Tag: Walmart

Jim Does the Walmart Self-Checkout

Yesterday I did the Walmart self-checkout thing after grocery shopping. Sena told me a few weeks ago that she saw some people abandon their full shopping carts and just walk out of the store after learning they might have to use self-checkout.

I had mentioned to Sena that I probably would try the self-checkout on a day when I had a short grocery list. It turns out that I made a slightly longer list than I intended (more than 10 items which makes you ineligible for the 10 items or less aisle). And I couldn’t think of a way to wiggle out of going to the Coralville Walmart which is promoting the self-checkout. The Iowa City Walmart is not.

When I got there, I noticed the check-out aisles had undergone a major rearrangement. The aisles were a lot wider and the self-checkout stations were designed so that you don’t have to wait directly behind somebody who might be a slowpoke—like me. There was at least a half-dozen self-checkout stations and a few regular check-out stations with long lines. There was usually no waiting for a self-checkout slot.

Prior to going to the store, I had taken a quick look at the web page “Wiki-How for How to Use the Walmart Self-Checkout.” It works almost exactly like that in a real store. I had a little trouble accidentally double-scanning an item and for some reason I couldn’t get the scale to weigh a small bag of tomatoes. But there is always somebody around to help you out.

Actually, I wasn’t aware of my double-scan until after I got home. Sena found it after checking the receipt (oops). I went back to fix that, which made it necessary to pick up a few more items—including ice cream. So, I actually did the self-checkout twice that day.

I really didn’t think the using the scanner was as much of a challenge as sacking all the items so that things like tomatoes didn’t get crushed, etc. But you can use crushed tomatoes in chili and goulash, can’t you? Don’t answer that.

I was gone most of the day doing the grocery shopping and self-checkout. The most time-consuming part of the trip was finding the items in the store. Does it make any sense to put the liquid hand soap in the pickled pig’s feet aisle?

Anyway, when you’re done at the self-checkout, you get a screen asking you to rate how good your experience was on a 5-star scale. The first time I was there, I didn’t notice it for a couple of seconds and that was a few seconds too late. The rating evaluation doesn’t stay on screen for very long. I guess they figure if it takes longer than a few seconds for you to figure out what you think of the process, the rating is bound to be on the low side.

The second time I was there, I was quicker. I gave it 4 stars, one off for having to dig through the pickled pig’s feet to find the liquid hand soap.

Acts of Kindness Spotted in Walmart!

If you read the news, you rarely find any stories about acts of kindness. Everybody is slamming everybody else. Sena sees acts of kindness at Walmart. Not long ago, a Walmart grocery shopper went out of his way to be kind to her.

She was in the checkout lane of a cashier who greets everyone with a cheery “Did you find everything you want? Thank you for shopping at Walmart!” People actually try to get into her lane, probably to get a dose of her kindness. They will arm wrestle for the privilege, best 2 out of 3 wins.

I rarely go grocery shopping but actually recognized her from Sena’s description and scooted into her lane. She even placed the sacks of groceries up on top of the circle of bags to make it easier for me to grab them, making it less likely to forget them—which is something I would probably do. She’s easy to find; she’s the only one still wearing both a medical grade mask, face shield, and gloves.

Sena almost always encounters kindness from random shoppers and Walmart workers who see her struggling to reach an item on a high shelf. They’ll say “Let me help you with that.”

Anyway, where was I? Oh, the shopper kindness incident. She was in the kind cashier’s lane behind another couple who also prefer this cashier. She had encountered them elsewhere in the store and the guy joked with her about cottage cheese.

There were no dividers to separate Sena’s groceries on the conveyer belt from his, so she used a package of celery and announced it to the cashier—who forgot that and rung it up along with a couple of other items) for the guy and his wife in front of Sena. Sena caught the mistake and they all joked about it.

After the couple left the store with their groceries and as Sena was checking her items, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was the guy who had been in front of her. He handed her a package of mushrooms, the one item that the cashier had charged to him by mistake and had not caught. He had probably gone all the way out to the parking lot and somehow noticed the mushrooms.

He gave Sena the mushrooms and told her that he didn’t want her to get all the way home and find out that she didn’t have them for a recipe.

Sena knew he’d been charged for them and because she didn’t carry enough cash to pay him back, advised him he could get the mistake fixed at customer service. By this time, it was too late for everyone’s favorite cashier to correct it.

The guy said the transaction was too complicated and not worth standing in the long line at customer service.

But it was worth his while to get all the way out to the parking lot and walk all the way back in to return a $2 package of mushrooms to Sena.

Sometimes, it seems to me we spend more time on the lookout for UFOs in the sky than for human acts of kindness on earth.