A Walmart Barefoot Couple

An HF friend pointed out this post to me. I don't post much in this forum, but this link bothered me. Like most people (I think), I don't wear shoes at home. I don't give a second thought to running errands barefoot, and I was shocked to see people have had issues. I pretty much go out as I am unless I'm headed to town. In winter that means I'll head out in sweats, big socks, and boots. In summer that means a t-shirt, shorts, and bare feet. After all, who gets dressed-up to go to the grocery?

That WalMart link is wrong on sooo many levels. I guess the first is that someone took the picture. I’d like to think I can go out without worrying my mugshot will show up online. That’s horrible!

Next, I wonder what the person’s like who took the picture. Are they that much better? Maybe they need to publicize others shortcomings to coverup their own.

Next, so what? I’m sure my husband and I have gone out looking worse. An example was when our daughter was just a few months old. We were in bed when we heard her crying. She was running a fever. I was quickly on the phone my mother-in-law trying to decide what to do. Should we go to the Emergency Room? We called the Pediatrician who suggested a small dose of PediaCare. What’s that? Where do you get it? Who should stay home? Who should go? Neither of us wanted to leave our daughter. Anyhow, we threw on robes, grabbed our daughter, and headed to the 24-hour grocery. We walked in, bare feet, pajamas, bed hair (in my case that’s a real fright). My eyes were all puffy from crying because I was sure I’d done something wrong. Just what I’d need, someone to snap my picture in that condition.

As far as the guy, I’m guessing my husband's gone places without a shirt. If he’s working outside when it’s hot, he’ll often take off his shirt. He gets so absorbed in what he’s doing he’ll run out without a thought if he needs something. I can see him in Menard’s or Walmart in the same condition as that guy. In other words, I’m guessing there’s a story behind the photo.

 

That's good ol' 'Mericans for ya. So quick to judge anyone or anything different from them. My guess would be that they just came from the beach or something.

 

Our very own olhippie54 was on there. He took it as a huge compliment, as would I. I don't think anyone would be cruel enough to post pictures of an obviously distressed family on there, though, they do have moderation and I'm fairly certain in the times I've visited that site, I've seen mostly outlandish and unique people. I'd personally love to be outlandish enough someone felt it necessary to show me to the rest of the world. I've always kind of been like that, though, never really minded standing out, as long as I feel I look good doing it, to hell with the rest of the world.

Drumminmama, thank you for your reply. I will be studying soon to get my server's license, so I will definitely be buried in health codes and whatnot. Haha. Luckily nothing at my place of work is glass aside from the mirrors in the bathrooms, the light fixtures in the bathrooms, and the lightbulbs throughout the store, so the only real worries anyone have of feet damage is a wicked case of squished french fry toe.

 

ehh, so, glass?

No lawsuit, he could have worn shoes if he didn't want to risk that, as walmart would say, and win.

The comments on that page are horrible.... It's not "manners" to look nice for others, and I don't need to, and the law doesn't say I need to, as long as I think I look nice that's all that matters.

So he was shirtless.... fuck if I care. They look comfortable to me. Wearing some type of pants is usually good form, but beyond that, fuck it....

Even here, people seem all uptight about his shirt-less-ness....

I think my town has an ordinance on it..... which is pretty fucking stupid. But I ignore it when I please, never been bothered.

 

So much for a supportive, generally positive forum. I've been seeing antagonizing posts here and there. Ramona seems to just be going with the standard procedures, as she's been told to do so, I'm assuming by higher authority, (Yes, there's higher authority than Managers, or so I thought. someone correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't take a business class yet. maybe next year, in my junior year for high school.) And Cattard, you mentioned the downward economy, well. I'm positive Ramona doesn't want to risk losing her job either (If it were possible to lose your job over not enforcing a shoe rule), by not following through with regulations she was told to enforce. BUT on the other side of the spectrum, Businesses shouldn't spazz over potential lawsuits, which they can likely win anyway. And as far as I'm aware, chain restaurants, stores, services, can have different regulations in different regions of the country, continent, or world. There's not one specific list of regulations they follow. (That's why the burgers at the McDonalds in Japan had Wasabi in it. Interesting experience.) But there are some rules that are followed in every establishment. Therefore one may be barefoot friendly, one may not be.

AND on another note, I don't judge services and go to establishments solely(Lol. Pun. sorta.) on their perception about barefooters, like myself and a lot more people on this forum. I base it on their quality of service, their products, food, whatnot. (Though customer support is a part of that too.)

Then again. I'm only 16. I'm not too educated in the ropes of the work force just quite yet.

 

I'm pretty sure the same would hold true in Canada but the way the company handles things is to operate a HQ office in each part of the world that they operate in. I would encourage you to contact a stre there and ask for home office number

 

Although this does not have to do with being barefoot (no shirt, rather), in the comment section there are many ignorant ones parroting the NSNSNS bullshit, and this no shirt instance fueled their ire... This doesn't make things pleasant for us, who go barefoot for pleasure / health & well-being, etc...

Hard to skim the comment section (6,000 at time of this post...) without wincing or frowning... "NO SHIRT NO SHOES NO SERVICE" is like a cult mantra with the way they fanatically scream it... :frown:

"Sandy McMillin Allegedly Kicked Out Of Walmart For Wearing A String Bikini"

 

Well I got my first "barefoot" comment today, from one of my neighbors. I was pushing my son in his stroller around the block yesterday afternoon and just coming back to the house when the guy next door said "You don't like to wear shoes much do ya". I just chuckled and said "yeah not during the summer".

Not sure what I'm going to do come cooler/cold months...

 

Just because someone decides to make a comment does NOT require a reply from you. SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

 

Well we're friendly to one another so it's not like I never speak to him.

