Store employees ever give you trouble?

[alternatorfan]

Originally Posted by Banshee

Yeah, I read that yesterday. The employee sounded like a power hungry asshole.

Never had any employees give me trouble before, thankfully.

You should have asked a supervisor at that point and put that walmart employee in his place.
I would have hit him.

[xueyue2]

Originally Posted by alternatorfan

You should have asked a supervisor at that point and put that walmart employee in his place.
I would have hit him.

Are you serious? Hit an employee in Walmart just like that? They can call 911 on it.

[CobraCommander]

Originally Posted by evenstaves

LOL, THIS right here is what I was kickin myself over - I did it to myself, right?

A little bit, you flew too close to the sun Icarus

[Dark Rage]

Clearly that Walmart employee has never encountered Hot Wheels collectors.

[MilanX3]

I would have asked for the manager, as if it was a policy violation, the manager could have at least waved off any stock issues or informed the associate not to harass you and your family. We had an issue a few years ago with one manager who was harassing us because we used the self checkout, to the point where he was making us miss items being scanned while talking in my ear. He treated my wife and the female manager(he couldnt admit she actually was his manager) like dirt...even after the female manager told him we were correct. He didnt know how the self checkout worked and was on a power trip. Best to forget the items or escalate it, but I wouldnt stand by while they accuse and insult. He certainly went too far. I doubt Walmart head office would deal with it as they dont seem to care, even when their trashy employee disrespected women. I avoid going there whenever possible now. Thanks Walmart.

[MilanX3]

Originally Posted by Soundwaves

What?

Only 1 person in this story was being treated poorly with no respect for the other.

If they pay him so little, and he hates it so much, why is he power tripping like this on a guy buying toys with his kids?

It doesn't benefit Walmart or the customer. The guy is just a small person and probably working right where he belongs at a wage he deserves.

He probably loves his job as it affords him the opportunity to power trip like this every now and then with no repercussions.

At least it sure sounds that way to me.

Yes, exactly...

[Ransak The Elder]

Your expectations should be low going in. Anecdotally. Walmart is the job your parents warned you about if you did not pay attention in school.

[Prime Sinister]

Blue vest was probably setting up his with eBay listings and didn’t notice you snatched his rent money.

[imfallenangel]

Should have called him Karen and taken out your phone and recorded the whole thing.

I would have enjoyed the entertainment, but sucks for your family though...

I still think that you should call and ask to talk to the manager about it.

[evenstaves]

So based on everyone's encouragement here, and the consult of yellow-vest buddy from a different store, I went back with the express intent of discussing the incident with a manager

Called ahead to provide advance notice that I would be visiting in order to speak to a manager, and made the drive up
Brought the wife & daughter as well, to put faces on the matter

Coincidentally, it was exactly two weeks later from when it took place

Had a couple things to pick up, so did a advance sweep before the meeting - couldn't find the blue-vest who caused the scene at the self scan, presume wasn't in that night

Went to customer service "im the guy who called", yellow-vest put out the page for "manager of staff" (or something, I forget the exact words)

Met the manager, never seen him before - took him off to a side area so not standing in the open by the returns desk (think it may have been their "omni" online pickup area, ANYWAYS)

Started off by confirming policy regarding un-broken-down pallets "is it OK to take things off these" He said other than the liability if customers injure themselves opening cases, 99% of the time it's fine to do - only 2 exceptions he cited:
#1 -> if the truck is still being offloaded - like, if the truck's shipment hasn't been "finalized" yet, but the pallet was walked onto the floor straight off the truck - in this sense, a box gone missing could equate to "we never got this item from the truck" which cause some issues
#2 -> if the item is street-dated

With this, I detailed the whole incident (1st post in this thread for recap), to rule out the 1st exception - this pallet was clearly being "worked", it was lower than hip-high, with all wrap removed, out on the floor, so likely the truckload shipment thing wasn't an issue
We all know the Velocitron products ARE street-dated, but seems to only be online at this point, since many, MANY stores have just put them out by now - so there could be a grey area regarding the 2nd exception, of "even though everyone else is putting them out, and this case was literally pre-cut open sitting on the pallet, the fact that these are street-dated, could have merited any additional concern regarding them"

And then I covered what happened with the employee

To his credit, I found the manager really easy to speak to, he wasn't judge-y even though he could have been (regarding my initial ganking of the figs) - and the manager finally expressed great concern when I related how the employee chased us to the self-scan and called it out in front of everyone, making a scene

One thing I didn't consider at the time, and the manager raised it and said the word several times, is that the blue-vest didn't have any "evidence" that I had the figs (even if I did and he was ultimately proven right) - the manager reiterated that the employee didn't actually see us take the figures, and just assumed that we took them based on "saw you there, now they're gone, so it must have been you"
This rang especially true, because if he had seen me take the figures during the initial sweep, you'd think he would have come after me during the whole earlier part of the visit! when we were picking out clothes, when the figures were the first thing in the cart
It was only when I returned and picked up the box to show my wife (again, stupid) that the blue-vest caught any wind of it

The manager especially didn't like how the guy, when he didn't immediately see them in my cart (under clothes to be purchased), suggested my wife had taken the figures to the bathroom - and the fact that his demeanour scared my kid; I said "when I told my fam we're going up for (thing), my daughter didn't want to come into this store, because she's afraid to see this guy again"

He asked for a description of the guy, did the best I could - you'd think during the confrontation, I would bothered to look at his nametag, but I really didn't want to look right at him (in case he could try and read any guilt off my face as further justification to continue the harassment)
I said to him "if you really want to know exactly who he is, check out the self-scan camera footage (we just used it earlier and I saw the display screen prominently displayed, so I stood right where it happened and saw should be clear as day) on (date it occurred) at (rough 30 min window of when it took place)" (wish I had kept the receipt but didn't get the figs! so)
Manager said from the description, and fact that the guy didn't appear in to be in that night ( I told him I went over to see if he was there, to arguably get his name if I got close enough, but no dice), that he thinks he knows who I was talking about - said he'd review the footage and find out for sure

I told him I've already since acquired both figures elsewhere, so it's not necessarily a matter of "getting the figs back", but more about how we were treated, openly in front of many - he assured me he'd be following up with the employee

Also, said "now that I know" how to handle the scenario of "thing I want on a pallet" properly (manager said one should ask a nearby employee if they can get a case off the pallet; 99% of the time they should accommodate unless its the exceptions listed above), what should I do if I attempt this method in this store again, and buddy is the nearby staffer, and he gives me sh*t because of this?
Manager kind of shook his head and said "ooh, he'd better not"

So all in all I felt that the manager was receptive to the complaint - I never felt like he was brushing me off, in fact he let me go on until I was kind of like "anyways, I guess that's everything etc" - my kid even said on the way out, when I said "man that guy was really nice", my kid "yeah he's like, the opposite of the other guy" LOL

Gives me a bit of closure on the incident somewhat, which is nice - I don't necessarily feel apprehensive to revisit that store
If anything, now I want to try the method, given it's the manager's expressed instructions on how to do it properly
And I'm DYING for it to be the same guy, just to see what happens

Too bad there's not much I can think of right now that's worth the trip up to check pallets? Oh well, guess it's "until the next wide release thing that I fail to locate at closer stores" (which is admittedly, very specific)