Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@Juno.com
It is common practice for corporations like Wal-Mart Stores to employ the talents of "mystery shoppers," whose job it is to check that company protocols are being employed and enforced. These undercover operatives lurk through their assigned stores undetected while they glean useful information regarding pricing, customer service, cleanliness, stocking, etc. that they later pass on to the home office or division points. It goes without saying that these valuable but invisible employees depend heavily on mainstreaming themselves into the general population of Wal-Mart shoppers.
What follows below is a proposed list of adaptations/qualifications that I think would make for the ideal typical Wal-Mart patron.
2) Clothes Make the (Wo)man, but Third World Children Make the Clothes First, ensure that all your clothes were previously bought at either Wal-Mart, their fine competitor, K-Mart, or any other obscenely wealthy retailer who patronizes sweatshops safely beyond the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission and American labor laws and that bring us marvelously inexpensive overseas craftsmanship. If it's summer, keep in mind that tank tops that gloriously show off the rippling flab of your biceps are a must, especially if they are black and showcase by conspicuous relief the pastiness of your dimpled flesh (the fluorescent lighting, too, further enhances this alluring feature).
It's a given that black spandex shorts that expose the legs from above the knees on down add enormously to that Wal-Mart shopper's look, especially if you have legs like hot dogs and a rear end that will make the seat of those black spandex shorts look like two Rottweilers humping in a body bag.
3) Hairstyle Too much styling gel and/or styling mousse caps off your Wal-Mart patron's disguise, especially if you wear your thinning hair in a severe ponytail or half-ponytail that looks as if it was pulled back with a pulley and rope. These hairstyles, also, bring out your bloated face and protuberant but observant eyes!
4) Accomplices Perhaps as much as personal appearance, one method of remaining undetected during your assignment is human decoys or actual family members. Children are a great way of distracting Wal-Mart management while you perform your tasks.
Bring your four illegitimate children with you and ensure that they all whine and demand at 150 decibels or more for money for the coin-gobbling vending machines, rides, and other props that are thoughtfully provided at the exits for the ostensibly escaping parents.
After you slap most or all of them, encourage those over five to demand to be taken to Electronics so they can bogart the new Sega Dreamcast until after the millennium. Those five and under must scream in no fewer decibels to be taken to Toys, so that Meghan, the acne-bombed 16 year-old dept. mgr can cheerlessly clean up the Star Wars: Episode One blister packs and those cute cork-popping rifles that they scatter to the four winds.
A disinterested, world-weary 14 y/o girl or boy who's ashamed to be seen standing within a parsec of any family members and would rather look disinterested and world-weary at the mall adds the final touch to that dysfunctional, trailer park ambience.
Being accompanied by at least one of their three out-of-work fathers would perfectly complete the image of the typical dysfunctional Wal-Mart family, especially if he gets into the spirit of subterfuge. Recommended: Haystacks Calhoun denims that display a generous portion of carpenter crack, black tee shirts that say, "HOG: Harley Owner's Group, '87" on the back and work boots that manufacture endless piles of yellowish dirt on top of the newly vacuumed runners.
1) Surliness This should only be upgraded to outright nastiness when provoked. Provocation can be construed as being asked for a receipt when trying to return a five year-old entertainment center that was chewed by your pit bull or being asked, "How may I help you?"
2) Stupidity While this may be repugnant to you, the Wal-Mart undercover operative, sometimes you will actually have to act as if you were freshly lobotomized and prematurely discharged by Medicaid. Ways to effect this illusion are:
a) Call for help then disappear from the department after they call on the PA for customer assistance.
b) Approach every other person with a blue vest and ask if they work there. When they look at you and answer, "No, I'm a lost busboy," act as if you don't get the joke.
c) Get only on those express lines that say, "3 items or less" then argue that your thirty 100 lb. bags of Ol' Roy dog food comprise only one item.
d) Argue the price even if you have an outdated circular that was printed when Sam Walton was still alive. Insist that they roll back the price to 1965 like Michael Douglas in FALLING DOWN.
e) Preface your request for help with, "Do you know what I'm looking for?", as if his/her nametage says, "Amazing Kreskin-Associate" on it.
3) Righteousness As some wretch who'd obviously hated public service people once said, "The Customer is Always Right." Constantly remind the Wal-Mart associates of this wonderful maxim, even if you're more wrong than the people who'd once proclaimed the world as flat. Right or wrong, true or false, the ridiculous and the sublime... it isn't the issue. Money is. Money legitimizes absurdity, overrides order in the universe. You are the customer. You are always right.
You are right even if that newspaper coupon offering ten percent off on fertilizer is six years old and was for Home Depot or Odie's House of Manure.
