The Wal-Mart Greeter

Have you ever thought of working for Wal-Mart? On of my best friends and human resource mentors, Debbie, and I would always joke about leaving HR and becoming the greeter at Wal-Mart. They have the best job! Except, arguably, during this time of year. But they get to laugh and smile at all the babies, hand out carts to shoppers, smile at the millions of lonely people that walk through their doors and basically - greet people.

Debbie & I would be fed up with dealing with the employee that didn't bother to turn his timesheet in but wanted HR to cut him a check yesterday; or want to strangle the manager who wanted to change her favorite RN to a PRN status from full-time for the fifth time in as many months - "just so she can get the season bonus rate"; or be just plain tired of dealing with the droves of people come in to fill out an application wearing only flip-flops and shorts - all while asking for a pen! So we decided that we should be the greeters at Wal-Mart.

Today I remembered why I didn't choose that career path. While the holidays are a great time of year - they are also very stressful. Money is tight - this year especially; time is extremely limited and retail shopping is a cut-throat business, not for the weak on foot. Wal-Mart, among only a few other places, is a place I truly do not desire to be during peak holiday shopping hours. However - what could be wrong with going on a Tuesday afternoon?

Boy, I really am not feeling well, am I? It is, for all intents and purposes, 9 days left till the big day. We just needed a few things - scotch tape (we've gone out to get this 3 times this week, I swear!), contact paper, a few items for dinner, and baby formula. Now, the formula poses a problem because we have WIC checks with which to buy the formula with. But other than that, not too bad, right? Read on...

First of all - it's a zoo. We park out in never-never land (I thought we were actually in the McDonald's parking lot) only to pull a sleeping Baby Girl from her car seat. We choose not to take the stroller in because we'll only be a minute and she'll fall asleep anyway in my arms. Sal has agreed to carry her if I get tired. We head in and fight our way through the taxi waiting outside, the smokers at the doorway, the non-stop clanging of the Salvation Army bell ringer just to stop at the Greeter station because Sal got the wrong size socks for Baby Girl last week and now we need to return them. There is a line at the Greeter stand! This should have told me to run... run very far away! But we continue with our socks properly stamped as "RETURN ITEM".

We enter at our own risk and Baby Girl has now fully woken up, and leaning every which way so she can see better. Of course people always stop to talk to her - as if she'll answer back. They are being sweet, which I appreciate, however, I have things to do and now we have to stop and talk to at least 10 other people in the store just because we have a cute daughter. Yes, we know she's tiny, thank you - we know she is a blessing, yes, thank you we do feed her - a lot actually, no she's not walking, crawling or talking yet. Yes - she has teeth & I would prefer that you don't let her chew on your fingers to prove it. Geesh... She tolerates the attention well - she actually likes it! Which of course, only encourages more passers-by to stop and chat with her. Baby Girl is in a good mood and seems to be enjoying the crowds. I, on the other hand, am getting blisters on my feet from sandals (it is 80 degrees out today). Our wait at the Customer Service desk is about 15 minutes - just as I begin to think we can just give the socks to my sister and her new born daughter, it is our turn. We have the receipt - so we get the cash back and head out shopping.

We find our items and to my surprise, pretty much stick to our list (Starbucks coffee was on sale for $7 a pound, so I just had to splurge!) and head to the check-out. Now we are in for a wait. It is the holiday shopping season and only 1/3 of the checkout lanes are even open! The lines are horrendous! At 2:30pm - 4 and 5 people deep with full shopping carts! We try to find the quickest cashier, even if the line is a little longer, because experience tells us that we are a pain in the rear with 10 cans of formula, two boxes of baby cereal and 2 jugs of Juicy Juice to be split up onto 4 separate WIC check payments. You are correct - each check has to be rung up and paid for separately. Counting our non-WIC items - we have 5 sets of orders. Somehow we ended up with the SLOWEST cashier in the place. We were in line for 15 minutes before our time came, then we took another 20 minutes (NOT even kidding!) just to check us out! Other than the WIC items, our stuff came to just over $20, so not that much. There was however, a very nice guy behind us who kept the now extremely heavy Baby Girl entertained. I tried to pass her off to Sal - but she wanted nothing of that. I'd rather lug her happy than listen to her scream, as tired as she was. Another day of disrupting her nap schedule.

On our way out, that same greeter still had a line of people waiting to speak with him - three deep. The bell ringing still clanging away, the entry room had escalated in temperature though to about 85 degrees. Mmmm! Can any one say deodorant?

No Debbie, I don't think I want to be a Wal-Mart Greeter. At least not this year!