Walmart is a strange place where strange people congregate and do strange things. Fourteen former employees share the most horrific things that have happened to them on the job, and we're warning you now, some of these stories are truly cringeworthy.
The “blind” woman
“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 60, 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.”
The AIDS thief
“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.”
The sneaky manager
“Been 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.”
The strange vocalist
“I was quickly ‘promoted’ to the ‘electronics’ section. Most of my job was printing photos and redirecting people to better equipped stores when they needed actual equipment. However, we also hosted the DVDs and CDs. It was here that I met my most memorable customer. She was a bald mid-30s woman who was morbidly obese with her stomach hanging out of her shirt. She very sweetly asked me if they had ‘this song’ and proceeded to sing it in full. When she was done she could neither tell me title nor the artist. I did not recognize the tune (though not from her lack of talent). When she continues to look at me expectantly I just told her we didn’t have it. With this disappointing result she began to waddle away from me, it was at this point she gave me these parting words. She turned back and said, ‘you look like my half-Indian classmate Andrew, I know you’re not him though.’ And then she walked out of my life.”
Employee health concerns
“I was a department manager in frozen foods. One day (on one of my days off, so I didn’t witness this) one of my employees came into work seeming very confused and disoriented. She couldn’t remember the date, what day it was. Someone asked her what her name was. She couldn’t remember. She clearly had what some would call a very minor case of serious brain damage. The store refused to call 911 and instead called for her mother to pick her up and take her to the hospital. Apparently, something that not everyone appears to be aware of is that if you ask someone, ‘What is your name?’ and they respond, ‘I don’t know,’ then you need to call for an ambulance. This woman had a blood vessel in her brain that popped. Her head partially exploded. It could have killed her. And those cheap bastards at Walmart wouldn’t call 911. There was also someone in produce who had a heart attack. The store didn’t call 911 for him, either. One of the other produce associates had to volunteer to take him to the hospital. Walmart is probably the only place I’ve worked at about which I could say that they wouldn’t care if I died right there in the store and it wouldn’t be hyperbole. F_ck Walmart.”
The rage quit
“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.”
The 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 sh_t 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.”
The slicer
“I worked in the Deli and our gloves to clean the slicer ‘went missing’ one day. They are reinforced to help in case your finger makes contact with the blade so the blade won’t slice through your finger. Well I told my Manager we needed gloves, and kept reminding her every day I worked but she would just reply ‘I’ve let the ETL know.’ One day I’m cleaning the slicer (it’s taken apart so it can’t open any wider than the locked in closed position). But there’s an open spot at the top where the sharpener goes. Anyway, I’m cleaning it and my finger catches the blade. Right on the tip. And it gets cut off. I felt a sting, thought it was minor and went to the sink. I take off my latex gloves and start rinsing and I see my finger tip is gone. Just flat and pouring blood. So I wrapped it in my pure white deli coat and walk out of the deli to the front. I showed the LOD for the night and she freaks out, pulls me into the break room and then has somebody take me to the hospital. Some people suggested she call an ambulance after about twenty minutes of me standing at the sink, bleeding. Then she pulled in a guy who was shopping that was a part time fire fighter and he took one look and said I should have been at the hospital 30 minutes ago.”
Working full-time is a privilege
“A friend of mine was working part time at Walmart. He’d been there for over a year, was working any and all positions/shifts they threw at him so he could try to provide for his wife and (unexpected) new baby. He started to apply for any and all full time positions as they really needed the benefits. One day management took him aside and told him this was ‘not the Walmart way’ and he needed to make a plan with steps on how to get to a particular position. Apparently, ‘anything full time’ is not okay, Walmart wants to help you achieve your (specific) goals.”
The changing schedule
“I had a coworker call me one morning and when I answered the phone, very sleepily, she just started crying and asked, ‘you didn’t know you were scheduled did you?’ I hadn’t been scheduled, but my boss changed the schedule after my previous day of work and didn’t inform me. I couldn’t get to work that morning because of my lack of transportation, and I had to hang up after a painful conversation with my sobbing coworker. I transferred not long after that, since my boss let that happen a few more times. I shouldn’t have to wake up at five in the morning to call my boss and see if I’m scheduled for the day simply because she changed the printed schedule constantly. Co-worker couldn’t leave until coverage arrived. If you’re the only trained cashier and the next person doesn’t show up, and no one else on the floor is cashier trained they want you to stay until the ‘late’ person shows up. But if they’d already worked 8 hours and covered for 2 additional hours with their coverage not showing up, she was likely over worked and at her wits end only to call and realize no one was coming and she’d have to double shift it.”
The most disgusting “perfume”
“One day a woman stole a bottle of perfume and took it to the bathroom. She poured it out into her own container, and then proceeded to fill the container with her own piss. She then took the bottle up to returns and tried to return it. To this day I have no idea why my manager gave her the refund. It was very obvious that the woman pissed in the bottle because it was still warm.”
The coupon lady
“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.”
The family man
“I worked at Walmart about 13 years ago at one of the few stores left that closed overnight. It was a regular old WalMart, not at all super. I worked overnight, stocking. I liked it, I only dealt with customers for a couple hours before the store closed and then just stocked the shelves (I mainly worked in the automotive department) and the nights would go by really fast. I worked with a bunch of people who were related to each other. There was the dad, *Steve, his wife, his wife’s sister, and his stepdaughter who worked there during the day in the jewelry department. Steve stocked the sporting goods department, right next to mine. This guy was really gross. He would constantly pop over to my section and ask me if I needed help lifting stuff up onto the overstock shelves and he would make comments about how pretty I was and how if he was 10 years younger he’d date me (dude was pushing 50 and I was just a 19-year-old girl). I just laughed off his comments, say I didn’t need help and that I was perfectly happy with my boyfriend thank you. One night he decided to tell me how big his penis was. He related a story (a total lie, I’m sure) to me about how one day he was getting out of the shower and his stepdaughter (who was 17) saw him accidentally and exclaimed about how nice his penis was and how she wanted to ‘try it out.’ I was dumbfounded and I did not know what to say. I just said ‘oh, well I gotta get back to work’ and kinda shuffled away. A week later he was caught having sex with his wife’s sister in the bathroom at work. They were both fired, his wife quit and his stepdaughter continued to work there.”
Death in Walmart
“Happened before I got hired, but I heard enough about it from co-workers. An elderly couple would come in once a week to go shopping. The old man had troubles walking so he would kiss his wife and go sit in the fitting room area until she was done. One day they came in and did their little kiss and he also handed her his wedding ring, like he knew something was about to happen. A couple minutes of sitting there after his wife walked off, the guy collapsed to the floor and the fitting room ladies called 911. One of the department managers of the time was also a paramedic so he rushed over. The old guy started to cough up blood and every available associate had to come and make a wall of people so customers didn’t see what was going on. All of these associates saw and heard the guy choking on his own blood, now coming out of his nose and ears dying on the floor. They were trying to find his wife and no one could find her and the associates had to wait a half hour for the coroner to get down there and take the body. The associates who saw it still have flash backs about it.”
