3.28.2012

VERY insensitive treatment by Walmart to a cancer fighter

My aunt shared this on Facebook the other night and I re-shared it as well and thought I would post it here to help raise awareness.

If anyone from Walmart stumbles across this, this occurred at Walmart #1490 in Rockford, IL on Walton St.

Audra is a good friend of my aunt's whom she's known for a really long time and throughout the years Audra has been doing up-dos for me and my sis for various formal occasions. She's been fighting breast cancer for awhile now, doing chemo regularly, and yes, she lost her hair and now that it's grown back enough she's wearing short and sassy but obviously not coloring it. The fact that this happened is just sad and completely insensitive.

Is Walmart now requesting 2 forms of ID anytime someone has a different hair color or style from that on their drivers license or state ID? I highly doubt it and the fact that this happened to her is just heartbreaking!
I went to WalMart today to buy dog food & baby food for [my son]. I wrote a check & the cashier (KATHY!) asked for my driver's license. I handed it to her, she looked at it, then she looked at me and said "Wow!". I understood why, its because on my license I have long, straight, blonde hair. I now have a dark brown, chemo afro growing in! I explained to her I have cancer & my hair fell out. I was expecting her to say "Oh, I'm sorry." But instead she said "I will need another form of ID." I gave her my S.S.Card. She said "No, I need a picture ID". I told her my ID is from before I got married & has my old name on it, & I showed her a few credit cards too. She said "I need management approval". Are you freakin kidding me?! So the manager came over, I explained I have cancer & my hair fell out, thats why I dont look like me photo anymore, I also told her if Susan G. Komen found out about this it would be a media fire storm! Needless to say, she accepted my check & ID!
Working retail, I get the whole checking ID for accepting a check - at my job, anytime a check is written we do need to see a valid driver's license or state ID to process it as our computer needs the state issued ID number, expiration date and date of birth, as well as us just verifying that the name matches that on the check. We also check IDs if a person makes a purchase using a credit card and the back of the card is not signed so that we can match the name and signature. Unless it's an obvious thing, like a guy with a woman's ID and card, I don't usually worry about the photo, so long as the names match. But even if I did, there's other distinguishing features about a person's face aside from their hair color or style that you can tell if it's them or not!

People get their hair cut to different styles all the time, as well as coloring their hair - I know 1 girl who was dying her hair every other week as when her life gets a bit crazy, the color of her hair is one thing she can have control over. Yet, she's never seemed (or at least reported) having this problem!

My aunt said Audra posted a few days later that she had cooled down from the situation and has decided to just use cash whenever out shopping now, however she was very upset when it happened and for the rest of the day.

Cancer patients go through enough as it is, and while I understand not giving people special treatment, like I said, lots of people change their hair style and color all the time - unless Walmart is asking for 2 forms of photo ID for all people using checks but have a different hair color or cut from the time they got their ID photo taken, this just was very insensitive and it breaks my heart that this happened to her!

1 comment:

  1. That's so crazy and absolutely terrible that that happened. It's so sad. I actually have short brown hair on my ID and now have med blonde hair. I get looms all the time when I go out. I was even questioned at the airport for having a different hair color on my passport!

    I guess this another reason I dislike Walmart.

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