Wal-Mart: Save money. Live (and bury yourself) better.
Though I come from the Land of Wal-Mart, I stopped shopping there years ago when I first heard that they weren’t paying their employees fairly for overtime worked. That, and what Wal-Mart does to smalltown businesses has always been criminal. Maybe they’re a kinder, gentler Wal-Mart now. I wouldn’t know. I’m carrying on my one-woman boycott.
Dating Jesus 
“I’m carrying on my one-woman boycott.”
It’s at least a two-Susan boycott. I did go to one twice, YEARS ago, just before I received The True Knowledge about them.
I thought I’d miss it (going to the Wal-Mart is quite the thing in my hometown) but no. I don’t.
I non-heart Wal Mart.
Sad, isn’t it? I kept seeing Wal-Marts open up in my home state, and then a Super Center would open up a mile down the road, and the company would leave that first huge store standing empty. For years.
…and it’s stunning that communities would be taken in by Wal-Mart and allow the first one to begin with — after that, they don’t have much choice I guess.
Wasn’t Vermont famous there for a while for rebuffing Wal-Mart’s advances? Here’s more: http://www.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2007/09/12/wal_mart_and_the_battle_of_vermont/
WalMart?
Dedicated
Leftover, that’s it. I’m getting in my car right now and heading for your house to give you a big ol’ (chaste, not to worry) hug. You’ve been warned.
Well, I come from the REAL land of Wal-Mart (take that, you Missourian–the fact that you actually lived closer to the headquarters than me is beside the point), and I can tell you WM hasn’t changed. They’re still taking advantage of third world countries. They still pay their employees meager wages. They still don’t have health insurance for most employees and have as many part-time employees as they can to get away with providing full-time benefits. I actually almost worked at WM once, in the electronics section. I was all but hired–I even took the pee test–when headquarters put a hiring freeze on all the stores. No job for me. They couldn’t even call me and tell me, either.
Close friends of mine grew up in Bentonville, and they took me on a cook’s tour of the huge (then, I know they’ve farmed a lot of their stuff out now) plant there. It was scary even then, before I knew anything about overtime, benefits, environmental issues, or what “farming things out” meant.
I stopped shopping at WalMart almost two years ago. At the time it was about the treatment of employees and the fact that they import more stuff from China than any other single retailer. (I heard 70% of everything coming in from China was going through WalMart, sounds a little high to be true though)
Anyway, I went there on a recent camping trip because there was nowhere else to go and it had grown cold and the baby needed pants. Being in there again I felt my commitment waver and then I read this post by one of my favorite bloggers http://swistle.blogspot.com/2009/10/once-again-walmart-charges-me-more.html
That just pissed me so far off I’m never coming back.
That diaper photo is enough to turn me off of them, and I don’t even buy diapers any more. That’s cheating, big time. Thanks for the link, Vegas. I just might add that one to my favorites, too.
A relative of mine who was an executive if a specialty food supplier used to complain that Walmart was very bully-like and under-handed when it came to selecting suppliers and setting prices. They did it because they could; they had such a large share of the consumer market.
I avoid the place whenever possible. I know in some small towns, Walmart is tough to avoid.
That’s true, and I shouldn’t act all holy about it. For myself, when I’m home, I go to Target or Kohl’s or anywhere else. I don’t go to Kmart, but mostly because it reminds me too much of Wal-Mart. Any one know about Kmarts’ ethics?
Idk about Kmart, but I know Target is fairly bitchy with their employees. I mean, they get health care, but they also cut people’s hours and violate their civil rights. Like, not wanting Muslim women to wear head scarves or, during the Iran protests, not wanting employees to wear anything green to show solidarity. One of my friends works there and she always has some complaint. But they do have good health care.
I did not know that about head gear and Muslim women — or green during the Iranian protests. I wonder if there’s any big, ginormous store that treats its employees very well.
I’mma go with no.
Too bad. The more resources, the more you’d think they’d spend on their employees. But then, rich companies don’t usually get rich by sharing the wealth, I guess.
“But then, rich companies don’t usually get rich by sharing the wealth, I guess.”
