[Vision2020] Wal-Mart cause and effect

[Jeff Harkins]

Try some peppermint tea - might calm you down a bit.  Vilified again 
- the days of gentile discourse are past I fear - I will opine to the 
"cutting-edge sarcasm" in another post.

Some have commented on the Walmart movie.  I haven't had a chance to 
see the flick, but I have browsed through the reviews of the 
"documentary".  Here is a link to one of the online based movie 
review sites - pointed to the reviews of "Walmart - The High Cost of 
Low Prices".  The movie is currently carrying a rating of 6.6/10 - 
not exactly a block buster yet.

If you scroll through the WalMart section, you will come across the 
blogs - fascinating stuff - here is a sample:


The title itself is ridiculous. The high cost of LOW price?!? are you 
kidding me?? This is like trying to convince someone of the low costs 
of HIGH price. If i'm getting this right, disgruntled former 
employees and competitors (figures) seem to be the prime sources of 
dirt on this business. People need to realize that employers don't 
pay the wages of their workers....consumers do. Admit it, all of you 
that support this are also supporting a tougher life on poor people 
for the benefit of the less competitive 'mom and pop' stores. 
Sometimes the little guy sucks at providing a good product at a good 
price and needs to cut his losses. That's america folks. Hard work 
and true grit. Besides if I were running a business, I'd feel pretty 
pathetic if the only way I could stay in business was to enact 
legislation to force other companies to not compete with me. From the 
worker's point of view, who's a better employer? A small hardware 
store? Or a large one with many different departments? Keep in mind 
that you get paid depending on how much money the store makes. And to 
all you supporters of a living wage, you need to realize (which you 
would have if you worked a day in your life), that most workers don't 
stay at that minimum wage for long. If they're worth anything they 
get promoted quickly and move up the ranks, or they'll find another 
place to work that pays better. Its the lazy, pathetic ones that stay 
at the same wage and don't do anything. why would you want to give 
more money to someone who doesn't give a damn? Personally i'd abolish 
any mandatory wage.

God just thinking about this infuriates me. Do you people that 
support this movie (face it, its not a documentary no matter how hard 
you try) actually realize how awesome this company is?!?!? They have 
everything! in ONE STORE. Its all really cheap and so you get great 
deals plus they donated millions of dollars to Katrina Relief! And 
now you're attacking a company that's there to give you what you want 
at a lower price. are you NUTS? In fact, I might go there right now 
and purchase one of their 400 dollar laptops for christmas. Oh wait, 
its bad that laptops are so cheap, we don't want any poor people 
buying that stuff huh?

I hope this "documentary" makes less money than it cost to produce 
it. That would make my day.

Here is another example:

Amen, dude.
I'm stuck being a slave for Wal-Mart right now.
The only reason I'm even there is because I need the money.
Which almost isn't worth it cuz I get paid sh!t.
I just got a raise after my 90 day eval and I still ain't gettin' 
paid what I should be.
It's probably even worse for me because I'm stuck working in the back 
in unloading, which is NOT what I applied for when I put in the application.
I freakin' hate it.
The work isn't too bad, you get used to it, but I hate the fact that 
I'm back there busting my ass for this place so they can have their 
precious merchandise and I get paid crap for it.
We should be making more than the rest of the people that work their 
because they just stand around on the sales floor all night while 
we're all back there unloading their huge ass trucks for hours on end.
And I work with alot of ass holes too.
I work with ass holes bitches and one just really freakin' stupid guy 
who's been there for a few weeks and likes to act like he knows more 
than everyone else and tells you how to do your job.
I just wanna slap that guy.
We had one really cool manager who listened to you and would actually 
come back and help when it was really busy, but then he left to go 
manage another store and the chick they sent in his place is such a 
raging bitch.
She acts like she runs the whole store when she's only an assitant 
night manager, which means she walks around all night and doesn't do anything.
The other night we were still working on one of the trucks at 9 at 
night and she wanted everything taken out to the floor by 10.
Dream on, bitch.
This was my last resort job, too.
If nobody else hired me, then I had Wal-Mart to fall back on.
And lucky me I get stuck with it.
Sam Walton should be dug up and slapped cuz his stores *beep* suck!

Here is a short excerpt

This is a true disingenuous assertion. Wages are set by the market, 
not by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart did not offer a better deal for its 
workers, then most of them would turn their resumes to the 
competition. What Wal-Mart aims at is the cadre of unskilled or 
elderly people, that will accept the lower wages because the other 
companies will NOT hire them.

Here is the link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473107/

Enjoy! 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20051120/1eb3491e/attachment.htm