Walmart is a rough place. In fact, it’s rough just shopping there. Now, imagine you work there. Former and current employees of the retail chain took to Reddit to share their worst experiences while at work in the store. While some are funny and weird, others are frankly upsetting. Either way, I’m glad I don’t work there. Or shop there, really. Mostly, I like to think of Walmart as a necessary evil for people who need a bargain on hunting gear and groceries. I’m more of a Target man myself.
One thing is for sure, though. Working retail sucks. The store can be nice, your coworkers can be nice, but anyone who’s worked a register knows that it’s customers who ruin the store. Thankfully, however, we have r/askreddit to tell us why our job isn’t nearly as bad as working at Walmart.
Here are the best answers to the question “What’s your Walmart horror story?”:
1. Jenga!
“Not so much a horror story. I worked in grocery as a stocker. We had just finished a cereal display near the front of the store compiled of about 100 boxes. In comes an older lady, around 60s, driving one of the electric carts. She’s looking dead on at the display and promptly rams into the thing. Boxes go everywhere and she starts apologizing over and over and explains that she’s legally blind. A customer that was nearby and saw everything asked her how she drove here if she was blind.. She responded by quickly turning around and leaving the store.” –Give_Me_A_Sign
2. Lawsuit right here.
“Four hours into my first shift, I was facing items on a bottom shelf while a coworker was facing items on the top shelf. She dropped a gallon of Gatorade on my head. Management refused to let me report the injury or leave to seek medical attention. I finished the shift, dazed and in pain. The next day I found out my skull was broken. Officially, since I was not allowed to report the injury, it didn’t happen at work. I rage quit.” –manapan
3. When in doubt, scream “AIDS!”
“My mom was a manager at Walmart… She told me about this woman who was trying to steal a prepaid phone. When she got caught by security she used the knife she was attempting to open the plastic packaging with to cut the security dude after cutting herself…. She then went on to scream at him that she has AIDS and now he’s going to have it for trying to stop her.” –lilytargaryen
4. Weird Customer: Explained.
“I lived in a really redneck area, so there was a guy who would ride his horse up to the liquor store to buy his 99 Bananas and then ride home. I always felt bad for the horse cuz it looked hot and tired, but I guess the guy’s license had been taken away years before so riding a horse is the way to go if you’ve gotten one too many DUIs.” -anonymous
5. Coworkers are sometimes the worst culprits.
“Working there as a cashier since October. Christmas Eve rolls around, and thank god I’m not scheduled to work. Cue phone call from the manager asking why I haven’t come in yet that day.. “I’m not on the schedule?” Manager – “Yes you are” Me – “I’m not coming in, I wasn’t on the schedule.” Next day I worked was the day after boxing day, went and looked at the schedule, and lo-and-behold, someone wrote that I was supposed to work… In pencil… I quit shortly after.” –HighStu
6. A cry for help.
“I was unloading a freight truck at the time and the woman that works at the fabric counter calls over the intercom for a manager. Then maybe 2 minutes go by and she yells for management on the intercom again and it’s clear by the tone of her voice that something is going down. Then maybe 20 seconds or so go by and all I hear over the intercom is “HELP!”.
Some of us are about to go see whats going on but our manager says he’ll take care of it. Turns out two sisters and their kids were tearing apart the store, the sisters were eating food right out of the bags, one of the kids was throwing jars of baby food at the wall and the rest were opening items off the shelves. The yell for help came when the oldest kid proceeded to piss on the carpet in the clothing department and when the two sisters were confronted with this they just laughed and said it was our job to clean it up.
They got banned from the store and I was told the police had to forcibly remove them.” –Pineapple_Pistol
7. The worst of the worst.
“Lady yelling at her kid for picking up a Magic 8-ball off an endcap display because it was “Sorcery” and “a tool of the Devil.”
I wish I was joking. I wish I could say with confidence that she was joking. I cannot. This fucking moron exists, and has reproduced.” –WedgeSkyrocket
8. Coupon Queen.
“Once I had a woman who was giving me a hard time about a coupon that was expired (coupon people are the worst). She refused to give up, she really wanted that dollar off. My line was really getting long and I was getting really frustrated. So I reached in my pocket and pulled out a Five and said “If I give you a five will you give up on this coupon?” She got pissed and said “I can’t believe you said that to me.” She told the CSM but I didn’t get in trouble for it.” –Wright4000
9. The grossest return.
“I’ll start with my grossest: A woman comes in with some panties and said they didn’t fit and she wanted to return them for cash because she had already bought the correct size elsewhere. She had a receipt and plopped a Walmart bag down on the counter. Inside this bag were 6 crusty crotched, shit stained panties that were a biohazard from six feet away. Needless to say I did not touch them. I paged the manager on duty and he tells me to just TAKE THEM BACK despite being very nasty. Processed the return and she happily left the store with her $8.” –teknrd
10. Big tipper.
“Former Cart Pusher. Had an old lady try to tip me $1 after I helped her bring her newly bought plants or some shit to her car. Told her I couldn’t accept it per company policy (and it was only 1 dollar so I mean it wasn’t particularly enticing). She then proceeded to roll over in her little scooter mobile and stuff it down the front of my pants. She chuckled dirtily as she rolled away.” –David_10nant
11. An old classic.
“This was like 5 days ago (I still work there). Went into the men’s room and there was liquid shit on the wall and dripping down to the floor, like someone literally shot a diarrhea rocket on the wall. I just pretended like I didn’t see it and carried on with my day.” –FilthyBigLippedBeast
12. Inedible.
“Walmart has a hot food bar, and one particularly busy night we get a man who comes to customer service with a large bag from the hot bar. He demands a full refund. I ask him what the problem is and he starts yelling that our chicken is the worst thing he’s ever tasted and he can’t believe we would sell something so dry and inedible. He claimed we are a rip off and we should have our food license revoked. I calmly apologize for his experience and say I would gladly issue the refund. He hands me the large bag and it’s completely empty.
Me: “Sir, where is the chicken?”
Him: “Well, I ate it all.”
Me: “I thought it was inedible?”
Him: Dead silence.” –Pancakesthebunny
13. I mean… wow. Good for him.
“I worked in the electronics department for a while. I remember seeing a fat guy eating chicken wings while using the touch screen photo center kiosk. He was then stacking the bones straight into the top of his shopping cart.” –jasontheguitarist
14. Not all customers are human.
“Opened up the semi trailer full of pet food to be greeted by 5 raccoons staring me down. I’m a full grown man but that was intimidating.” –brian20999
15. Balding.
“When I worked in cosmetics, there was a regular who always bought a lot of mascara. This was a just-past-middle-aged gentleman. He was using it to paint over his bald “spot” (which was 3/4 of his head in actuality). He didn’t even always leave to do so; he would occasionally make use of the display mirrors.” –blushberry4