Wal-Mart

I used to shop at Wal-Mart because it was inexpensive, close, convenient, and open all hours of day and night. This was very important when my first daughter was born because it gave me a chance to go out late and get all my shopping done alone. While I was shopping there I was convinced that I was receiving the lowest prices and was content to deal with the hordes of people and insufficient cashier staffing in order to do what I could to save on groceries. Then I moved and Wal-Mart was no longer the most convenient source of shopping and I was forced to compare shop in order to determine if the low prices were worth the extra commute. I found that the prices were not all that different from other grocery stores, and even if I had to shop at several stores in order to find what was provided all within the one Wal-Mart my shopping experiences improved dramatically at the other retail stores in which I attended. All at once I became cured of the Wal-Mart stigma and have since never found a reason to go back. Since starting this project and learning more about the corporate runnings of the company, I do not think that the prices could ever be low enough to lure me back into the store. As a business student I find the business practices of this company extremely abhorrent. I think that the relationship between the corporate management and the low level employees was doomed since the very beginning since the founder Sam Walton took advantage of a small business exemption in order to under pay his employees and embrace his inner greed pocketing or using the extra money to grow the company. How could we expect that the corporate culture would change from his original view, if he could get away with it and build the company so exponentially than why would the corporate big wigs after he was gone. Mistreating employees, under paying them and providing a negative work environment is a despicable way to run a business. Barbara Ehrenreich states in her book Nickel and Dimed that while she was employed at Wal-Mart the company believes in the philosophy of “believe in the Individual’…because vast as Wal-Mart is, and tiny as we may be as individuals, everything depends on us.” This philosophy although terribly misrepresented by Wal-Mart is undeniably correct. Without the mass amounts of people employed by Wal-Mart the company would not have the resources to continue to run such a successful business. That is why it is so disgraceful that Wal-Mart feels so entitled in its greediness to treat its most important asset so badly. It really upsets me that the company is able to get away with such mistreatment, that such pure greediness can affect so many families across the country so completely. This is a prime example of how the 1% of the rich can so ultimately have such a negative impact on the other 99% of the country working to do all they can to keep getting richer while working equally as hard to keep the poor down and make it impossible for the lower income families to ever have a chance at a life in which hard work will ever equal success and financial stability within the United States. I will never again support the corporate greedy bastards benefiting from Wal-Mart in any way that I have control over. There is no price low enough or reason good enough to lure me back in to that store and my money back into their pockets.