Yes, it’s true - I was asked to leave Wal-Mart today.
First, a little background info.
I’ve been making up a master shopping list of everything we buy, so that we can just hang this on the fridge and check it off, and on shopping days we can look it over quickly and be reminded of stuff rather than getting home later and saying “crap, I forgot to write down tea bags!”
Part of my master organizational plan here is to sort the list into sections matching the grocery aisles where we do the majority of our shopping… Wal-Mart. My initial idea was to take a piece of paper and write it all down; a daunting task when thinking that the boys would be with me. Mike came up with the idea of just taking my digital camera along and snapping pictures of the big overhead aisle signs that list what’s in the aisle, then coming home and organizing the list. Great idea, right? Saves time and hassle.
Well, there I am today with my ancient little digital camera pointing it up over everyone’s head, clearly at the aisle SIGNS. I’m not bending over taking pictures of merchandise and its prices… and a lady with her nametag on backwards comes over and tells me to stop. When I ask her why, she says that Wal-Mart has a no-comparison-pricing policy which extends to not allowing people to take pictures of the merchandise. She authoritatively snaps off catchy phrases like “we’re VERY serious about protecting our price structure” - even though I was VERY obviously not taking pictures of any price stickers.
I explain to her that I’m *not* taking pictures of the merchandise, I’m taking pictures of the aisle signs, and explain about the shopping list I’m making; I’m not comparison shopping or from a competitor. She’s getting annoyed now and very curtly says “I’m going to have to ask you to take the camera outside.”
Me, dumbfounded: “You’re kidding, right?”
Her, sounding ultra-pissed off (guess she’s not used to her authority being questioned): “No Ma’am I’m NOT. You’re going to have to leave now. RIGHT now.” She even got louder and pointed towards the front of the store.
I left my cart there, and she actually FOLLOWED me to the front of the store like a common criminal being accused of shoplifting. Instead of leaving, I went to the Customer Service desk, where she promptly veered off and went straight to the “front” manager (the person who was manager over the cashiers at the time, not sure if “head cashier” is the correct term because this person doesn’t actually check anyone out) and started talking and pointing at me.
The manager’s name, the assistant manager’s name, and the phone number to contact them is on a huge sign in the Customer Service area. I asked the girl manning CS (she wasn’t wearing a nametag at all) if that information was available on a business card that I could have; it wasn’t. She gave me some register tape to write it down on and asked if there was a problem. I explained to *her* about the organizational system and how I’d been asked to leave, and she pointed to yet another sign explaining the no-comparison-shopping policy and said she really didn’t know about whether it would apply to a person who just wanted the information of what was in what aisle. There was no store map available, either. So I asked about camera phones… if no cameras were allowed in the store, were camera phones? She didn’t know - at which point the head cashier woman (also not wearing a name tag) interrupts us. She’d walked over from her “station” and had been listening to our conversation, standing behind me. She explained that they could not stop camera phones from entering the store, because even if a person took a picture, they [the employees] wouldn’t be able to tell what the person was taking a picture of. I actually started chuckling then, and said “so if I have a camera held up and snap a picture, I get asked to leave, but if I have a phone held up and snap a picture, it’s okay?”
She said yes.
Does this make sense to you?
Me either.
She then repeated that I needed to leave the store and take the camera (now inside my zipper pocket) outside. She was very nice about it, though; sounding apologetic.
So I went outside, sat in the Jeep and stewed for a few minutes, and thought about just going home in a huff. Then I remembered: E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome. I actually was there by myself (Mike was home with the kids) and to go home would mean I’d have to come back another time with the boys and try to accomplish this. Not to mention the shopping I’d already done and the stuff sitting in my abandoned cart. I’d have to do that all over again, too. Not a good outcome. But if I changed my response, I could still get this done, and thumb my nose at the stupid overbroad policy at the same time, and have a good outcome.
So I walked back into the store, asked the head cashier if my cart had been moved (it hadn’t), grabbed a .25 cent note pad from Stationery, and proceeded to stand at the end of the aisles and write down what all of the aisle signs said. (Yes, I paid for the pad after I got done shopping.) I nearly felt like a celebrity; I had employees watching me the entire time I was shopping after that. It’s pretty amusing to watch people who haven’t been trained to subtly follow someone try to busy themselves and look like they’re actually working. Covert agents, they aren’t.
I do understand the company wanting to try their best to keep the competition from underpricing them (not that anyone could), and I used to work for Wal-Mart long long ago. But there was an obvious difference between someone who has no cart and is trying to sneakily take pictures of merchandise, and a run-down looking woman with a cart full of stuff, coupons spread all over the child’s seat, and a scratched-up grocery list taking pictures of the aisle signs that are 15 feet in the air. I mean, seriously.
The problem with zero tolerance (and those who get all power-trippy practicing it) is that it completely overrules common sense. The store I used to work for in NY often referred back to Sam Walton… I wonder what old Sam would say about this situation. Actually, I already know - too bad things aren’t like they used to be and common sense is in short supply these days.
Yes, I’ll be writing a letter to the manager (or phoning him) and voicing my displeasure at being publicly treated like a shoplifter, as well as complaining about the only two price-checkers I could find being broken. I’ll do it nicely, though - maybe he’s not a zero-tolerance kind of person and still has some common sense left. You never know.
By the way, if Wal-Mart suddenly slams down a “no camera-enabled cellphones in the store” policy, you’ll know who to blame. 
PS - Here’s the pictures I took, and I’ll add a text listing of the aisles in another post in a minute or two. Your Wal-Mart setup may vary, but hey - it’s a start.
What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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