WAL-MART GREETER BLUES

By Juan Montoya

Think those men and ladies standing in the blue Wal-Mart vests whose job is to stand inside the air-conditioned store saying hello have it easy?
"You probably think, es papita," confided one recently as we waited for a friend to emerge from the store. "But you'd be surprised how hard it is to deal with some of the customers."
Wal-Mart is notorious for imposing a gag rule on its employees when talking to the press or the public, so rather than endanger their job, we will not use the people's names here. The things these people tell us that go on in local stores is mind-blowing.
"Sometimes people get up on the wrong side of the bed and we have to deal with them," said one. "You say hello, y te rayan la madre (they curse you)."

Men with female partners are especially difficult, said another. Sometimes a couple is fighting as they come through the doors from the parking lot and they are in no mood to say hello to a stranger.
"You say hello and ask them how they're doing, and they answer 'Que chingaos te importa?,' (what the hell is it to you?)," said a male greeter. "They think you're looking at their girl and they ask you 'que chingaos miras? (What the hell are you looking at?).'"

Things can get pretty bad, said one. At one time, he said a customer he had angered earlier at work by checking his items against the sales receipt showed up at his door looking for him.

"I had to call the cops," he recalled. "The guy was out of control."