Only At Walmart: 43 Crazy Stories Employees Actually Witnessed While Working At Walmart

I worked for Malwart 11 years ago for a whopping total of 8 months. I worked the overnight shift as an Overnight Stocker for Department 8 (Pets). The store I worked at had just gotten brand new high rise shelves installed. They were said to be able to hold over a ton. Well, one night after getting all my regular freight stocked and the overstock put into the bins, my bosses had me pull 8 pallets of Arm & Hammer cat litter. The boxes had a bonus 10lbs inside, making them nearly 35 or so pounds a piece. They wanted all of those on the high risers. I asked if they were absolutely sure the shelves would be able to handle all that weight. I threw a s**t-fit about it because I know I was in the right for being worried. Other department managers who were there also sided with me. They watched over the next couple of hours as I carefully did my job. As I was putting the final 12 boxes on the bottom shelf, I heard a cracking and tearing sound, and next thing I know is I'm buried underneath all of the cat litter that had caused the shelve to collapse.

Everybody in the store heard it happen, and everybody was explicitly told NOT to dial 911 or anything. F**k that s**t! After getting all my blood cleaned from my face and cuts patched up, I called my uncle's then time girlfriend who is a lawyer, told her what had just occurred, and what the upper management is attempting to do. As of today, I still haven't spent all the money I received as a result of going to court over it. F**k Walmart!

Not me, but this is my mom's Walmart horror story:

She worked at Walmart when I was little, not even 4 yet. When I was little I had some kind of recurring virus that caused me to develop a 104 degree fever and a severe case of hives. So one day while she is at work at my dad calls the store and tells her that I am VERY sick again. So of course, she goes to the manager and said she needed to leave because her baby was ill. They told her, "you need to choose between Walmart and your family!!!!!" Haha her response was I GAVE BIRTH TO MY CHILD NOT TO WALMART GOODBYE!!! And walked out! ❤️ that lady!

I worked there many many years.

Overall, it wasn't terrible, and I have read a lot of horror stories on reddit about things that happen to people at their jobs and I just can't conceive of most of it happening at Walmart. Besides that, I have never witnessed problems with working off the clock or was ever asked to work off the clock. I felt, generally paid appropriately for my job. That doesn't mean I didn't hate the s**t out of it sometimes, and it doesn't mean nothing bad ever happened. I had scores of s****y managers, and worked in stores that were run badly.

Having said all that, the worst thing that ever happened was this:

I had recently inherited the toy department. This was about 10 years ago. It had gone without a manager for like 6 months, and the one they had before that was utterly incompetent and lazy. So the department was a mess.

But I am a toy department professional, literally. I can take any toy department and make it look like somewhere you want to shop. Clean it up, stock it right, I will work my a*s off and fix it and the backroom too. So, it was daunting, but I had a lot of confidence in myself, and i knew I'd be pretty much doing it alone because lol Walmart doesn't give a f**k about toys. But I figured if everyone just left me alone, and let me work my department, it would be fine.

So here's what happened:

Anyway, I decide the first thing I want to do is physically clean the place up. There was overstock everywhere and the bike rack and power wheels rack was just a dumping ground for any kind of c**p you can imagine. Power wheels are the big electric ride on toys.

Anyway, so it takes me DAYS but I finally get the power wheels rack cleaned up, and I can actually start moving the power wheels boxes themselves around back to where they are supposed to be. So, I grab one and it sounds all...rattly. I thought maybe some other toy had fallen in or a bag of screws inside the box had busted. But then as I move the box I see there is this wet streak where I am moving the box, and there is a hole in the corner. These things run from $75 to $300, and this is not what I want to see on an expensive item.

Oh no, I think. Mice.

Well, no sooner did I have that thought than 2 mice come bursting out of the hole and go sliding across the tile floor. I scream and jump back and recompose myself.

I push the box some more and it sounds like a f*****g rain stick. it's all pssssssssssshhhhh. I'm like, what the f**k is going on in this box...

Then I think, well f**k it, I have to get it off the sales floor because we can't sell it in this condition and I don't want to break open this box on the sales floor because I don't want customers seeing whatever is in here.

I get a cart and try to load the box. the bottom of the box basically gives way, and mouse poop just cascaded out. Bits of paper, liquid,. It was the most wretched s**t I had ever seen. Every time I moved the box it was just...s**t everywhere.

So I am about to hurl at this point and I get the stupid f*****g box onto my cart, go grab my PPE (personal protective equipment) and clean the S**T out of the shelf the floor the air, my hands everything. Usually I'm sort of "lol PPE" but I wish I could have gotten a f*****g biohazard suit for that.