You are right in expecting a 95% discount because the item that you'd had the stockman drag out of the backroom for you at the expense of his spine has a week's worth of dust on the box.
You are right in abruptly taking that rolling stepladder that's only half as tall as the Sears Tower.
You are also within your rights if there was an associate who, until only a tragic moment ago, was atop it.
You are absolutely right in assuming that Wal-Mart's falling price policy is constantly in a state of flux and that you yourself determine that they fall as frequently as at an Arabian bazaar.
Once your cover is secure, you'll be free to go about doing your job. Chances are you'll be visiting several Wal-Marts (according to the home office's statistics there's an average of seven in every city and township in N. America). Do not let your many hours touring Wal-Marts blunt your standards. Here are a few rules of thumb to keep your critical acumen sharp:
1) Radioactive and/or biohazard waste is not to be stored near the break room, snack bar, or adjacent the McDonald's. This could wipe out management overnight.
Instead, if your current Wal-Mart follows company directives, such waste will be disposed of in a discreet location, such as near a water reservoir or a playground. If you have any questions regarding Wal-Mart's methods of waste disposal, contact the local Board of Health or EPA office. They keep scrupulous records, as do all responsible bureaucrats, of all their corporate "gratuities." Do not expect a firm handshake, as their palms will be well-greased.
2) Be suspicious of food packages, health aids, condoms, or cans of baby formula that have been opened, resealed with duct tape, and marked down 10%.
3) Immediately report all dead animals to the Pets Dept. Manager before an enterprising member of store management or somebody will say McDonald's.
4) Mounted moose heads in Sporting Goods is bad etiquette except south of the Mason/Dixon line and Maine.
5) No more than 50% of the shopping carts should at any time be soldered together.
6) Customer service is defined as being slightly more than cognizant enough of your existence to grab your money. Sullen eye contact from the welfare mother at the register is generally acceptable to most patrons.
7) Management is usually discouraged from using walkie-talkies at the maximum decibel output in both the bathrooms and changing rooms (try not to stand directly in front of the holes in both venues).
8) Moustaches, beards, and genitalia are not to be drawn in permanent marker on your pictures in the photo lab, even if it's a genuine laugh-getter and exceptionally executed. Beware, also, if the pictures are hard to separate.
9) It's indicative of bad breeding and poor training when the tire shop mechanics rummage through your glovebox, even if they tell you that's it's "a little known shortcut to the brake pads."
10) It is strictly forbidden for Lawn and Garden to have more than one inch of mulch and/or pete moss on the floor.
11) Ignore the chalk outlines on the floor of the snack bar or McDonald's, as the police and board of health investigations are probably long over.
12) The associate in Sporting Goods should not be approached if he is observed cleaning and oiling the rifles and shotguns, especially on days when the President is visiting.
13) In the case of an honest misunderstanding, it is well within Security's rights to detain and search suspected shoplifters under what is known as the "shopkeeper's privilege."
It is not their privilege, however, to make you bend over and squeal like a pig. Be on the lookout for beat-up phone books and rubber truncheons, and dartboards with Stephen Biko's picture.
14) Cork and cap guns in Toys: OK.
Real guns in Toys: Not OK.
15) The bar code scanner is not always right, especially if that can of Ol' Roy dog food requires a refinancing of your home.
16) Spilled motor oil, bacon grease, melted lard, & etc., are not to be left unattended. Instead, a stockman should dump kitty litter in the middle, leaving a generous amount around the spill's perimeter to prevent spreadage, where it will do its work through the miracle of osmosis and the help of God.
17) Consider going to CVS or Osco for your prescription needs if the pharmacist or pharmacy technician has crossed eyes and knobs on their head.
18) Report to management any dead fleas or ticks in your Big Mac.
19) The soda machines outside are for show only. They are merely very realistic props and never contain any soda whatsoever.
20) If you bring a paperback novel to the register, the cashier is not within her rights to suggest that you "read the Good Book, instead, before you broil in Hell." You can afford to laugh at this: You are already there.
If the home office in Bentonville seriously considered your efforts, then there wouldn't be so many violations. This is where the ingeniousness of the mystery shopper comes in. Wal-Mart's master plan is to hire a total of 220,000,000 mystery shoppers, or five for every one of their stores, and, by total immersion, make you a faithful Wal-Mart shopper. Welcome to the family, and Praise the Lord! Halleluja!
To read similar accounts like mine.
Check out this hilarious page just sent to me by a former Wal-Mart manager!
The Handy-Dandy Wal-Mart Manager's Manual.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@Juno.com