A bad morning taught me how to see a person inside a system.
WED
Something happened today.
The Walmart experience hurt. That sentence is deliberately plain. I do not need to inflate it into catastrophe. Nobody died. My marriage did not end. My house did not burn down.
But being banned from Walmart pickup as a delivery driver hit something tender in me. I had made mistakes. I knew that. I had returned two grocery orders after becoming nauseated. From the store’s side, I had created a problem.
Orders had been prepared, staff time had been used, customers had been affected. I was not interested in pretending otherwise. What hurt was the feeling of being reduced to the mistake. A rule had swallowed the person. That is a very particular kind of pain.
You can accept responsibility and still want somebody to see that responsibility is not your entire identity.
I went to the store to speak with the main pickup supervisor. I had found her easy to talk to when she originally told me about the ban. Down to earth. Human. I expected to go inside, make my way toward the back, and wait for someone from pickup.
Instead, there she was near the front of the store, texting on her phone. Reality had removed several steps from the plan. I told her I was sorry for the problems I had caused. I asked whether there was any formal appeal process I could use.
She told me she had already started an appeal after our earlier conversation. The person who handled appeals was on vacation, so there would be a delay. I told her what I had learned. I told her that if they took me back, they would not have the same problem again.
I would be proactive. And I also told her something that mattered to me: I understood I did not necessarily deserve to come back.