Anyway, I take the stupid box to the back. This box is like 5 feet high, by 3 wide and 2 long, ok, so IMAGINE how much potential for s**t there is in this box. It's everywhere.

So I get to the back, go to the area we take damaged goods and tell the woman there that I am throwing this thing out and explain to her what's going on with it, please mark it down, but don't touch it etc.

She throws a fit. Says she needs to talk to the manager. So we wait, and he comes and eventually decides that what we need to do is open the box and "wash" the merchandise. I say no way. This is for children and it's completely filthy and I'm not touching it. it's not safe or sanitary and no one should have to clean this thing.

He says fine leave it and we'll get rid of it ASAP.

I think, thank F**K and I go back to work.

Next day that filthy f*****g box is back on the sales floor. I raged. Threw it back on the cart and took it back again. Mouse s**t was still falling out of it.

The woman says the manager said we couldn't mark it down and we definitely couldn't throw it away and we can just try to sell it as is.

Uh, no. We get into an actual screaming match. Like why can't she see that a toy filled with rat s**t is NOT SAFE. She's crying. I'm fuming. The store manager comes by and says that he told a maintenence guy to clean the box up and he's sorry it looks like he didn't do a very good job.

Mother f**k, I don't care how good of a job he did. I want that thing GONE. Like, if it is in my department, I am leaving and I will never come back because this is sick, Walmart is disgusting, and I can't even believe I'm having this argument right now. He said that was my choice but he'd have the item cleaned up "properly" by this afternoon.

So I sliced open the end of the box (they had retaped with actual mouse s**t in the tape!!!) and stuck my hand in and yanked the whole f*****g thing out.

Nearly fell over. Not only was it filled with s**t, it was a HUGE nest and there were corpses all over teh f*****g thing, and all over the floor and dead mouse babies stuck to the cardboard inside flap.

GAG.

The store manager looks totally disgusted, and gets on his walkie and calls the bike assembler.

The guy arrives and he says clean this up and sell it as a display. The bike builder looks like he's about to faint.

I said, I'm done. Bye bye, and I left. I didn't know what to do. I thought about calling corporate, OSHA, the news, the Health department...

What I actually did was went home and cried. The next day, I ended up going into work at whatever the f**k time I felt like it. I clock in and go to toys, and there's that F*****G POWER WHEEL. I don't know how long the poor assembler worked on that. But it did look a million percent better. But I didn't care. I dragged that mother f****r straight to the compactor, but it wouldn't fit, so I had to rip the wheels and mirrors off to cram it in. I was back there raging at the compacter for like 40 minutes. I took the battery out and took it to automotive to recycle and decided if they fire me, then f**k it.

Everyone in the store practically saw me the past three days fighting about this stupid toy with management. Everyone saw me literally throw a piece of "merchandise" in the garbage (instant termination btw).

No one ever said a word about it again, except the store manager who came by and said, "where did you end up putting that display?" I said, "in the garbage." Boy, he fumed. He just turned and walked away.

I did turn that toy department around, got our pest control guys in (thanks to an assistant manager who made the call, since dept managers can't do that) and rocked the s**t out of that department for several years. I won some awards for sales and improvement and no one questioned my s**t again and luckily I never had another problem remotely like that again. The store manager was demoted and moved to another store soon after.

Worked overnight there for 2 years. All my horror stories involve one Black Friday.

Black Friday 2008: I am a fairly large chap (6'4", about 250 pounds) so I was assigned to "guard" this stack of new flatscreen TVs. My store was supposed to be sent 12. We only received 4, and 1 was damaged and unsellable. By the time 5 a.m. rolls around, there are no fewer than 30 people locked onto these TVs, like vultures circling a dying animal in the desert. They drop the ropes, the madness begins, and I get bumrushed. The guy who ends up getting the last one is someone who makes me look like Peter Dinklage, and he actually lays down on top of the box to claim it. I start saying "That's all folks! Move on!" and most people get the hint and start finding new c**p to buy. Then from behind me, this little old lady, standing at a daunting 5'2" and weighing in at about 100 pounds shoves her way through the crowd throwing 'bows like Rhonda Rousey. She bends down and begins to attempt to channel her inner Wonder Woman and tries to move the TV out from under the Andre the Giant doppelganger. I laugh to myself and tell her that he has it claimed and she should please move on. Not to be deterred, she then reaches her arm across the TV box the adjust her position and try harder. Fezzik uses his hand to get her arm out of his face. She screams, yells "Oh my God! He just bit me!" and proceeds to attempt to file charges with the local constabulatory. They laughed at her, because apparently she had a history of pulling crazy stunts like this.

