So yesterday at Walmart....

[Village Idiot]

Sometimes on Saturdays I go to Waterloo to get groceries at Walmart. I'm no fan of Walmart but I love being around new people and when nobody can find anything friendly conversations ensue. I like that.

Leaving the store entailed the typical Walmart gauntlet of receipt checkers which have replaced greeters. There were two parties ahead of me. The first party, an African American couple about my age, were asked to show their receipt, did so, and walked on. The second party, an African American family with a couple kids, were asked to show their receipt, did so, and walked on. I was next and I might as well have been a piece of glass; I headed to my car like I didn't exist. Curious, I turned around and the person behind me, an African American guy by himself, was showing his receipt.

I drove home thinking we've got a long way to go.

[Phil N. Theblank]

link

[Cornflake]

Sometimes I think of how far we've come. When I was a kid, there wouldn't have been any black people where we shopped.

Sometimes I think of how far we have to go. A long way, still, but I think we're getting there, way too slowly.

[Cosmic Wonder]

Jan 30, 2022 20:14:17 GMT -5 Village Idiot said:

Sometimes on Saturdays I go to Waterloo to get groceries at Walmart. I'm no fan of Walmart but I love being around new people and when nobody can find anything friendly conversations ensue. I like that.

Leaving the store entailed the typical Walmart gauntlet of receipt checkers which have replaced greeters. There were two parties ahead of me. The first party, an African American couple about my age, were asked to show their receipt, did so, and walked on. The second party, an African American family with a couple kids, were asked to show their receipt, did so, and walked on. I was next and I might as well have been a piece of glass; I headed to my car like I didn't exist. Curious, I turned around and the person behind me, an African American guy by himself, was showing his receipt.

I drove home thinking we've got a long way to go.

Walmart does not have the right to check your receipt. Once you have paid for your items, they belong to you. If they suspect you are stealing from them, they can call the police or make a citizens arrest. If they are wrong you can walk away with a lot of money.

Costco also checks receipts but there is a huge difference. When you joined the Costco membership, you agreed to certain conditions, like receipt checking. Not so with Walmart, or any other public store.

True story. One of the office type stores, either Office Max or Staples, I don’t remember which, instituted a policy like this a few years back. We needed a ream of paper for the printer, so I popped over and snagged one. Easy peasy. Paid for it, and the guard/door manager stopped me on the way out and asked to see the receipt. I told him no, and he insisted that he had to see the receipt. I looked him in the eye, said, “no, you don’t,” and walked out. A few months later, there were no door managers there.

Mike

[Rob Hanesworth]

Sad. The Walmart here doesn't do receipt checks. Sam's Club, which I have not been to in years, did them.

[t-bob]

Jan 30, 2022 20:50:40 GMT -5 Cornflake said:

Sometimes I think of how far we've come. When I was a kid, there wouldn't have been any black people where we shopped.

I had a lot of black people in my groceries in Connecticut and New York. There were tons of bigots. My dad had one of those Yankee bigot and I don't see my dad very much..... Are used to tell my dad to say shut up and don't say those words...... It's part of why I left East Coast*.


Sometimes I think of how far we have to go. A long way, still, but I think we're getting there, way too slowly.

We have far a long way. The time are moving slowly but it's getting better. I still come to the East Coast* I love it there. I like the architecture, the 4 seasons (I don't care too much for her Mother Nature winter now because now I'm old)

[t-bob]

Most large companies in Marin County, CA have somebody to check out the receipts - near the door.

Obviously, Costco has good checkers.

Other companies I could steal almost anything (small items) but I don't do it anyway.

Back in the 1960s you could buy one album. Then there's another way to get a dozen of them just put them in your bag and nobody pays any attention. I think I got at least 200 albums with "free ones". Maybe it's part of my "carma" .....heh heh

[jdd2]

If receipts are checked, what happens at costco or wherever if it's the cashier that missed ringing something up at the register? But it's in your bag?

[t-bob]

Jan 31, 2022 3:06:25 GMT -5 jdd2 said:

If receipts are checked, what happens at costco or wherever if it's the cashier that missed ringing something up at the register? But it's in your bag?

I haven't been to Costco for a long time but in the 90s and 00s. It was Novato CA. I go to Costco every week. Are used to buy phones computers printers TVs. The cashier was pretty very good and they usually had two people (manager) with them. This group was so helpful - it's sort of like Nordstrom. Their Costco service was almost perfect.

Now it's 20 years so we'll see what occurs.

This thread was about a different company Walmart. I've never been to that place.

One of the reasons the companies and the world there's "no etiquette".....

[dradtke]

Costco and Sam's Club as warehouse buying clubs where you need to have a membership to buy have a business model that includes checking receipts. Lumberyards where you pay inside, then drive into the yard to load up, also check receipts to make sure you only loaded what you pay for.

If I ever need to show my receipt at a general retail store, I suspect it would be the last time I shop at that particular retail store. If they check the black folks and not me, I'm sure it would be the last time.

[Village Idiot]

At Walmart, it's because of the self checkouts. You know, where they were able to get rid of cashiers because the customers will do those jobs for them for free.

[drlj]

I have had my receipts and guitar case checked at Elderly. I didn’t think anything of it.
They checked everyone. No exceptions or favorites. The nice thing is the kid usually gushes about how cool the guitar, mandolin, or banjo is.
We have only been in Walmart once so I don’t know what they do here.
A lot of grocery stores around here do self checkout & a worker is there keeping an eye on things to make sure that Skippy is scanned before it goes in the sack. They don’t check receipts but they keep a close eye on things.

[james]

I've not seen any receipt checkers. In the supermarket I mostly use, the self checkout machine asks whether you want a receipt and I usually tell it 'no'. I think that CCTV cameras are in and around an increasing number of the machines. They are pretty well everywhere else in the UK these days! As for racial profiling, we are certainly also unhappily familiar with that.

