Bengal B, I had forgotten about the heat inside Walmart, you could say that your observation about getting people in and out because of the heat would be correct except when I worked at a store that was closed over night it had the same problem. It makes no sense for a company like Walmart to have the heat on like they do, they like to cut corners and save money but when it comes to heat how much must that energy bill be? I worked stocking overnight there when i first started, we use to take a hair dryer and heat up the thermostats to try and get the heat to turn off. The cashier was right, Bentonville controls Everything through thier satellite network. To be honest with you I don't remember the heat being a as bad in the new Supercenters for some reason but maybe its me? My wife does more office work and I do more in the field actually I'll let you know when the article comes out! Walmart is great for Low Prices and Returns, that means great customer service in those areas........... Walmart isn't the place to go if you need help knowing what to purchase in some cases, Its a discount outlet and ALL of those don't have product knowledge for the most part. I've noticed since I left that some of thier Supercenters don't have cashiers through some time of day in other words you have to do it yourself. I don't have a problem with myself but some people, let me say its painful to wait in line and watch people that have no idea of what thier doing. I avoid these stores at all cost now!
My point EXACTLY. The problem is that most folks don't realize the long term consequences of their actions today, and Wal-Mart just wants to be known as "the good guys" for saving everybody money. What they're NOT telling people is that many Americans will lose jobs due to Wal-Mart's strong-armed buying and outsourcing practices. I don't either, but when their wage level determines ultimately how our economy will perform against others or how much money Americans can make, then I AM FORCED TO CARE how much they make. Sourdough, I LOVE technology. IMO it's one of the few things that has helped the USA hold it's own against the rest of the world's economies. The problem is that by outsourcing everything where it is manufactured overseas, the only money made here is by Wal-Mart employees (not a lot, unstable jobs) and the upper echelon at Wal-Mart (THE richest family & corporation in the WORLD)... and no one HAS good, stable manufacturing jobs. SO, the lower class (Wal-Mart workers) and the upper class (The upper echelon) gets theirs. WHAT ABOUT THE MIDDLE CLASS MANUFACTURING FOLKS? Where do THEY go???? Well, I think the Walton family is pretty tight, so... I try to on a REGULAR basis.... I couldn't agree more. We ALL need to find ways to CONTINUALLY improve who we are and what we can do to increase our own personal income earning potential. My issue here is that now CORPORATIONS are driving down the price for everything and putting the money into their pockets, NOT middle-class America's pockets. They save us $1.00 on our bill, they put the extra $10 difference into their pockets while making themselves out to be heros for saving all of their customers money!!! Most folks aren't aware of much that erodes our ability to get and KEEP long-term, stable, good paying jobs. The issue here is that the outflow of jobs STILL outpaces the inflow from other countries hiring US workers here. We NEED for this to improve. THAT'S the point of my diatribe here. We're STILL losing the war!!!!! And by always buying "cheap", and not "smart", we are only going to accelerate an already widening disparity. Just because you can buy something cheaper now doesn't mean that the ULTIMATE COST of that lower price might be more than you want to pay... The price that you pay for something isn't necessarily finalized at the cash register today.
Congratulations, Sourdough. You deserve a lot of credit for using your head and doing what you could to make something for yourself. Best of luck to you! USA Today, huh? The multicolored fishwrap? YOU GO, GIRL!!!!
quote by Bayareatiger: I couldn't agree more. We ALL need to find ways to CONTINUALLY improve who we are and what we can do to increase our own personal income earning potential. My issue here is that now CORPORATIONS are driving down the price for everything and putting the money into their pockets, NOT middle-class America's pockets. They save us $1.00 on our bill, they put the extra $10 difference into their pockets while making themselves out to be heros for saving all of their customers money!!! Most folks aren't aware of much that erodes our ability to get and KEEP long-term, stable, good paying jobs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I couldn't agree more with your statement here, I personnally don't like the way Walmart and some other corporations treat thier employees such as Walmart health Insurance for a corporation that size. I left there and worked for Home Depot for a little over a year making more money and better benefits but they treat thier employees like slaves. The night crew who was responsible for stocking products, the closing managers wouldn't even acknowledged you existed much less friendly. Alot of people there from other shifts were treated badly also like locking the doors and not let people leave until all the work was inspected to make sure people had finished thier work. It was really funny, they pump you up in orientation then when you go to your store and people treat you like crap its definitely different than what they taught you. After having our business I'm convinced the only way for the middle class to make serious money is to work for yourself, it won't happen otherwise. Some of our properties we make anywhere from $50.00 an hour up. What other profession can you make that kind of money in?
