A Manitowoc Walmart associate is giving a different side to the Kenny Schmitz story.
The female associate, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions, told SeehaferNews.com that Kenny acted very differently towards her than he did towards customers.
This particular associate has been working at the Manitowoc Walmart for three and a half years, and when she started, Kenny would ask for a hug every day.
At first this wasn’t an issue, but eventually, she started to feel weird about it, so she asked Kenny to stop asking for hugs because they both were married and she saw it as inappropriate.
She then said he would “give me a puppy dog look” and ask, “Are you mad at me?”
She viewed this as him guilting her for not wanting to hug her anymore.
The associate also told us that Kenny would start saying more personal things like “You are beautiful” or “I love your eyes.”
This went on consistently for quite a while, but it went even further on one particular day.
The associate told us “I was in the break room minding my own business. I had my earphones in. He tapped me on the shoulder, so I took my earphones out because I’m being polite. He literally bent down, whispered in my ear…’I think you’re hot.’ I said ‘That’s not appropriate’ and ‘Do not say that ever again.’”
She reported the incident to a supervisor for a different section of the store, who said they would report it to Kenny’s supervisor, which Kenny reportedly was not happy about.
However, two weeks or so later, the associate spoke with Kenny’s supervisor, who said they didn’t know anything about the situation.
Despite reporting him to the supervisory team, the associate claimed he continued to talk to her, but she continued to ask him to stop, saying “You are making me uncomfortable.”
She also told us she heard him say on at least on occasion “I’m not allowed to hug anyone anymore,” indicating he had been warned at least once about his behavior.
Additionally, the associate pushed back on the notion stated by the public that Kenny is always so nice to customers.
She claimed she saw him, on multiple occasions, lose his temper at customers, specifically later in the evening when there were fewer people around.
She stated, “I’ve seen him yell at them. It has just come out of nowhere.”
She also said she knew of other associates with similar stories to hers, but they were worried about exactly what has been happening on social media.
She has seen the online discourse when people try to tell a different story, saying “People take it too far and start defending him and making the person feel bad. That’s exactly what they are doing online.”
As for his firing, our contact explained that there is “a whole process” to someone getting in any real trouble.
“They give so many warnings…until it’s beyond too much,” she explained. “I’m going to take a guess that they probably take too long to take care of a situation because they have been sued before.”
She admitted she didn’t know exactly what happened in this situation, but knowing how the disciplinary process for Walmart, she assumed whatever led to Kenny’s firing was an action that had he had been warned about multiple times.