[aquaduct]

Walmart's (around here anyways) generally don't check receipts for anyone. The presence of the greeters at the door is simply to make you think that someone's watching you. A couple years ago they experimented with getting rid of greeters and found that theft went up so they put them back in.

Now I'm sure they'll be happy to check your receipts if offered and maybe many folks do that out of reflexive habit, but I seriously doubt they're counting on some 86 year old semi-retired guy to actually risk his life to stop someone from carrying something out.

Now maybe things are much more badass in Iowa, but.....

[howard lee]

The only place I have ever been asked to show my receipt at the exit is at Home Depot, and once I found out about that company's political affiliations/donations on top of that, I have been buying relevant products from Lowes.

[epaul]

Someone told me our Sam's Club had just gotten in some fresh cod fillets that were really nice, so curious, I stopped in at Sam's to check it out. The cod was a real nice looking product, big fat fillets (the size of a good-sized near-head to almost-tail salmon filet). And the filets were shrink-wrapped so tightly on a thin plastic board/carton that there wasn't room for even a molecule of air.

So I picked one up and stuck it in the cart, the only thing in my cart, did the self-checkout thing and had my receipt and fish scanned at the door while chatting with the scanner lady about how nice the cod looked.

I put the cod in the car and went home. While putting the cod in the fridge, I noticed that there were two of them lying as neatly together as if they were one. The packaging was so trim and tight, I never noticed. Until I got home, that is.

The cops showed up later that afternoon and arrested me. I was caught on camera. I'm typing this from jail, and this is my warning, while the part about coming home with two cods instead of the intended one is true, I made up the part about the cops showing up and putting me in jail.

[Dub]

Jan 31, 2022 15:47:51 GMT -5 epaul said:

Someone told me our Sam's Club had just gotten in some fresh cod fillets that were really nice, so curious, I stopped in at Sam's to check it out. The cod was a real nice looking product, big fat fillets (the size of a good-sized near-head to almost-tail salmon filet). And the filets were shrink-wrapped so tightly on a thin plastic board/carton that there wasn't room for even a molecule of air.

So I picked one up and stuck it in the cart, the only thing in my cart, did the self-checkout thing and had my receipt and fish scanned at the door while chatting with the scanner lady about how nice the cod looked.

I put the cod in the car and went home. While putting the cod in the fridge, I noticed that there were two of them lying as neatly together as if they were one. The packaging was so trim and tight, I never noticed. Until I got home, that is.

The cops showed up later that afternoon and arrested me. I was caught on camera. I'm typing this from jail, and this is my warning, while the part about coming home with two cods instead of the intended one is true, I made up the part about the cops showing up and putting me in jail.

If the cops didn’t put you in jail, how did you get there to type this?

[Dub]

Jan 30, 2022 20:14:17 GMT -5 Village Idiot said:

I drove home thinking we've got a long way to go.

Todd, you’re certainly right about that.

On the other hand, had you shopped the Walmart center on Blair’s Ferry Rd. in Cedar Rapids or the one on Commerce Dr. In Coralville (the only ones I’m familiar with) this would not have happened. Either you’d have been checked along with the others or none of you would have been checked.

[epaul]

Who or what is the "we" that has a long way to go?

Not Walmart (or Target, or any other large chain). Walmart's ethics are far ahead of the ethical mean of their customers.

In terms of race, Walmart's practices are not only color blind, they are color proactive, not only with diversity and fairness policies installed from head to tail but with a diversity coordinator installed at the corporate headquarters with a department dedicated to diversity and fair practices.

If what you witnessed at your once-a-month(?) visit to Walmart was what it appeared to be, then it was the act of an $15.00 an hour individual who, if caught in such behavior by management, would be fired. It was not reflective of Walmart as a corp or as an institution.

The point is, if what you witnessed was what you thought it to be, "we" is a tricky pronoun. That witnessed individual may have a race problem. But, does Walmart treat people differently due to their racial makeup?

There is much that can be said about past practices, much. But in the present, Walmart and other corporate institutions, and all government institutions in this country, have worked purposefully to be not only be color-blind by law and statute, they are working proactively to be beyond color blind.

Virtually every "collective We" decision this country can make by law and policy to be "color blind" has been made. The current questions and disputes are not about what the current institutional 'race' practices and policies are but to what extent past racial practices and inequities should be addressed, redressed, and compensated for within our current colorblind polices and laws.

Ungoverned individual actions aside, the current collective "We" is, by law and measure, color blind. And Walmart, as a corporate chain and by store policy, does not treat black customers differently than white.

[dradtke]

Jan 31, 2022 15:47:51 GMT -5 epaul said:

Someone told me our Sam's Club had just gotten in some fresh cod fillets that were really nice, so curious, I stopped in at Sam's to check it out. The cod was a real nice looking product, big fat fillets (the size of a good-sized near-head to almost-tail salmon filet). And the filets were shrink-wrapped so tightly on a thin plastic board/carton that there wasn't room for even a molecule of air.

So I picked one up and stuck it in the cart, the only thing in my cart, did the self-checkout thing and had my receipt and fish scanned at the door while chatting with the scanner lady about how nice the cod looked.

I put the cod in the car and went home. While putting the cod in the fridge, I noticed that there were two of them lying as neatly together as if they were one. The packaging was so trim and tight, I never noticed. Until I got home, that is.

The cops showed up later that afternoon and arrested me. I was caught on camera. I'm typing this from jail, and this is my warning, while the part about coming home with two cods instead of the intended one is true, I made up the part about the cops showing up and putting me in jail.

That piece of cod passes all understanding.