Walmart.

There's a huge difference between the average employee of a Walmart on the East Coast, and the average employee of Walmart on the West Coast.  I personally have numerous relatives who at one time or another have been employed by Walmart and each of these relatives have been in the West (Nevada, California, Idaho, Utah). Some have made it a career and others have taken a job there part time to make ends meet.  I personally have spent, no doubt thousands of dollars at, what one relative so lovingly refers to it as, "Hell-Mart."  I am much more willing to spend money at a Walmart on the West Coast however, and this is made abundantly clear as I look through receipts from years in college and realize that sometimes would visit Walmart up to three times per week.  I am more willing to spend that money because I am greeted with a smile, a friendly face, customer service employees who actually care about the service of customers, a short line, and I can walk in and out in five minutes if I so desired.

Today I walked into a Walmart in Northern Virginia (I was picking up pictures which had been ordered online via a friend in Idaho...otherwise I wouldn't have step foot inside). I know better.  They've recently redone the Walmart, as they have many stores in the chain across the country, and when I walked through those automatic doors I was intrigued.  I thought, "Wow.  They've really changed this place.  I wonder if the service has changed"  (Growing up I probably went to Walmart ten times in eighteen years while at home.  But every year, multiple times a year I would visit family in the West and could honestly say we went to Walmart multiple times each visit, sometimes multiple times a day).  I learned in the first five minutes of being in the Walmart that despite it's structural makeover, it was the same old awful store.  

I spoke to an extremely nice gentleman (the only in my visit) in Electronics, and he pointed me in the direction of the Photo Center.  There was a cluster of people standing around the Self-Help Machines and no one in line to pick up photos.  I walked to the counter and realized not only was there no one else in line, there was no one working at the counter.  I am an extremely patient person when it comes to being in public places and waiting on help.  But after standing there for (yes, I timed it) 10 minutes.  I thought I should seek help.  I walked to the space behind the Check-Out Area because, generally speaking, there is a Customer Service Manager stationed there.  Well, there wasn't.  I walked up and down looking for someone in the blue and khaki. But couldn't find one.  I walked back over to the Photo Center which coincidentally sits right next to the Customer Service/Return Area.  I waited until an employee walked by and said, "I just need to pick up some photos that I had ordered online and there's no one working here it seems.  Is there any way you can help me?"  Her response as she briskly walked away from me was, "I don't know anything about it."

Don't they generally say that "the customer is always right?"  In this case, I wasn't looking to be right.  I was looking to be helped.  She was incorrect in her answer to the question, "Can you help me?" Because, YES she could have very well helped me. "Sure ma'am, let me go find a manager."  

To me this just amounts to being polite.  It is not my intention to generalize.  I don't believe that every person in the East is rude.  I don't believe that every person in the West is polite.  What I do believe however, is that everyone is capable of better.  We can be polite to strangers.  Just the other day, walking into a community center with my mom, she simply said, "How are you this morning?" to a complete stranger.  The woman didn't know how to react for a second and then said, "I'm sorry.  I didn't think you were talking to me.  Nobody around here does that. Ever."  That is one of the most sad things I've ever heard.  It's okay to be friendly.  It's okay to say hello.  It's okay to say thank you when someone holds the door open for you.  Whatever you're doing when you get inside isn't so important that you can't exhale the words as you're walking in.

So let's all remember to be a little more polite.  And let it start with my friends at Walmart.  Because let's face it, we all will be interacting with one, if not more of them, in the near future.

(Eventually I got my pictures.  20 minutes after my run-in with my "I don't know anything about it" friend.)