I went “black mulch” shopping Saturday at a local Walmart. In the Gardening Center the lone on duty employee was an exit guard. I asked where I could find mulch; he suggested I travel to the other end of the building to look in the outside lot. By the way, he remarked, best you drive your car. I did, parked the car and went in. Found the same gent guarding a second exit door. Again he directed me outside. Once I load the car, I asked, what do I do?  Come back in and check out with Dave. I drove to the unsupervised lot, loaded my car and drove back to the entrance. The guard and I had now become fast friends. He led the way to find Dave.

Those Gardening Center exit registers were absolutely unmanned. I could-of, maybe should-of just left but I didn’t. My guard friend paged Dave. Forever later Dave was seen strolling down an isle from the far front of the store. After much ado, Dave rang up my 5 bags @ $2.80; grand total $14.00. Now Dave and I too were building a friendship. I mentioned reading on-line that Walmart was cutting staff to adjust for decreased public spending. To Dave that made no sense. By example he said, COVID or not, that store was running about 500 shoppers per day. Dave’s point – COVID, recession, whatever, the volume of shoppers stays about the same. Shoppers it seems will always shop; just adjust their spending. But to give shoppers the service and inventory they expect, it will take the same, even more than the current staff to get it right. In our industry, Dave would be an advocate for “advertising in a down economy.”

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