Walmart supermarkets are the go-to retail and food stores for a lot of families across the U.S. With their low prices and one-of-kind home decor and clothing, it makes a lot of sense why Walmart is one of the most popular stores for people to buy their necessities from. While Walmart might be a great destination for families to shop, according to Walmart employees, it seems like it might also be a pretty weird place to work.
Why? Well, according to numerous Walmart employees, there have been countless weird customer service experiences at store locations nationwide. Whether they were working in the garden department, monitoring the aisles, or positioned upfront at the cashier station, many Walmart employees have claimed to see customers do some of the most unthinkable things. And of course, we want to hear all about it.
That’s why we scoured Reddit to find some of the weirdest things customers have done, according to Walmart employees. And while Walmart might be a favored shopping destination for many people, it’s also home to some of the craziest retail stories ever.
Here are some of the craziest Walmart customer service stories we could find.
1. When a woman pretended to slip and fall on olive oil.
“[I] had to convert surveillance video footage to DVD [format] for an attorney awhile back. [There] was footage of a lady, clear as day, cracking open a bottle of olive oil, pouring some out on the floor, [and] then putting [it] on a nearby shelf.”
She thought she could get away with it.
“…She then looks around and walks over to the spill and slips and falls. [It was] so funny to watch. It was one of those projects where I was calling people over to my desk, ‘you gotta see this!'”
2. When an employee watched a guy try on deodorant and put it back on the shelf.
“I worked at Walmart in the garden department, briefly in the early ’90s. I [took] a break, walked past the deodorant aisle and I see this huge guy, maybe 350 pounds, in a wife beater, put on some deodorant [and then] put the cap back on and put it back on the shelf. [I] told my manager about it and he said it happens all the time.”
Welp, this isn’t sanitary.
Here’s hoping that employee promptly removed that deodorant stick from the shelf afterward. Maybe buying deodorant in those pre-wrapped two packs is a better idea than we thought.
3. When a grown man went to Walmart dressed as a baby.
“I worked at a Phoenix-area Walmart in the late 2000s. We used to have a customer come in dressed head to toe in a baby outfit [that was] complete with a bonnet, a pacifier, and adult diapers.”
And no, it was not a costume.
“…It was a middle-aged white guy. The first time I ever saw him, I freaked out but everyone else what like ‘oh, that’s baby’s guy.’ Apparently, he was a normal guy with a wife and a baby and one day he just snapped and decided to live the rest of his life as a baby.”
“He would pay people to come to his house [to] change and feed him in a high chair.”
“…[H]e was a minor celebrity in the area before he passed away.”
4. When a customer couldn’t figure out which Walmart they were at.
“I’m walking to my car after I clock out [and] some guy pulls up beside me and asks, ‘[D]o know where Walmart is?'”
The sign was right there.
“And I asked, ‘The supercenter or-‘ (I was about to ask him the supercenter or the other neighborhood market. Where I live, there are two neighborhood markets and one supercenter) and he said, ‘[N]o a neighborhood market.'”
Well, we all get a little lost from time to time.
“Then I pointed to the BIG ASS sign that says ‘Walmart neighborhood market’ and I told him, ‘[Y]ou’re at a neighborhood market…’ [H]e looks at the sign [then] back at me, [gives me a] thumb up and says, ‘Appreciate it’ and drives out of the parking lot.”
5. When a woman brought her pet goose into a Walmart.
“[There once was a] woman with a live goose in her shopping cart. She said it was a service goose and the store can’t ask to see papers, so…”
6. When a kid peed all over the floor.
“[I] was stocking candy and a kid with his parents came down the aisle. They kept looking and stuff and the boy said he needed the bathroom…”
Well, he did tell the parents he needed to go.
“[His] mom told him to hold it. Well, they kept looking at candy for seven or eight minutes with the boy getting louder and louder about needing to pee. He finally went all over the floor.”
7. When someone decided to leave a poop on the floor.
“[There was] an actual [poop] on the floor.”
Uhm, that’s not the bathroom.
“Not in the bathroom next to the toilet, in the section for office supplies.”
8. When a woman used profanity to get her child’s attention.
“A woman called her two-year-old son ‘muthaf#%ker’ so many times I started to believe it was on his birth certificate.”
…That’s not quite their name.
“‘Sit Down, muthaf#%ker!!!’ ‘Shut up muthaf#%ker!!.'”