Good for you Sourdough --- But what about folks that don't have the vision or belief that you have?? Would you not agree that they deserve the right ot make a decent living, not a $10.00/hr wage that will barely keep you off the streets?? The reason why this country grew and prospered so much afterr WWII was that there were decent jobs that were suitable for everyone, creating a huge stable middle class... ...and when it disappears, then what??? You'll have all the Wal-Mart workers, with low wages, crappy health care and an unstable career, and the ultra-rich, who are convinced that as long as they get theirs, that the USA will be OK.... ...how wrong can they be???? ...all in all a pretty bleak future....
So what's the fix?? Even if more people worked for themselves you would have a service oriented economy. Someone still will have to supply commodities and it will come in bulk ie A&P, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Costco because as a society we like one stop shopping and if it can be done over the net that is fine too by the way internet sales are growing. Dell and some of the other companies have moved thier tech support to India. And only after an outcry from business did they move thier business tech support back to the USA. So again a problem or situation has been identified but what is the fix. If its a boycott of wal-mart save the energy and enjoy the weather we have a spring game Saturday.
quote: Good for you Sourdough --- But what about folks that don't have the vision or belief that you have?? Would you not agree that they deserve the right ot make a decent living, not a $10.00/hr wage that will barely keep you off the streets?? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think everyone deserves to make a decent living and I wish there was something I could do to wave a magic wand and help fix things but I can't. We don't live in a perfect world. There were years we struggled to make ends meet like alot of people and now we are actually struggling because of our debt from all of those years we didn't have the money to fix things like our vehicles. We wouldn't be able to get out of debt if we still worked for someone, it wouldn't happen. I don't know what a fix would be? No clue what can be done but it does look more and more like an upper class and a lower class in our society. The only thing I could recommend is for everyone starting a small business on the side and see what they can do to help thier situation. I think about some of the time I had 2 jobs and wished I would've started a business instead of that second job. I think the key for today however is: Most of us would do any job for work through the years whether its fast food, bag groceries, stock at Walmart. "I've done all of these at times when I had trouble finding work." BUT, thier are people out there now days that won't work unless they can do what they want. I see plenty of help wanted signs around the Denver area for an economy thats suppose to be as bad as it is! You have to be motivated, Life is what you make out of it!
Things just evolve. Wal-Mart came up with a new concept in marketing and revolutionized retail sales. It had the side effect of suppressing "mom-n-pop" drug stores, dime stores, hardware stores, and such in the immediate area. 100 years ago Sears catalog sales and superstores eliminated the hometown general store in the same fashion. 50 years ago Safeway and A&P supermarkets eliminated the bakeries, butcher shops, fruit markets, and corner groceries. 25 years ago Office Depot eliminated local stationers and copy shops. 10 years ago BooksaMillion just killed small bookstores. Time marches on, fellers. In a few years Internet orders and overnight delivery may hurt megastores like Walmart. And don't fool yourself. Most of the small businesses, eliminated over last 100 years by modern marketing and merchandising never paid their workers more than minimum wage either. A retail stockboy or cashier really isn't a job that the average ambitious American expects to make a career of. Its a job that people work at for four or five years until they can move into management (which does pay well) or to find the that well-paying job that the American dream is made of. A job at Wally World is a great place for young people, immigrants, and poorly-educated folks to get some experience that will enable them to find better work.
Good question. Perhaps a boycott is in order. Not one, but many. If I had a better reponse to that maybe I'd run for office! My larger concern is that we are slowing eroding away the middle class in this country. We ALL need decent, good paying jobs to raise our families. The upper class has done much for us, providing us with lower prices at the checkstand, while at the same time making sure that many of us will never have the chance at a stable good paying job again... I mean what else do we want from them, socio-economic responsibility? RIII-GGHHTTTTTT.... Like the majority of their profit margin EVER REALLY comes back to the middle class... We are creating a country in which there will only be an upper class and a lower class - and history tells us that when there is too much of a disparity exists than we run the risk of large scale class warfare... And by having everything manufactured overseas, another ugly scenario is created. What happens when the rest of the world decides that they don't like what we are or what we doing and decide to cut us off? Much like the OPEC consortium could cripple us if we p*ssed them off! Look at the possibility of this great future: class warfare internally, loss of economic freedom externally... Hell, as long as the caviar is fresh and Beluga, then what else really matters? Hand me my fiddle. Looks like there's a fire down there....
I will post this and don't believe it to be a rumor but a possibility at the minimum. In the medical/dental field field what if x-rays, maybe some already are is what I read,were shipped to India to be read via the internet. At that point you could do away with a whole job classifiacation in this field. If you think about it its one job that doesn't require a person to be on site and the HMO's would love to see this cost go down. One example and I am sure there are other. So I guess I am probably more concerned about the techno era with the internet and such changing our economy more than anything. I know I have used it to by more things year after year. Also when we talk about upper class, middles class and I guess its lower class what are these annual incomes for each.
