So I went to Walmart.

That lets me out, eyes, but maybe 8 am.
Egads. My preference is 10.
Will report in a couple of weeks on my next venture.

I don't like Walmart either and never entered one until I was mid 30s - it was when I had children.

Still don't like them, but the prices....I just bought some party supplies for my kids birthday and they are less than the dollar tree and similar "junk like" stores. With kids, it is worth dealing with People of Walmart...and I notice (at least where I live) that the people of walmart (although not all showing their butts) - are different than the ones at grocery stores and even Target.

I experience this exact same thing and if I do go to walmart, my full intention is to get what ever it is I need and GET OUT.
That store makes me uncomfortable and not from a moral , who have you put out of business stand point, but an over crowded, broken stuff being sold at cheap prices kinda thing.

The people in the walmart in my neighborhood do not help the atmosphere. But in every one I have ever gone too, it really does seem like it could and would end in a shoving match if too many people approached the door at once. People pretend to not notice each other and EVERYONE expects EVERYONE else to move out of their way . I have stood in awe at that door way before watching that. People break their necks and even their stride to pretend they dont see someone. Avoiding eye contact like it was the plague, they race around each other with no acknowledgment , no care or concern headed right for what ever they really need from that store.

Its an odd experience

let me elaborate though and say that it is not limited to walmart, i see this behavior every where.
Walmart is just a great, common example

Thanks for getting what I found difficult.

As I said, the people looked the same as in other shops around here, that is, not bad at all. Maybe albuquerquennes are tidier folks. They were just much faster coming around corners - probably a human trait where stores are huge to start with and aisles are wide, and the route to the registers can be a speedway, or not, depending on individuals and store crowding.

I've written about going through the LA interchange - going from freeway to freeway to freeway where you pretty much need to know where you're going to get there without missing an exit or two - at eight on a sunday morning. Every car on the road at over eighty and some way higher. I was proud of myself for my navigation. My point - it may be that when the store is less crowded that people 'cart' faster.

One thing I learned - if I want to cross in front of the building, I'll never do it again right in front of the building. Criminy! They could almost use speed bumps.

More on the people - I haven't read back and may have said this already - the one walmart person I asked where something was, was friendly and not in that 'you'd better be friendly' way. The clerk at the register was neat, we had a conversation about allergy season.
So, I put down my discomfort to system design relative to human behavior. I studied that once a couple of decades ago, interesting subject.

Musing -
The K Mart that I used to go to in Humboldt County - where it turns out Pacco was found downroad trudging the highway by folks who took him to the humane society - was huge compared to the one here. As have been any Costco's I've been to, relatively big, but I've never run into the speedy cart exiting maniacs at either of those places. None of those were anywhere near as big as this Walmart. People are no more brutish here than there, as a generalization.

I think it has to do with both the vastness of a store place and something about the purchasing dynamics, and that human nature is responsive to place more than human nature causes the place to be like that.

I was taught that design doesn't cause human behavior. More that human behavior exists, and some designs trigger different aspects of it.
I still have a couple of those books. May dig them out and see what I think about what they said now.

In the future, health care insurance providers will ask each new potential customer, "do you shop at and how many times do you (if you do) shop at Walmart, Target, KMart, etc...? Do you shop at these stores during Black Friday sales?"

If you answer yes, then the insurance provider nulls and voids your health insurance as you are living a reckless life where you take your life into your own hands simply by stepping into one of these high traffic mob inducing stores.

upon reflection, I have decided that I am one of those Osso complains about. (within the confines of the thread topic)

When I am at wally's I am in get my stuff and get out mode. and I shop regularly enough that I know just where my stuff is at.

to someone watching with confusion, I would seem rude and fast. rather than organized and not entertained by the environment.

but I am never aggressive or dangerous to bystanders...

Yeah - I'm probably like that too - I call it focused.

I know what I want and I want to get it and get the h*ll out - especially before some one snaps a photo of me and posts it on "People of Walmart"

No, not you. I know you wouldn't race out the door with no sense of others.
The people I was talking about were speed carting obliviously - a whole other league than, let's say, medium fast.

Today, there's a lot more news about human behaviors in Walmart. Egads.
I still maintain that the human behavior exists in mankind, and can be brought out by design policies.

The sales frenzies seen around the U.S. today are, to me, illustrative as sort of goads to the aberrant in us through store sales mechanisms.

An AP article on Sharp elbows: Shoppers scuffle on Black Thursday
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jkD6F_1dM0lg_-GXXgrLah6PxvPw?docId=a1095bfa06744e9db0b85311f4f77760

plus there are a number of seeming associated robberies - not only in California, but here's one -
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/11/black-friday-wal-mart-san-leandro-shooting.html

One article I read (earlier today) had the store blowing a whistle re something going on sale (that might have been the pepper spray thing, but I forget by now) --- that is effectively promoting a race for the prize.

I have childhood memories of Macy's basement sales in New York City - and that was 1950. A kid could get smashed even then.

funny you say about a kid being smashed - they had an article today in the paper about how to keep your kid safe on black Friday - odd it wouldn't even occur to me to bring a child during such a mad rush of shopping.

I can't imagine Linkat running the carts either.. think Pamploma.

Either of you being efficient and not slogging along, sure.

I learned to time my trips to walmart, early day for sure.

At this point I like my particular Walmart, the one at Coors at the Highway 40 turnoff. I like it for a lot of reasons, but mostly that the people I almost run into or they with me with their cart are good or even smile, and that the help staff don't seem to be automatons (see previous ref to safeway).

I used food stamps (so called) for the first time today and it was not a big deal. I told that to the woman I aced out by mistake in the pharmacy line, noticed that, asked her if I had done that, yes, but she had gone along (I will guess as I seemed confused), I stepped back... anyway we talked, this and that.

Later I talked with the pharmacist consultant person. Instead of my oft mental eyerolling, I liked him, and you know I'm crabby.

Mid shopping, I talked with several people.

I am liking my Coors Walmart.

If anyone is wondering, pharmacy is not on the food stamp list.