 

I don't know, it sounded like a friendly enough comment to me, and since the guy is his next-door neighbour, it wouldn't really do to be a total douche-nozzle, as you seem to be suggesting nuspieds. No offense. If someone is being rude about it, I agree that silence may be the best response. It just doesn't sound like his neighbour was being rude at all (correct me if I'm wrong Patrick).

 

nah he was just kinda joking around.

 

That's what I figured it sounded like. I just don't think we can really justify going around being an ass to everyone who gets up the courage to satisfy their curiosity when seeing a person barefoot in public. It does take either a lot of courage or a lot of curiosity to breach protocols of politeness and ask a question. Unless they ARE rude, I just can't agree with ignoring a curious person's inquiries. Especially if it's your next-door neighbour!

 

I'm sure by the cooler months they'll be totally used to you being a bit odd.

I get lots of comments, and most times it's always best to deal with them with a pleasant retort. No point in finding issues where there doesn't need to be any. I find i get into a lot of interesting conversations with people this way.

 

I'm sure you could almost always get by with claiming you didn't see it, if you didn't want to hassle them. Recently I was in line behind a barefoot person in McDonald's, and I realized that nobody behind the counter was going to see them below the waist. It was a "to go" order, and nothing was said to them about shoes. I sure as hell didn't care what they were wearing.

I have access to some business information that isn't available to the general public, so I decided to do a little research on this subject, in the hopes of understanding why corporations are so uptight about something that seems very petty to me. I dug up some interesting stuff that halfway makes sense.

It seems that there have been very few successful lawsuits in America over someone getting a simple cut on their foot. The amount of money involved is so trivial that most lawyers won't touch a case like that.

What the big companies are most worried about is a situation where two or more people cut themselves on the same pieces of broken glass, and someone claims that they got HIV or hepatitis, passed on by getting someone else's fresh blood into their open wound. Living with HIV is a very expensive thing to deal with for the rest of your life, so the resulting lawsuit could be huge. Maybe the person caught it some other way, but the store is probably going to end up taking the blame, if there was broken glass or some other sharp object on the floor.

So upper management doesn't really care about one barefoot person walking around. The second one is the problem. One injured person leaving a trail of bloody footprints all the way out the door might be gross and disgusting for the other customers to see, but that wouldn't cost the business any money if other people only got it on their shoes.

Putting yourself in the position of the owner of a retail business that often has sharp objects on the floor (hardware stores are probably the worst), surely most people could see why it seems crazy not to try and prevent an incident that could cost tens of millions of dollars. Your insurance company might cancel your liability coverage, which may be enough to put you out of business the very first time something like that happens. You could lose everything. A large company would survive, but their insurance premiums could increase by several million dollars a year. Someone important would get fired over that.

What I still don't understand is why you often see the same kind of paranoia from places like bookstores. What the fuck is anybody going to step on in a bookstore or a McDonald's? The most likely problem there is that MBAs like to read the same trendy books and move in unthinking herds, like cattle.

According to my research, the most common lawsuits over foot injuries in retail businesses involve dropping something on someone else. Like for example, if you dropped a can of paint from the top shelf and it landed on a toddler's tiny foot, the child might have to have surgery for multiple broken bones and crushed joints. Stuff like that does happen. Unless they start making everyone wear steel-toed safety boots, that risk is never going away. The stores and their insurance companies just have to live with it.

I don't think that comments by customers have any impact on any of the safety policies. It's all about money.

 

How about answering to the NS3 ("No shoes, no shirt, no service") signs the proper way:



:smilielol5:

All kidding aside, it's indeed about the money and the greedy and slobbering liability and lawsuit monster... the times when business owners put up those signs and came up with those rules simply to keep merrily barefoot counter-culture folk (a.k.a. hippies) out of their establishments are over and long gone. The association "barefoot = hippie" still lingers in the mind of people, but has become more of a thought about fashion statements rather than the whole hip mindset.

It's a pity, indeed, that business owners setting up rules of safety for their customers are so intimated by that L&L monster that they tend to treat us as if we needed to be packed in cotton balls, mollified and constantly taken by the hand in order not to make a false step and later sue them.

Maybe there should be a large warning sign for human beings to read at the exit of the womb: "Warning! Life can be dangerous!" - a good thing that barefoot newborns can't read.


Wiggling bare toes (now again turning down the irony),

~*Ganesha*~

 

So maybe we can solve this problem by stopping barefooters at the door and having them sign a disclaimer.

 

Legally, it would work. I signed a liability waiver the last time I rode a zip line in the mountains. But stores and restaurants aren't going to bother with it. It's simpler and easier just to throw a few people out.

Personally, I'm always on the side of individual freedom, but I can see both sides of this issue. As an ordinary person, your chances of having a terrible accident in one of these big stores is pretty close to zero. But if you own thousands of these stores and have thousands of people coming in each one of them every day, some of them drunk, high, and/or mentally off, it's only a matter of time until every imaginable bad thing happens to somebody. I can see why they are paranoid.

Those who haven't worked serving the public have no idea how nutty the public can be.
:willy_nilly:
I was a bartender for two summers. I have some stories.

 

know

 

But as i pointed out to a manager in Tesco, they have large jars of coffee on shelves above head height and don't care at all if one of those falls on a child's foot.

They can easily put a sign on the door stating that unshod people enter store at own risk. That would cover them.

At the end of the day this is not about a safety or law suit issue. It's about bigotry and/or jealousy. The only people who have ever mentioned me being barefoot are those who are forced to wear uniforms at work and they hate the fact that others can dress how they chose. Total "jobsworths", nothing less.

Essentially it's no different than the Taliban attacking women to death for not wearing a burkha. There's always some pathetic reason comes out for attacking others for living as they would chose.