9. When a woman changed a diaper in the middle of an aisle.
“I literally saw a woman change her baby’s diaper in an aisle then drop the diaper full of poop on the floor and continue walking.”
That doesn’t go there.
At least drop it into one of the trash cans, they’re provided for a reason!
10. When a guy decided to roll in fertilizer.
“This was back in the late ’90s. I was working at Walmart as my first job as a teenager. I was floated to the garden department one day, [where] there was a guy looking at lawn fertilizer.”
Okay, nothing too suspect…yet.
“I walked over and asked if he needed help, he said, ‘Not now, just looking at the different kinds you have.'”
Nothing to see here.
“[A] pretty standard reply from the guy. [S]o I said, ‘Okay, let me know.’ I walk[ed] away, and then [swung] back about five minutes later. [The] same guy proceeded to rip open about 10 different kinds of fertilizer all over the ground and roll[ed] around in the stuff.”
And then it got even stranger.
“He also taste sampl[ed] the stuff. I called my [manager] because I didn’t want to deal with it. Security escorted the guy out [of] the store and called an ambulance in case the ingestion of the fertilizer hurt him.”
11. When an employee tried to help someone in a parking lot… who ended up being a criminal.
“My best story was the time I was sitting outside and a car drives up the road super fast. It’s a straight roadway with few lights; it’s like 2 a.m.”
Uh-oh.
“Anyway, I see car lights go up over the top of the hedge blocking the road, now the hedge is a good 5ft high. Followed very promptly by the most horrific grinding noise I’ve ever heard.”
“The driver flipped the car upside down, in the middle of the median going the wrong way.”
“I ran over and there’s a guy crawling out threatening bystanders. There is also a dude unconscious inside the car flopping around held by his seat belt and bleeding from his head.”
That escalated quickly.
“I was [in a] middle of a call for an ambulance when I walked up. The driver sees me on the phone and full-on sprints at me. Screaming how he’s going to kill me. So I ran back into Walmart, gave them the heads up about crazy, and they got me out. Crazy came in, looked around and ran for it.”
Who knew a phone call can cause so much chaos?
“The cops came after the driver fled. The passenger was taken away and a manhunt ensues. Turns out the car is stolen and I had to identify the driver. I went to court later and they gave the dude a misdemeanor charge. All because I tried to call an ambulance for an injured guy.”
12. When two guys decided to play catch with a milk carton.
“Two guys [were] tossing a gallon of milk to each other. Not like a little ‘here you go’ toss.”
Got milk?
“But [an] ‘I can throw this gallon and almost hit the ceiling I hope you catch that sh*t’ toss. I just sit there watching them in speechless disbelief that they were doing this.”
Why did they just leave the cartons there?
“It, of course, drops through the other dudes hands and milk explodes everywhere. They just grab another gallon and leave with a ‘heh, ma b.’ I stood there and watched that puddle in defeat for what felt like an eternity before going to get the mops.”
13. When a guy tried to steal meat by putting it into a bag of dog food.
“[A] guy took a giant empty bag of Purina dog food and filled it up with steaks and chicken from the meat section…”
Well that’s…creative.
“…He stapled it and everything, and [I] watched him see which line he was going to and reported to the cashier to check his dog food. He was caught.”
14. When a woman drank from a bottle of Tide.
“I worked setting up and opening a Walmart back in the ’90s. Grand opening, lines to the back of the store, madness. [A] woman in line chugs a bottle of Tide liquid laundry detergent. So add to the chaos [of] EMTs, ambulance, and the accompanying craziness.”
Thankfully, she’s okay.
“It turns out she didn’t speak English and thought it was fruit punch, probably because of the red bottle [color].”
15. When a woman wanted to return a product that wasn’t refundable.
“A woman argued with me for 90 minutes about returning a used blood test.”
Used…blood…test…
“This was the only item we didn’t refund in my entire time there.”
Understandably, too. Kind of hard to debate this one.
16. When a guy decided to get creative with his hat choices.
“[I] worked at Walmart 10 years ago. Was heading to [the] front of [the] store to help [a] cashier [when I] ran into a guy with a cone on hi[s] head [that was] completely wrapped in duct tape, [from] head to toe. He called himself ‘The Tin Man’s Pen*s.'”
It’s called…fashion?
