Well Wallmart sucks.

I while back I took some negatives into Walmart and asked if they could scan them. The guy told me the price. I told him that I did not want prints made, just to scan them and put them on a disk. He said that was no problem and he would just charge me the $2.50 for the disk. Well that was a hell of a deal and he was very kind and so I remembered his name. It is Ross. I went in yesterday to print out photos from graduation to send out to folks in the thank you cards. He was there and was again very helpful and walked me through the process. I messed up something and the fixed it and joked about it so I would not feel stupid. So I asked him if he would do some more slides. He said sure. I brought them in when I came back to pick up the prints I made that day. He told me that they had to do them overnight now and I could pick them up the next day.
So today we went in to make a bunch more prints. I asked to get the disks. Different girl gets the envelope and starts to hand it to me. She sees "$2.50" written on the package and says that is the "wrong" price. I told her that is what I was told it would be. She calls a manager. I wait. Then she says it is the wrong price and it would be a lot more. I asked if I could get my negatives back and she gave them to me. Then I asked to talk to the manager.
An "assistant manager" named Diane came out. I started to explain what happened. Right away she kept interrupting me. I could not finish a sentence. She asked who did it and I told her. So she says that she is going to have to take my name and call me back.
What I was trying to tell her was this: I was quoted a price of $2.50. Now they say they want $84. It would seem a mistake was made. At this point, it really does not matter where it was made. Either Ross quoted me the wrong price, or Diane just did not understand that the scans were not made into prints since she never let me talk the whole time. Since I am not going to pay $84 they have 2 choices. Sell it to me at the quoted price and I leave happy and probably buy a bunch of other stuff while I am there, or I walk out of here upset and they throw away the product with nothing. But she just kept interrupting me so I never got to say that.
Finally I said, "If you well let me get one sentence in I will explain" She said, "Fine". I said, "I brought these negatives in yesterday". Then she holds her hand up at me and says, "that was one sentence" and walks away.
I could not believe it. I said, "are you seriously walking away from me". She said yes. I looked at her little name tag and said, "So you are Diane, who is your boss.. I want to talk to them right now". She said, "I AM MY BOSS".
I said I wanted to talk to somebody else and she said that if I did not leave now she would call the cops.
So I took my negatives and left. I went to the customer service desk and asked who Diane's boss is. They said it is Kirt and he would be in tomorrow. So first thing tomorrow Kirt and I will be talking about what happened.
I am an assistant manager at work. I have to deal with upset people once in a while. I can't imagine walking away from a customer. I can't imagine refusing to tell them who my boss is. That has never happened in 25 years, but if it did, I would tell them. If I did not then I would deserve whatever I got. I can't imagine telling a customer that I would call the cops because they were not satisfied with a bullshit answer if I gave them one.
I hate going into a retail place and having employees that are rude or don't know what they are doing. Walmart used to have a guy named Adam that worked in electronics. I know his name because when people would ask me about video games or systems, I would tell them to go talk to Adam at Walmart. He was amazing. he knew everything and was really helpful and pleasant. You got the feeling that he liked what he did. Yesterday I got the same feeling from Ross. He just wanted to do whatever he could to make the customer happy and comfortable. When the computer crashed he said, "it was nothing you did, the computer is not feeling well. We can just use this one" and apologized for it. I think that is what Sam Walton would have wanted and he built an empire on that.
Well Sam is gone now.
I have no idea how Diane got to be an assistant manager. I would think with her attitude she should feel lucky to have gotten that far in the company. I would think that in these economic times she would be very happy to have a job, much less one that she is not qualified to do.
My wife was one of the original employees at that store when it opened. Our twins we a few months old. They graduated high school last weekend so I guess it has been a while. She could not believe that any employee would get away with that, much less someone who is (at least today) an assistant manager.