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Over at Wizbang, Jay Tea tells the story of a family with a sewage problem. The solution to all their problems, in his opinion, could be handled by an adjacent WalMart. If, of course, they weren't such awful, uncaring, insensitive neighbors.
I was heartened to read the comments, because the response was overwhelmingly in WalMart's favor for a variety of reasons. In a later post, Paul slaps Jay down convincingly with more facts about the story.
I recently read somewhere (can't remember where) that Bill Gates and Microsoft aren't evil, although some people wish they were. That parallels the question I always ask when someone starts bashing WalMart: At what point does a company grow so big that it becomes evil?
I once asked a friend who lives in a small town what she thought about the WalMart that opened in the next town over. She was enthusiastic about it, and when I inquired about how it was affecting the local small businesses, her reply surprised me:
Screw them. When they were the only game in town they jacked up their prices and took advantage of us all because they could. Now that WalMart is here they're whining about how unfair it is. Ask me about unfair, and I'll remind you about when your choice was to pay out the butt to them or drive an hour to the city to get a decent price.
I've heard the stories about how when WalMart opens, they send armed groups of WalMart police to every house, round people up and force them to shop there. Oh wait, no I haven't. If your local businesses are closing up, it's because YOU didn't support them by shopping there. Don't blame WalMart for your decision about where to spend your money.
In the 60's it was fashionable to blast IBM (remember "fold, spindle and mutilate"?). In the 90's it was Microsoft's turn, and now the groupthink have turned their collective hatred towards WalMart. Notice how each of those companies got to where they were by doing business better than their competitors. Each achieved dominance by being better capitalists. They treat their employees rather better than average. But dammit, they're evil! They're... big! They're evil!
It's fashionable. It's stupid. Either think before you make that reflexive leap, or find a cliff first like the rest of the lemmings.
Posted by Ted at August 5, 2005 05:52 AM | TrackBackI agree 100% Ted.".....at what point evil?"I used to do assembly work for Wal-Mart and I always got treated like gold.Well,almost always anyhow.Most people I have met really liked working for them.Most of those that didn't where usually the type that don't get along well anywhere at all really.
Now as a customer all I will say is that they beat the hell out of K-Mart any day.If you wanna get used and abused then THAT'S the place to go.The people at ours are downright rude just for the sake of it.No kidding!K is for Kiss my ass Mart.
Even when it comes to prices they usually run about 50-100% more than any other K-Mart just because they can.I know because I have compared them to Martinsburg,Winchester and Manasass.
Wal-Mart just gave up on it's bid to try and build on a certain location here.I and everyone else is glad they did.It's not that we didn't want them it's just that they picked the worst spot in the world to build based soley on traffic flow.They have now decided to (maybe) build outside of town where everyone else is.Where they should.Also,as you mentioned the ones who don't want them are the "Main Street Botique" crowd.Being as how this town has always bent over backwards to kiss the asses of this set via pressuring the livin' hell out of eveyone else to go elsewhere then they can all go straight to the fuckin' poorhouse and it would suite me fine.
Oh and BTW you do know that wal-Mart is run by the underpants knomes from South Park don't you?HEHEHE!!!!!
Nice to read this side of the coin... I've been debating this point, in this manner, for some time and I always get the squiggly eyebrows from it.
Oh, and references to Manassas, Winchester and Martinsburg, it appears that some of us may be in the same neck of the woods!
Posted by: BLUE at August 5, 2005 09:36 AMThere's a couple of sagas in our city about Walmart right now, in a neighbouring little city (I think it's called a hamlet actually, don't know why the hell that is), the people working at Walmart can't even afford to live in the town, they have to travel from outside, because cost of living is so high.
In another part of our city, the residents have actually kept Walmart out, partially because they don't want any more mega box stores with mega parking lots littering their part of the city.
I find most of the stuff I buy at Walmart breaks down, rips, tears and generally doesn't last as long, especially the clothing. Poor manufacturing, for just a little less than I would pay for the better stuff. Plus the morons and deadbeats that clog the aisles frustrate me enough I never want to set foot inside the place.
But that's just me. I'd rather shop at Costco.
Posted by: Oorgo at August 5, 2005 11:26 AMAs for the sewage thing, that's alot of reaction about such a miniscule thing, and I agree with Paul, "What about if junior #3 decides to flush mommies pantyhose down the toilet?" Yeah, kids do these things, for sure, I think I did.
Posted by: Oorgo at August 5, 2005 11:36 AM"the people working at Walmart can't even afford to live in the town, they have to travel from outside, because cost of living is so high"
How does WalMart pay compare to the other stores? WalMart offers medical benefits to it's employees, which is not a biggie in Canada, but in the US that's important. In the Air Force I would get a statement every year detailing what my benefits were worth in the civilian world (housing, medical, education, etc). So even though I was barely above poverty level cash-wise, we were well enough taken care of that we didn't have to spend the money we made on that stuff.
"they don't want any more mega box stores with mega parking lots"
And *that* is the best reason I've ever heard to keep them out. It doesn't take long for an area to become overrun with competing mega-chains.
"I'd rather shop at Costco"
Bingo! You choose where to spend your dollars. Exactly the way it should be. If WalMart wants your business, in your case they'd have to improve the quality of their merchandise (and customers - *smirk*). We have a WalMart very close to us that we refuse to go to because it's the regional training store. Always crowded, always messy, always staffed by half-trained nitwits. If I must go to WalMart, I'll travel the extra distance south to shop at a much nicer store.
Posted by: Ted at August 5, 2005 12:02 PMI knew I'd mentioned this before. From a comment I left on another rant in February:
"We had a minor WalMart uproar in this area. Plans were announced that a store would be built and "citizen action groups" instantly sprang into action to prevent it. Their main objection was that having a WalMart that close to their gated communities would lower their property values. Only one problem - WalMart owned the land long before the developers started their construction. The judge threw it all out because the hoity-toity residents should've been ticked at the developer for not telling them the whole story, not WalMart.
You can imagine how much I enjoyed that."
I'm not a huge WalMart fan, but nobody deserves as much crap as they put up with.
Except the Los Angeles Dodgers. And the Washington Redskins.
Posted by: Ted at August 5, 2005 12:13 PMIt's interesting about Costco, there have been alot of media reports about them comparing them to Walmart. Apparently the CEO at Costco makes something like 350K compared to 5.3 mil for Walmart, plus less employee turnover and higher customer satisfaction. Oh and a 10% increase in stock value, it's nice to see a company that appreciates it's staff and customers over it's upper management do so well.
Posted by: Oorgo at August 5, 2005 12:46 PMMicrosoft, one the other hand, really is evil. I don't know if a different company in the same position would do any better, but Microsoft is still evil.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 5, 2005 07:40 PM