Free at last

A brutal quarter-hour just spent at Walmart--I know, I know, I should not have been there to begin with--culminating in my screaming with genuine indignation at perhaps the rudest, the most self-important, the most imperious departmental she-manager to ever afflict the retail-roaming human species (I'm still not sure what sort of hideous critter she was).

But that's it. I'm clean. I'm free. I'm now done with Walmart forever, as I made unmistakably clear in my booming, dramatic exit from that oppressive hellhole of consumerism central. 

That said, I shall now resume normal programming.

Comments

[AnneJ]

Mr. Carpenter, as a Wal Mart associate myself, I am sorry that you had a horrible experience there. I completely understand why you would never want to shop there, and even though I don't know what went on between you and that department manager, and I do not intend to excuse her behavior, but I would merely like to point out that because Wal Mart is "Consumerism Central", we associates must put up with quite a lot of guff from a large cross section of America for very low wages. I remain to this day not a huge fan of the company I never thought I'd find myself working for and I tend to spend my meager paycheck elsewhere. But after over two years of being unemployed, having life saving heart surgery after being born with a bum ticker, (something I am especially grateful for, because I am a Californian and our governor is a fan of Obamacare and he started expanding our Medi-Cal (medicaid) rolls in 2010 in response to the law's passing)and having a mental breakdown, they were the only company that called me back after I finally resumed my job search. My pride not being what it used to be thanks to hard economic realities, I took their offer. But I voted for Obama because I was grateful for what he had accomplished especially in the health care reform law, and also for the hope of what he can accomplish by way of economic growth and therefore more job opportunities for people like me who only had Wal Mart to turn to for work when the hard times hit.

I am not sure what point I'm trying to make or even if you will read this post or what you will think if you do read it, but I do want you to know that I am a huge fan of your work especially since 11/22/04 after a particularly uplifting article you wrote after Bush won his "mandate". I guess maybe this was just a long winded way of saying 1. I'm sorry because of what you went through with my employers and 2. Thank you for helping me see the political world so clearly.

Sincerely,

Anne Johnson

[Peter G]

Now, God be thanked Who has matched you with His hour,
And caught the floor manager, and wakened him from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened tongue,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a Mall grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of shopping!

All right so it is brazen plagiarism. I apologize to Rupert but nobody else is quite up this subject but a war poet.

[Jason]

So, let me get this straight, PM: You just spent fifteens minutes on your blog bitching about how you bitched at a Wal-Mart employee for wasting fifteen minutes of your time.

Wait...are you my Uncle Bill???

[PM]

No, Nephew Ruprecht, it was about $225.00 of my money, already spent. Wait ... wasted.

But thanks for the insight.
PM

[Beauzeaux]

I was in a WalMart once. About 20 years ago. Didn't like it. Haven't been back.

Yes, it's "cheap" but there are a lot of hidden costs for which we'll all pay sooner or later.

[Janicket]

Anne, your sad and touching story illustrates one of my rationales, whenever dealing with retail front-line personnel, for always being pleasant, polite, and attuned to them as real live human beings, my equals for that brief time of contact, no matter what face they happen to be presenting at the moment to the rigors and miseries of coping with their sucky jobs. Who knows what brought them there, what keeps them there, that I have the privilege of escaping?

The overarching reason, of course, is that whole "Do unto others..." thing.

[M Smith]

PM, I once told a Walmart manager that the store didn't have a product I was looking for, according to the clerk I asked; only to be informed that they did have it, and that I should have known that. I asked why she thought I should have known that when their own employees didn't and she just got angry.

Of course, there could have been an 'overarching reason' for that. Yeah. That's it.