I was a firsthand witness this past week to 2 incidents that led me to this question:
If employees are not trained properly should the customer be honest?
Incident #1: Friend walks into Walmart to buy 5 Poinsettias. He puts all five on the belt. Cashier rings up four. He pays, leaves, and makes a comment to me about if they don’t know how to count it’s their problem.
Incident #2: Having some work done on my house my contractor needs a piece of oak trim. I drive him down to Home Depot so he doesn’t need to take his truck. He buys a four foot piece of oak. Oak is priced by the foot. Cashier scans the item. Machine doesn’t ask how many feet are being purchased. It rings up as a one foot piece. He told me the piece of oak was my Christmas present from him since she didn’t charge him the right amount. When he left my house he was going back to see if she was still working so he could build up his inventory.
I worked my way through college. One of my jobs was the “Cashier Trainer” for a large supermarket chain. Yes, the store had a 12 hour training program before any cashier went live on their own. I got to teach people how to scan a UPC code. Which when you think about it is quite humorous since today we can check out on our own at the supermarket with no training.
Now I know honesty is the best policy, but is it your job to make up for companies who are not investing in proper regular training of their people?
On another note, maybe the Walmart Employment Application needs to include this question: Do you know how many fingers and toes you have?
