Below is the reply I got from Walmart about my earlier post concerning the Shank family. Their reply astonishes me in their unwillingness to “get it” and continued stubborn clinging to their handbook.My reply to this letter follows.  It is my desire and wish that others will follow suit and continue to hound Walmart with the humane cost of their actions.….

From: cstreply@wal-mart.com

Subject: Response from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  (Ref #000000019191258)

Date: March 31, 2008 10:31:17 AM PDT

Thank you for your message.Dear Randy,When our associates, or their family members, suffer injuries or medical conditions which are the responsibility of others, our plan steps in to pay covered medical expenses so the associate and their families don’t have to worry about their bills or have large out-of-pocket expenses. It is only after the associate or their family member receives a monetary payment from the responsible party, that our health plan becomes entitled to reimbursement. While the Shanks case involves a tragic situation, our responsibility is to follow the provisions of the plan which governs the health benefits of our associates. These plans are funded by associate premiums and company contributions. Any money recovered is returned to the health plan, not to the business. This is done out of fairness to everyone who contributes and benefits from the plan. The Supreme Court’s denial of the Shank appeal concludes all litigation.  The Court ruled that the benefit plan was entitled to the funds in the trust account, which was about $280,000, which is all it requested.Thank you,

Wal-Mart Customer Relations

For further correspondence regarding this issue, please reply to this email.

 …

My reply April 14 2008 

Subject: Re: Response from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  (Ref #000000019191258)

From: overflow@papabear.biz

Date: April 14, 2008 2:06:58 PM PDT

To: cstreply@wal-mart.com 

As I stated in my earlier email, you were well within your right to collect the funds as you stated below. This still does not make it the right thing to do. If you would have taken the time to read my example of how Microsoft handled my situation you would have seen how it is in your companies best interest to sometimes do the right thing, meaning the humane thing… not necessarily the right thing according to your HR guidelines. had Microsoft taken your attitude toward me, I would have lost my home and everything I hold dear. As a result of how they treated me, my story has had a direct impact on how people who know me and people who have heard my story feel about Microsoft and its products. You can’t buy that kind of advertising. Your approach however, has bought you worldwide scorn, and yet you cling to your handbook. That I find simply astonishing. It is my wish that you should never have to face a catastrophic illness as I and the Shank family have done. Should you find yourself in that situation, I hope you find friends and coworkers willing to support you as my company did me, and not as Walmart has done.  The negative press on this issue will continue to haunt you. If you can not figure that out, then I truly feel sorry for you indeed.I will post your reply as well as my response here to my blog. I’m sure my readers will be interested in what you’ve had to say.  I can say this, my readers unanimously agree with me that you have been completely blindsided by your rules and ignored your heart. You may be interested to know that my entire family, who tended to go to their local walmarts on a daily basis, no longer patronize your store because of this situation. This would include my siblings, cousins, and others directly associated with my family including my parents and their friends. They feel so strongly over this issue that they are going far out of their way to avoid your stores. In my case, I no longer park my RV at your store at night, and that means I no longer enter those stores on my vacations to buy things I need. I will take my business elsewhere. I would venture a guess that your attitude has cost your company far more than the quarter of a million you insist on taking from the Shank family. I doubt your company will ever recover from the negativity this has caused.  You still can turn this around but its going to require “thinking out of the box” and going a little further than your guidelines suggest.

Randy Reeves, former Walmart customer. 

re: “Wal-Mart Dubbed “Worst Person in the World” on MSNBC’s Countdown”

http://newsblaze.com/story/20080327125305tsop.nb/newsblaze/BUSINESS/Business.html

While working at my own business I learned I had AIDS related non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I heard the words Aids and Cancer at the same time on the same day. Had it not been for one client, Microsoft, I would have lost my home and my business. Instead of running as my other clients did, to someone else who they knew would be able to deliver on time, Microsoft stayed with me and kept me as a supplier because they knew it was the right thing to do. Not right for their bottom line but right as a human being to another in need. When I came out the other side, Microsoft bought my business and hired me on full time. In the next twelve years I was productive and proud as an employee of that company, but in the end my illness overcame me and I had to go on disability.

I can’t even begin to imagine how much my employer has spent on my health care. Again, they did the right thing because they knew what would happen to me if they did the logical thing instead of the right thing. Tonight on the news I heard of an employee of Walmart who is being forced to turn over money she won in a settlement to Walmart to offset the cost of what Walmart has had to pay out in her medical care.  Yes, you are within your right to do so, but is it the logical thing to do, or the right thing to do?I can tell you from being on her end and having been a business owner, I know what that kind of cost would have done to me as an employer, but I also know as a human being that I could not have asked what you are asking of her no matter the cost to my business.  You can well afford what to you is a fraction of what you spend on advertising or day to day operations. Why you have persisted is astonishing to me. I assumed Walmart was a company much like Microsoft, who did things because it was the right thing to do by an employee, not exactly the best thing for the bottom line.In the end your actions are going to hurt that bottom line dearly. I for one will never shop at any of your stores again as a protest in the only way I know how. I will take my money to companies who value their employees above the bottom line.  Consider that cost to your bottom line against the cost of medical care for an employee who fell into a rather disastrous situation that neither she nor her husband would have chosen. I’m sorry they did not have a company behind them as I did.  I am ashamed of you as a customer. Very ashamed. Even more so I am ashamed that this is what is now considered the “American way” these days. 

formerly a customer,Randy Reeves

as a side note, When i first got sick Microsoft made it a point to stick by me because they knew I would have lost my home. It was the direct result of vice presidents in the company like Ed Fries, who heard of my situation and made sure that I would be taken care of.  Paul Allen, co founder of Microsoft, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after Microsoft took off. As a result the company is very forward thinking and compassionate toward employees and their families facing serious illness. It would seem the lesson is lost on Wal-mart.

I have suffered from brain storms for years. They don’t happen with any regularity which makes it very difficult to explain to doctors what it is I’m experiencing.  I’ll post my detailed explanation tomorrow after I extract it from my backup drive (saturday march 14). 

the short of it is that it feels somewhere between a migrane and a seizure but not as crippling.

there was a story on ABC news tonight about  a man with a similar condition. I left a post there with a plea for others to contact me via this website. I will write more tomorrow when i’m not so tired.  if you are a fellow sufferer, please post a comment below so I may reach you. comments are not posted without moderation so if you want to post information you don’t want to be publicly viewed, let me know so i don’t allow the post through.

thanks

papabear (Randy)

abc story is at

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/comments?type=story&id=4436348