We all have different tastes, but fashion has to draw the line somewhere, right?
17. When a robbery went horribly wrong.
“I would say the best instance I’ve seen is an attempted theft…”
Key word, “attempted.”
“Two men hanging around Walmart late at night, probably in their late 30’s. [They’re] walking around with two TV’s in [their] basket at 1 a.m. [That’s] usually a red flag. One slides by me, apologizes and heads to the back of cosmetics.”
“Soon after, the alarm goes out as they bust through the fire exit.”
“About seven of us go to the door. Technically you [can’t] do nothing so we all just stand there, [while one of us] informing them the police had been called. These guys are in the parking lot freaking out. Having a hard time even getting these TVs into the car.”
Then things got worse.
“They are yelling at each other as one futility tries to jam the second TV into the back while the other takes off his clothes (I’m guessing, or more so hoping, he just thought he’d look different?) finally they jump in the car and abandon the second TV. [We go and retrieve it] after they bolt out of there. I soon find one of them was nice enough to also leave their wallet with us, which contained his prison ID.”
18. When a couple decided to get frisky in the garden department.
“[I] caught a couple f***ing on top of a stack of pallets in the garden center.”
Oh, no.
“I can’t remember what exactly I said, but they both turned beet red and ran. The woman left her underwear and a shoe behind.”
19. When a man got friendly with a couple of vehicles.
“This one happened on my night off, so I only know the secondhand story. Some guy, who happens to be wearing nothing but a pair of shoes, approached my coworkers while they were on break and claimed he had been robbed.”
Okay, that’s concerning.
“He then proceeded to run all over the parking lot, rubbing his bare [butt] and genitals on people’s cars. Police arrived and [tased] him before hauling him off.”
20. When an employee pretty much saw it all in the grocery aisle.
“My store was right across the street from a hospital, but only a couple blocks away from a strip club, so you can only guess the variety of people I saw.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“I worked on the grocery side of the store, not general merchandise, so I didn’t see a lot of crazy stuff. I mostly had to deal with rude idiots. For instance, customers would refuse to move while I was pulling pallets and insist that I go around them in addition to all the holiday displays and construction.”
One size fits all…kind of.
“Customers getting angry at me that food items didn’t come in a smaller size, as if I personally did this to f**k them over.”
“Walmart Employees Only” is really non-negotiable.
“People would open up the cooler doors to the dairy and stick their heads in to ask where products were instead of finding an employee on the floor. Mind, there’s a bunch of giant cooling fans in the dairy cooler that make it impossible to hear anything. I’d have random-ass customers screaming, ‘WHERE’S THE FETA?!’ out of nowhere. Scared the sh*t out of me.”
Time to call security.
“Big groups of teenagers that would come in after midnight and ride the scooters around the store and trash the place and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Most of them had to be escorted out by management.”
Do you have a light?
“Had a customer threaten to call the store manager and have him fire me (apparently they were best friends or some sh*t) because I wouldn’t get him cigarettes. I was up front watching the self-checkouts and the door and was told not to leave that area for any reason because we were pathetically understaffed. The cigarette counter was closed anyway and no amount of explaining would make him stop. It actually egged him on. I was putting my job at risk either way, so I got his damn cigarettes.”
Trying to get a discount on a discount.
“Had a woman threaten to call the store manager because the eye shadow she found on a clearance rack had been marked down to $2 and she wanted it for $1. She started screaming and making threats and sat outside on the benches for three hours on the phone b*tching about the store and how awful we were.”
Friend? More like foe.
“Some former friends of mine tried to start shit with me while I was on the clock. They followed me to my department and were opening up all the outside dairy cooler doors to try and scream at me, so I hid in the meat freezer until another employee came through and I told him to get out manager.”
21. When a man tried to use a beer receipt to walk out with a comforter.
“Once had a [man] try and steal a comforter by just walking out with it, not even from the check out lanes.. just blatantly walking out.”
Okay, we all know that’s not how it works.
“When i asked can i see his receipt he hands me a receipt from 7/11 for beer. I said this is a 7/11 receipt and he looks at me and with the biggest smile goes “AYYYYEEEEEE” hands me the comforter and walks out like nothing happened.. i was like tf.”
At least he gave it back, right?
I guess it goes to show that they really are reading the receipt you had them at the exit, not just scribbling a check mark on it. Best to not try and pull this trick off.