Same night, but this event occurred in the electronics department by the video games. A buddy of mine was in charge of running that CF. He was not such a large chap (think Steve Rogers pre-serum), but he was a veteran of past Black Fridays, so he knew what he was doing. The glass containing the new games was left open, and at around 4:55, one customer who was about my size shoved my co-worker out of the way in an attempt to get a better spot, saying something like "Get out of my way, b***h!" or something equally derogatory that decent people typically refrain from saying to customer service workers. What he didn't know was that my diminutive co-worker was also a combatives instructor for the National Guard. He politely helped the customer to the ground, got back up, closed the game case, locked it, and went to find the manager, who politely asked the customer to get the hell out of the store.

Again, same Black Friday (it was an eventful night/morning), different part of the store. For this story, we move to the front of the store. Another co-worker buddy of mine is assigned to hold the rope up at the front and let them drop at 5 a.m. This particular co-worker looks like what can only be described as a Mexican Super Mario. One of the managers made an announcement over the intercom that basically served as a 2-minute warning at 4:58. Of course, there was somebody that just had to set their watch 2 minutes ahead, and that person says "But it's 5 o'clock..." A hush fell over the crowd, like the deep breath before the plunge. My friend manages to hold off the onslaught of humanity until it actually was 5, then lets the rope drop. Some genius had decided to bring their 5 year old girl to this event (brilliant idea), and then proceeds to abandon said helpless child in a greed-driven rush to fulfill all their wildest dreams of cheap DVDs and clothing made by only the finest sweatshops Asia has to offer. This poor girl winds up tripping and would have been trampled under the herd of cattle (I mean, completely orderly gathering of paying customers) if my co-worker had not gone down with her and shielded her with his body, sustaining a shopping cart to the ribs and several inadvertent kicks from customers. Thankfully, everyone was ok.

These are my Tales From Purgatory... And people ask me, "But jcalvert8725, it's Christmastime! Why can't you be holly-jolly like everyone else????" To which I reply simply "Bah! Humbug...".

The reason I quit Walmart.

I had started out at the bottom and worked my way up over two long years. I had gotten myself promoted to a department manager (pharmacy) but I was still very close with the cashiers and customer service associates where I had started. As a fairly young and relatively new manager, I wasn't jaded and unkind yes. When people and other associates walked by me I said hello. Asked them how they were doing. Evidentally, I was one of the few. We had a new maintenence associate in the front who had Down Syndrome so he really appreciated someone being consistently friendly to him. And to be honest, he was a sweet kid and a hard worker. When he was confused or upset he would usually come to me and ask for clarification or for me to say something to whoever upset him.

One day I was about to finish my shift and another associate comes running up to me and says that I'm needed in the back. Evidentally the maintenence guy was crying and wouldn't calm down. I run back there because I know how fragile he is. I reach the back to find 4 salaried members of management surrounding him and yelling at him to get back to work. Actually legitimately cussing at this kid and yelling. And this kid is a snotty slobbering sobbing wreck. I basically told off all the other managers (who were my bosses) and told them to go the f**k away. I calm him down, figure out what happened (there was a miscommunication about breaks) and then remind him of the policy and urge him to just do better next time. He hugs me and goes about his day. But I am pissed. This is not how you treat anyone! Especially someone with mental disabilities. I get the number for his case worker but before he calls me back the next day, upper management fires the poor kid because he violated the break policy. It broke my f*****g heart that they broke him down and then just threw him away. I put in my notice 2 days later. F**k Walmart.

One day a woman stole a bottle of perfume, and took it to the bathroom. She poured it out into her own container, and then proceeded to fill the container with her own p**s. She then took the bottle up to returns and tried to return it. To this day I have no idea why my manager gave her the refund. It was very obvious that the woman pissed in the bottle because it was still warm.

TL;DR woman steals perfume, returns her own p**s, and profits from Wal-Mart.

Been with Walmart 3 years and by far this story is one of my favorites...

Working late one night, I notice an older guy stumbled in wearing a long tan trench coat. He was taking HUGE steps like he was trying to do lunges or something.

Next thing I know... 3 manager come from all directions, grab the guy and walk to the back. I later found out that he was completely naked under the coat and was walking in big steps so that the coat would open up a little and expose his p***s.

But that wasn't the best part! In his drunken state, he had decided that drinking and driving was a bad idea...so he rode his horse to Walmart and parked it in a handicapped parking spot.

