A Walmart employee recorded a customer getting into a tiff with a co-worker a minute before closing, sparking a series of head nods and knowing comments from TikTok users who seemed all too familiar with the sight.
Hannah Gregory (@hannahhgregoryy) is a Walmart employee who documents what it’s like being a worker for the chain on TikTok, and her latest video showed viewers that there are patrons who have zero issue with keeping a worker in-store past closing time so that they can air out their grievances.
“When crazy a** Walmart customers start random drama at 10:59…” reads a text overlay in the video she posted. Gregory zooms into the store to show a woman hold up her phone. The woman appears to be yelling at a Walmart employee. The caption Gregory penned for the video reads, “My poor boss handled it so well too this lady was going INSANE.”
TikTokers who saw the video had varying opinions on the customer’s freakout. There was one viewer who seemed to view these altercations with a sense of enthusiasm. “Walmart 24 hrs stores would be great just for those moments,” they wrote.
While others shared their own experiences dealing with irate patrons. One person wrote, “Had a customer start drama about his pickup order, He was drunk and was yelling at my coworkers and literally all of AP and like 3 team leads come.”
@hannahhgregoryy My poor boss handled it so well too this lady was going INSANE #fyp #walmart #walmartgirl #rollback #dealsfordays #foryou #foryoupage #trending #wallyworld #retailprobs #workhumor #customerservice #viral #retaillife #retailworker #customers #walmartradio #hourlyassociate ♬ Funny – Gold-Tiger
The post has amassed more than 3,000 views as of Saturday evening. In the comments, viewers shared their own Walmart horror stories.
One user on the app wanted to know what the customer was angry about in the first place, and Gregory replied that it stemmed from a disagreement over baby formula: “She had infant formula in her stroller before she had paid for it, the self checkout lady took it out (obviously) and the lady went ape sh**.”
Another explanation of the event from Gregory revealed that the only reason the Walmart employee remove the formula from the stroller was to get it ready to be scanned: “It was literally bc she had baby formula in her stroller (before she even paid for it) so the self checkout lady took it out of her stroller to scan it and she LOST IT.”
According to Statista, a resource that employs a series of common factors to determine a satisfaction score for shoppers, Walmart’s index score is 70. That is about “five points below the average department and discount score rating of 75.” However, there are folks who’ve argued online that Walmart has put in significant work to increase customer satisfaction, like this one individual who believes the retailer is going to make a “comeback” thanks to its offerings that culminate in an overall more pleasant shopping experience.
But then there are those who’ve went on tirades against the company for locking up $4 batteries behind a case and making what should be quick trips to the store, instead, painfully drawn out affairs that are more trouble than they’re worth.
Walmart has been implementing stringent protocols throughout its stores in recent years in a bid to cut back on self-checkout theft. From cameras designed to “track” shoppers, to assigning cashiers with wireless item scanners in the self-checkout lanes (which kind of defeats the purpose of self checkout entirely, right?), the retailer has taken a strong stance against theft in its stores. So strong, in fact, that the chain decided to shut down approximately 20 stores in 2023 due to rampant shoplifting occurrences.
The Daily Dot reached out to Walmart and Gregory via email for further comment.