Go ahead and ask me

"Was your store clean today?"
"Was your cashier friendly"
"Did your cashier greet you?"

I'm a customer and I've just spent three hours in Wal-Mart. I'm feeding my toddler Goldfish crackers to stop another screaming fit. I couldn't find the dog food by the rest of the groceries, and when I did find it, I was concerned about all the recalls I've heard about. I just about got run over by an overzealous stocker with a pallet jack. I was fourth in line at the register and finally got my stuff loaded on the belt. Now I just want to stand here and let someone ring up my cartload of merchandise and get home. "Was your cashier friendly?"

Wal-Mart must be in sweeps season, like the Nielsen ratings. There are surveys on the card reader and surveys on the register tape. I have no idea whether the surveys will actually change anything in our store. Personally, considering the bathroom situation in our store, I will never answer the "Was your store clean today?" question "Yes." It is impossible to clean sandstone surface tile that 500 people walk on, drip on, track mud on. And when the definition of clean bathrooms to one of our maintenance people is "put up towel, fill TP holders, sweep a little and spray a lot of disinfectant and run," it's not getting better soon.

Outside of customer initiated surveys, we have Store Trak, a national telephone poll surveying company. They compared our prices, store appearance, guest assistance, etc. with other grocery and discount stores. We have a lock on the "low prices" category. But on store cleanliness and staff questions, we are constantly getting beat. Biggest? Sure. Most selection? Yes. But Wal-Mart has still not instilled enough pride in its troops to make us No. 1 in everything.

I admit, if I ran the store, a couple of staff would go away within the first 20 minutes. If you're really not happy working here, do us both a favor. Find something to do that makes you happy. It's almost as easy to put a smile on your face and welcome the people who pay your paycheck than to frown and work with constant attitude. A colleague and I were discussing a fellow staff member after she stomped past us at the beginning of her shift. "If she were any friendlier, it would be dangerous," she said. Apparently, night help is hard to come by. I've had customers walk past me, complaining about lack of service, or cashiers that don't say a word to them at the register. C'mon.

Sam Walton said something like "The feeling customers have when they leave your store determines how soon they'll be back." (After a recent trip to Target, I know how true that is, but I won't bash the competition.) The same is true for my store. Do your job, but what the heck -- why not spread some goodwill as you do it?