The s**t you see at Walmart...

Not really a horror story, more sad than anything. There was this older lady (late 50s, early 60s, I'm guessing) that came in every day and she would kind of attach herself to an employee (usually the same one) and follow them around just talking to them about their day, her day, all kinds of stuff. As soon as I started at Wal-Mart, she attached herself to me. I actually got to know her pretty well. She didn't drive and walked about 20 miles to get to Wal-Mart each day, just because she had nothing else to do and was lonely (her words). She had 7 (I think?) cats and 3 pugs. She lived in a house with no floors and no electricity (a co-worker who lived near her verified this). I'm pretty sure she didn't have running water, either, just because of obvious hygiene issues. She also very obviously had some kind of mental issues.

What was even more sad is that a lot of my co-workers would make fun of her to her face, but she didn't understand what they were doing. I thought it was really f****d up. I felt bad for her, so whenever I had time I would stop and talk to her. It got to the point where she would call the store looking for me on the days she didn't come in.

My mom worked at a WalMart fitting room. Guy came in with a couple shirts, and stayed in the room for a really long time.
He came out with no items.

So when the guy leaves, my mom goes back to retrieve the items the man left in there.


She grabbed a few shirts off the floor and shook them out, one by one to fold them.

Dude took a s**t in one of the shirts and wiped his a*s with it.

My mom shook the poop out, on to herself.

She quit that night.

I sprained my back moving product in the back. At first I thought it was a pulled muscle, and walked towards the pharmacy to try and buy a heating pads and some Tylenol.

I made it to jewelry, barely keeping conscious from the pain. I asked my coworker to call management and let them know I had hurt myself pretty badly and needed to go to the hospital. Management told her to have me go to the back office to fill out paperwork. I blacked out twice going back, and was yelled at for taking so long.
I ended up being out for a month and a half for the injury, and got a whopping $24 in workmans comp because the second I got hurt my hours were reduced to one hour a week. I hate walmart.

Opened up the semi trailer full of pet food to be greeted by 5 raccoons staring me down. I'm a full grown man but that was intimidating.

Former Cart Pusher. Had an old lady try to tip me $1 after I helped her bring her newly bought plants or some s**t to her car. Told her I couldn't accept it per company policy (an it was only 1 dollar so I mean it wasn't particularly enticing). She then proceeded to roll over in her little scooter mobile and stuff it down the front of my pants. She chuckled dirtily as she rolled away.


tldr; took cold hard cash down my pants like a s******r.

This was like 5 days ago (I still work there). Went into the men's room and there was liquid s**t on the wall and dripping down to the floor, like someone literally shot a diarrhea rocket on the wall. I just pretended like I didn't see it and carried on with my day :/.

I could write a novel about all the garbage i saw in my 5 years there while in college.

Main Rage-Inducing Moments:

1. People coming through the '20 or less' item lane with TWO F*****G BUGGIES FULL of garbage, and they look at me and ask, " All the other lines are looong, so this is OK right?"
Me: -______________-

2. When you're a cashier and you are CLEARLY closed with the light off, a closed sign on the conveyor, my dead-inside thousand yard stare , etc, people will ignore all of it and start stacking stuff on my line, then get outrageously angry when i direct them somewhere else. B***h, I have an exam in 8 hours, and I've already stayed 30 mins past time i was supposed to leave, GTFO.

3. My main job was selling guns and ammo. People had no grasp at all that willfully lying on the 4473 is actually breaking the law. I got really good at spotting BS a mile away.

3a. Had one guy walk up ( clearly mentally off) and try to buy a gun. After talking to him and probing a bit i was already going to deny the sale after i realized this man was a few fries short of a happy meal. After he gets denied he says to me , " I was institutionalized for a few years back, but I'm better now. Why was I denied?"




3b. Had a woman walk up with a presumed grandson. Normal start. Instead of looking he goes directly to a shotgun, and points to it and says , we want this one. Ask who the legal guardian is, inform them of the sale and legality, blah blah blah. No big deal. Had an odd feeling, but i brushed it off.

This is where it gets interesting. As she starts to fill out the form, the kid gets on his phone and makes a call , and starts gesticulating towards the shotgun and starts mumbling. I walk closer and heard , " *(Brand) is the one right?"* , " *Are you sure"*. *INSTANT* red flag. I start paying real close attention and it starts to look like a straw purchase.

I start asking all the usual questions. " Intended use?" "Whose it for", "Hunting or self defense" etc. Answer are short and rehearsed. Another red flag pops up.

