Hello...and welcome to a job where you get paid for chitchat
BAXTER - When walking into the Baxter Wal-Mart Supercenter a customer will be greeted, just like a person would be when entering one's home.
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A friendly smile, a hello or a simple "Can I help you?" are common gestures a greeter at Wal-Mart will offer about a 100 times per shift.
Twenty-eight hours a week customers can find 70-year-old Deerwood resident Marie Clifford greeting them. Clifford has been a greeter since the Wal-Mart store opened on Glory Road almost five years ago.
Marie Clifford (left), a greeter at the Baxter Wal-Mart Supercenter, visited with Barb Burgwald of Brainerd when she entered the store. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey» Purchase reprints of this photo.
Clifford has worked at Wal-Mart in Baxter for the past 18 years. At the former Wal-Mart store, Clifford was a floor associate, then a cash office employee and then a department manager.
Clifford said that when the new, bigger Wal-Mart store opened she knew the job responsibilities would grow so she decided to switch positions.
Marie Clifford
Age: 70.
Home: Deerwood.
Funniest thing that ever happened to you: A few years ago my husband and I were fishing and we were catching sunfish like crazy. I backed up and fell in the lake. I can't swim. I was in three feet of water and I was screaming. I'm trying to grab the dock and my husband said, 'Would you just stand up.' It was not funny then, but I can laugh about it now.
Your most famous relative: My uncle Oscar Kristofferson (in which a Baxter park is named after.)
Something people don't know about you: I'm extremely shy. Put me in a room full of people and I won't say a word.
"I'm just getting closer to the door," Clifford smiled as she took a short break on July 27. "This is a (less stressful) job and it's more enjoyable. I can chitchat and I get paid to do it."
Clifford said a greeter's job is to welcome the customers, label the returns, help customers with carts or wheelchairs, keep the area clean and deal with the customers when the security door alarm goes off.
"Ninety-eight percent of the time an item was not deactivated by the clerk," said Clifford. "We just find the item, deactivate it and they're on their way."
Marie Clifford, a greeter at the Baxter Wal-Mart Supercenter, made sure all the carts were straight and ready to go for the customers. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey» Purchase reprints of this photo.
Clifford said the best part of her job is the people. She said a majority of the customers are friendly and she enjoys helping them with their needs. The least favorite part of her job, she said, is when it rains and all the carts are wet.
Clifford doesn't like to sit on the job. She's always walking around. She said the floors are hard on her aging feet, but she gets by.
Clifford is among a dozen greeters at the store, Kirk Helmberger, Baxter Wal-Mart store manager, said. Greeters are at the doors 24-7 and the store also has greeters in the tire lube express department.
Helmberger said the Baxter Wal-Mart is the busiest Wal-Mart store in Minnesota so the greeters keep busy with interacting with many customers each day.
Marie Clifford checked an item after the security alarm went off. Clifford said oftentimes a clerk will forget to deactivate an item and it will set off the security alarm when a customer exits the store. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey» Purchase reprints of this photo.
Helmberger said he is not seeing an overabundance of senior citizens applying for any certain position at Wal-Mart, but said he has heard comments that more retirees want a job at the store for extra cash or just for something to do to get out of the house.
"They want something to do and we're flexible and we have different jobs for them to choose from," said Helmberger.
Marie Clifford. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey» Purchase reprints of this photo.
And Clifford likes the flexibility of her job. Clifford said she works four days a week and enjoys it.
Clifford didn't apply for a job at Wal-Mart until her three children had completed school. Clifford and her husband, Bill, owned Clifford's Corners, a convenient store on Highway 18. The Cliffords bought the store in 1976 and sold it eight years ago. Clifford said she did all the bookkeeping.
When the couple's three children graduated from high school, Clifford thought she'd apply for a job for more income. She said it only took one person to run the convenient store.
Clifford, who graduated from Washington High School in Brainerd in 1956, has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
JENNIFER STOCKINGER may be reached at jennifer.stockinger@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5851.