August 05, 2005

Having The Last Word

Wal-Mart greeters are interesting people. Their entire job is to stand at the entrance to the store saying hello to people coming in, making sure that the customers get a cart if they need it and then wishing them well on their way back out of the store. This is a job that requires the ability to interact well with all sorts of people and to remain cheerful in any situation. I imagine that if Wal-Mart were robbed at gun point, the greeter would thank the criminal for choosing Wal-Mart as he dashed to his get away car.

Our Wal-Mart has one greeter that stands out from the rest. She is a very friendly woman, but I'm never sure when the conversation ends.

A sample of the typical dialogue as we attempt to leave the store:

Wal-Mart Greeter: Have a nice night.

CK: (Politely) Thanks, you too.

WG: Bye now!

CK: (Still trying to be polite) Bye!

WG: See you later.

CK: (Wondering if I should just ignore her) Ok, you too. (walks out the door)

WG: Thanks for shopping at Wal-Mart.

CK: (To MK, now that we are in the parking lot) Is she still talking to us? She always gets the last word. I'd hate to try to win an argument with her.

Until later...

5 comments:

Herge Smith said...

They tried to introduce greeters into Gap and sundry other US franchises - not a great idea in a country renowned for being slightly reserved.

Greeter: Hello and welcome to Gap

Shopper: Huh

Greeter: Welcome to Gap

Shopper: Oh...er... erm... thanks, thank you.

Shopper to shopper friend: Did you hear that? They just spoke to me as we came in - I'm certainly not coming back here again.

So, as you can see, we no longer have many greeters.

Frankly, I prefer people with shitty paid jobs to treat me with a certain level of hostility and resentment - it just seems more natural.

Melissa said...

I TOTALLY agree with Herge! The greeters freak me out. My sister lives in Chicago and is even more disconcerted by this than we are when she comes to visit the sticks.

Jupiter-190 said...

A friend and I went to Waffle House last night and were greeted several times by the cook.

"Howdy!"

"Welcome to Waffle House!"

"Hi!"

Weird.

Other places where employees are assigned to greet:

Blockbuster Video
Hollywood Video
Outback Steakhouse

thordora said...

WHY are the greeters either old men with idiot ties, or slightly off people?

and WHY with the 400 cameras they have, do they need to stick the damn sticker on my bag?

Really, if I'm GOING to steal something, it will be an item from a store where it cost more than 1 dollar canadian to make.

Say no when they ask to tape the bag. Confuses the fuck out of them..


OOOOH!!This is TOTALLY something I HATE!

M said...

It's like when you go to CiCi's Pizza. The whole staff shouts at you as soon as you walk through the door, "WELCOME TO CICI'S!". Then when you leave they say, "BYE! THANK YOU!".

I had a friend who used to work there. He said that they were required to do that or else they'd get into trouble with the boss.