The final nail in the coffin was a guy comes up, walks to the grandparent, asks how it is going, then the kid points to the gun and asks , " *Is this the one you wanted?*".

**DING DING DING, we have a ~~winner~~ straw purchase.**

At this point i shut it down and tell the grandparent, " Ma'am, I believe you aren't buying this weapon for yourself or your 'grandkid', so i cannot continue with the sale. Is there anything I can help you with?

She promptly loses her mind. Shes screaming at me calling me racist ( We're all white BTW), stupid kid, and generally berating me for all her life's woes. She screams for a manager, and i get one, and let him know what's going on.

Of course, by the time management gets here, she puts on the exasperated grandmother face and asks him " Why won't this idiot won't sell me a gun. It's my second amendment right!!!"

Manager:" Where'd the guy you were with go?" (Dude walks up at this point behind what looks to be his son) " Ma'am is the gun for you or him?"

Grandmother: " Uh-uh--oh yes, its for hunt deer with this (holds up birdshot)

Me: "You're going hunt deer.. with birdshot.....?"

Manager: "Ma'am, I'm backing up whatever my gun guy says, he know more about this than i do. We can't sell you the gun, have a good day". (leaves)

Grandmother: "F**K YOU AND F**K THIS STORE, I'M NEVER COMING BACK!!!" ( Leave)

Me: "Thank you sweet Jesus"



4. Someone argued with me insisting .223 REM was the exact same as 5.56. Moron I do this for a living and I've hunted for 20 years, I know what I'm talking about. Too bad I couldn't pimp slap customers when they needed it.

**TL;DR, People are stupid, people lie, and you should never lie about guns to the redneck selling them.**

Working there as a cashier since October. Christmas Eve rolls around, and thank god I'm not scheduled to work. Cue phone call from the manager asking why I haven't come in yet that day.. "I'm not on the schedule?" Manager - "Yes you are" Me - "I'm not coming in, I wasn't on the schedule." Next day I worked was the day after boxing day, went and looked at the schedule, and lo-and-behold, someone wrote that I was supposed to work... In pencil... I quit shortly after.

Last summer I frequently visited my best friend who worked at the technology counter thing at Walmart. One day when I was there someone took the biggest, steamiest s**t I've ever seen in my life in the middle of the toy aisle. Someone pushed a cart through it and it smeared everywhere. My buddy called in a code brown on his walkie talkie, trying to be a smart a*s. Code brown means shooting situation. Hilarity ensued

Not so much a horror story. I worked in grocery as a stocker. We had just finished a cereal display near the front of the store compiled of about 100 boxes. In comes an older lady, around 60s, driving one of the electric carts. She's looking dead on at the display and promptly rams into the thing. Boxes go everywhere and she starts apologizing over and over and explains that she's legally blind. A customer that was nearby and saw everything asked her how she drove here if she was blind.. She responded by quickly turning around and leaving the store.

My mom was a manager at Walmart... She told me about this woman who was trying to steal a prepaid phone. When she got caught by security she used the knife she was attempting to open the plastic packaging with to cut the security dude after cutting herself.... She then went on to scream at him that she has AIDS and now he's going to have it for trying to stop her.

Four hours into my first shift, I was facing items on a bottom shelf while a coworker was facing items on the top shelf. She dropped a gallon of Gatorade on my head. Management refused to let me report the injury or leave to seek medical attention. I finished the shift, dazed and in pain. The next day I found out my skull was broken. Officially, since I was not allowed to report the injury, it didn't happen at work. I rage quit.

My friend was violently ill and because she was on her last warning. I think it was called D-Day, or something like that. She couldn't make another mistake. She couldn't call in, she couldn't leave early. Nothing. If she did, she would be fired. The people that ran this Wal-Mart were a******s.

So one day she comes in and has some stomach flu. She's so sick she can barely stand up straight. Managers, employee's, hell even customers see her throw up in the trash can by her register.

It's obvious that she's really, really sick. Can she go home? No. She was told by management and upper-managemwnr that if she left she would be fired.

It was the most f****d up thing in the world. They claimed in the system there was no way they could change her schedule. Which was a lie. So they let her work her full shift, puking all the while, touching other people's groceries, handling money, everything for some unknown cruel reason.

Horrible company, with horrible values. I worked there too. I hate that place. They take advantage of the poor and get sick pleasure from it. I worked at another Wal-Mart in Dallas and they were really nice. So I guess it just depends on the management staff. But I'll never forget that absolute lack of decency. It was really demoralizing to watch your friend throw up in a trash can again and again and not be able to leave.