Who's More To Blame For My Horrible Walmart Experience: Store Staff Or The Extreme Couponer?

Consumerist reader Lucinda recently went to her local Walmart in Texas, where in addition to dealing with almost no open checkout lines and poor service from the cashiers, she also got stuck behind an extreme couponer who spoiled everyone’s day.

Lucinda thought she’d picked a decent checkout line, with only two customers in front of her. She couldn’t have been more wrong:

Just as all of the items are scanned for the guy in front of me, I start to unload my cart onto the belt. While I was unloading, the other guy pulled out a pile of newspaper ads so he could get some price-matching done. At this point I should have been concerned, but I figured he knew what he was doing so that he’d get done soon, so I put all my groceries on the belt.

By that time, all the newspaper ads had been price-matched. Then he pulled out a small black book from who-knows-where, and from the little book he pulled out what must have been about fifty coupons. At this, the guy behind me decided to leave, dropping his five items on the candy rack. The customer in front of me proceeded to argue with the cashier every time a coupon was not accepted, and each time a manager would come to clear things up. This happened four or five times, so I’m not sure why the managers kept leaving.

My groceries had been on the belt for half an hour by this point. During the couponscapades, a fourth lane next to us opened up, and the two customers at the end of the line behind me left for it. Around this time the guy revealed that he was a Walmart employee from another store, trying to use this information to keep the cashier from rejecting his coupons. The cashier, meanwhile, was going way too slow. She looked like she was bored.

After another fifteen minutes, when the family behind me had left, I decided my patience was worn out, no matter how close this guy was to finishing. So I dumped my crapload of groceries from the belt back into my cart and moved over to the fourth open lane. Just as I got to the front of that line, this other cashier told me, “Sorry, I have to close. I go home at two.”

I was ready to cry by this time, so I told her, “No, you’re checking me out.” She said, “Okay, fine, but do it quick.” Of course, by the time my twelve bags of groceries were rung up, I got out as soon as I could. The guy in the other line was still arguing about his coupons when I left over an hour after he started.

None of the employees acted like they cared, and the managers took as long as possible to help whenever they were called over. (Every time, the cashier had to go get them because they weren’t responding quickly enough.) After getting home and putting my warm groceries away, I looked up the store and saw that it had consistently bad reviews, almost entirely focused on the lazy managers and lazy cashiers. Obviously, I won’t be going back. Ever.

Now it’s time to play the blame game. Tell us who think deserves the most scorn in situation.

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