Walmart Reverses Decision On Greeters Greeting
Community, Featured Stories, News January 29, 2015 , by Derek RosasBLUE RIDGE, GA – On Wednesday January 28th, Walmart management of the Blue Ridge store told one of their greeters he was no longer allowed to greet customers with the phrase “have a blessed day.”Walmart employee James Phillips has greeted Walmart customers with the phrase “have a blessed day” since the doors opened in June of 2014. Since then just about every one in the Blue Ridge area that has visited Walmart has took notice to Phillips, but after 7 months of greeting with his tokened phrase he was told by management that he was no longer to use the phrase “have a blessed day” any longer because someone made a complaint that it the phrase had offended them.
The next 16 hours proved to reveal a firestorm of support for Phillips with hundreds of people taking to social media and calling Walmart headquarters to voice their complaints on how they felt it was wrong for Walmart officials to stop Phillips from greeting in the way he had always done.
Several local citizens told FYN that they had called Walmart headquarters to complain and were confronted with the question, “Is this in regards to the greeter at the Blue Ridge location?”
“I called first thing this morning and the lady on the phone asked if I was calling about the controversy on the Walmart greeter in Blue Ridge. When I told her yes she said that there was a long wait due to the them putting people on hold because there was so many calls about it,”
said citizen Mike Campbell.
After an outpouring of support for Phillips, Walmart reversed their decision around noon on Thursday, January 29th. Phillips immediately began telling people “have a blessed day” again.
“Lots of people come here and tell me they like for me to tell them ‘have a blessed day,'”
said Phillips.
Indeed they do Mr. Phillips, indeed they do.
“Have a blessed day!”