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.Monday, November 18, 2013
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.
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Bravo!! I agree with you 100%. I only needed a few experiences with Wal-Mart shopping to decided that Wal-Mart is not the place for me to spent my hard earned money. I always believed that no one will do something for nothing, especially the rich including Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart promises the lowest prices competitively by means of unfair employment, crushing the competition, and taking advantage of loop holes in the law. The crazy thing about it, their getting away with it!
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think that the amount of stuff large corporations get away with is appauling
DeleteWell stated my girl! Ironically I got lost over the weekend and ended up having to shop at the local Wal-Mart. I'm now under the impression that it's not the employees that make the shopping experience so horrific but the customers themselves....lol I look at the employees in a very different light now, I realize that they are doing what they have to do in order to survive. And that unfortunately in the economic state in which we are living is so terrible that there just may not be another option for them.
ReplyDeleteThank you Christine, I totally agree
DeleteI agree with everything you said in your post. I used to not like going to Wal-Mart because I wasn't treated the best by the employees, but after reading N&D, I sympathize a lot more with them. It's normal to be unhappy with the way that they're treated. Now I don't like Wal-Mart because they're a cruel corporation that should treat their employees better.
ReplyDeleteThe Nickel and Dimed book definitely made me change my attitude towards the Walmart workers, not just the company
DeleteSummed up, exactly. I haven't been to a WalMart in years. There's nothing they have there that I can't get, at better quality, elsewhere- and if I have to pay a little more for it, that's okay. It's the principle of the thing. And maybe, just maybe, the higher price I'm paying for it means that the workers are getting paid just a bit more, or have just a little easier of a time at it. The only things we've purchased at WalMart in recent years have been because my husband's company likes to give out WalMart gift cards for things. We figure it's better to use the gift card than to let them have free money- that's even worse! Sometimes I give them to needy parents in my area for school shopping, or buy groceries I was going to buy anyway, but never their low-quality, high-social-cost goods.
ReplyDeleteI think that Walmart's merchandise sucks anyway, I don't want to purchase something just cause it costs less if I am going to have to come back within a year and buy it again because it broke.
Delete