Damn straight — Beatrice Fox Auerbach (the late owner of a late and excellent local department store) didn’t pay her employees very well — they did get nice trinkets to mark employment anniversaries, etc., though.
I read a book about her and there was a horrible fire and they somehow managed to pay (I hope I’m remembering this right) the employees during reconstruction, even when the store wasn’t open. I don’t remember the book’s commenting on the pay scale, but that’s sad to hear.
I’ve heard Kroger is good.
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen anyone in Muslim wear in any retail store, ever. Interesting.
I only seen someone in Muslim wear in a retail store but that might be a reflection of more Muslims who wear the hijab, etc., in my area than yours, Vegas. I have plenty of Muslim friends/acquaintances (don’t want to overstate, like “some of my best friends are Muslims!”) who dress like me.
It just made me wonder if it’s a common workplace thing (no hijabs) and not particular to Target.
We have a large, beautiful mosque here but the Muslims that I’ve met don’t wear the hijab.
Good question. Is it ever like old-time Catholic women who used to wear hats to church, but not elsewhere? And hereby I’ve probably shown my ignorance, big time. The Muslims I know who wear the hijab wear them all the time but it’s not like that’s a scientific sampling or anything.
Maybe it’s cultural? The Muslims I’ve met here are from African countries. Except for one guy who is an American, a Muslim and a Christian, I’m not sure if his wife is Muslim.
Might be, yeah. We have quite a few Muslims here who are from here, and quite a few from the Middle East, but they wear the same clothes I wear.
My apartment complex has this whole cultural-melting pot thing going for it. The smell of Indian food and celery has become the smell of home, and I’ve grown accustomed to the sound of some strange Indian little-kid song coming through the ceiling sometimes. Like a few minutes ago. ANYWAY, getting to my point, lately, I keep seeing Muslim women in the whole get-up with only the peekholes for eyes. They’re always with men. There are these Muslim ladies with a couple little kids that ride the bus sometimes and, a while back, they had some sort of strange problem and were trying to get the bus driver to talk to one of their husband’s on their cell phone. And the bus driver was like, uh, no. But they acted like they shouldn’t be speaking to a man. In the end, they got off the bus after having already paid their fares.
Wonder what the issue was, don’t you? And how difficult to move through this culture as opposed to the one they’re accustomed to.
“Damn straight — Beatrice Fox Auerbach (the late owner of a late and excellent local department store) didn’t pay her employees very well — they did get nice trinkets to mark employment anniversaries, etc., though”
Ahhh–When I was a lad , in the late 50s, I’d take the bus into Hartford and sometimes shop at Fox’s. I was amazed at the pneumatic tubes that would take cash up to some secret hideout, and send back your change. Every other store was using cash registers.
I wonder if Ms. Auerbach personally counted the money coming through those tubes.
And I’d almost always visit the Wadsworth Athaneum; which got me interested in art.
It’s still a wonderful museum. I moved here just in time to visit Fox’s and then it closed up. It was like all those old department stores in the movies, and it was awesome. Now it’s a booming community college and they’ve kept a lot of the art deco architecture up.
“It’s still a wonderful museum. I moved here just in time to visit Fox’s and then it closed up. It was like all those old department stores in the movies, and it was awesome. Now it’s a booming community college and they’ve kept a lot of the art deco architecture up.”
Glad to know that. The art deco stuff is very similar to Macy’s in NYC. It’s been half a century.
It would have been a shame to see it go. I’m just glad I got to climb on the elevator and have a real, live attendant actually say something like “Second floor, ladies lingerie.” That wasn’t precisely what she said, but it’s close.
“Maybe it’s cultural? The Muslims I’ve met here are from African countries. Except for one guy who is an American, a Muslim and a Christian, I’m not sure if his wife is Muslim.”
Can’t be a Muslim and a Christian at the same time. You can be an American, though, and be either or “none of the above.”
Oh, but you can. And he is. It’s sort of like being a Messianic Jew. Choosing to follow the old laws while accepting Jesus as the Messiah.
This is also how he brings Christ to Muslims around the world, not as a threat to their religion or culture but as what He is, just Jesus, the Messiah.
I read an interesting essay on this — though of course I can’t find it now — that said otherwise. Having said that, I can’t support this claim so never-mind.