training, but you physically can't do it all. You accumulate points and after you hit a certain number of points you have a manditory day off to "think" about whether or not you want to work there. After that it is termination. Wal-Mart is the most stressful job I ever had. I hung in there 5 years really hated leaving my 'family' there, but my nerves and body couldn't handle it any longer. ohh and btrato it isn't super easy getting a job at Walmart. You have several steps to the highering process and usually have to know someone that works in the store you are trying for just to get hired. You would think after all the time and effort that goes into hiring they would try to keep their employees , but alas, they do not they just rehire and retrain a whole new batch.
The local employees at mine can be one way or the other. So it really depends on what they are doing and how they have been doing that day. When they just arrived, though, they are generally very nice.
