Boycott Best Buy

[MASSIVEPKGO_CHUCK]

Well, even tho they did give the meal non gratis, there's still a big difference between the service of restaurant retail and electronics retail.

 

[D_MisterBates]

Originally posted by KinkGuy@Nov 28 2004, 09:38 PM
Well, it's almost cliche now days, but WalMart hasn't seen me and my credit cards in over 2 years and will never again see one dollar of my money. I just choose to support companies with at least a somewhat acceptable corporate and human rights philosophy. btw, still won't drink Coors beer either. :angry:

[post=265163]Quoted post[/post]​

dude.. i wish i could say that. oh man.

i HATE walmart, really. the worst thing about them is that i have to shop there. i really dont have any choice, any alternatives either cost more or dont have what i need. i mean sometime i do go somewhere else and pay more just to be non-walmart but around here its usually the only alternative.

oh BTW i live in Bentonville Arkansas,

and yes i do know that the money that pays my rent probobly came from walmart originally. like 99% of the money in northwest arkansas.

 

[KinkGuy]

Yeah, you probably don't have a lot of "other choices" in Bentonville, the launching pad for world retail dominance.

 

[prepstudinsc]

I'm surprised Target or some other discount retailer hasn't come in and opened up some megastore just to try to offer Bentonvillians (is that the correct word) an option. I HATE, HATE, H A T E WalMart and when that and KMart were the only two stores in my town, I would drive half an hour into the next state so I could go to Target. I wasn't going to be forced to support a store I hate just because it was the only option. Now that Target has opened up in my town, it stays packed with the middle/upper-middle class shoppers from town, and WalMart pulls from the poorer redneck towns in the county. The two stores are less than a 1/4 mile from each other, but yet they are worlds apart. It's quite funny and sad at the same time. I'm not saying that I'm too good to shop at WalMart, but knowing what I do about how they treat employees, I couldn't in good conscience shop there. Plus, I just hate the layout of the store, the bright lights, the way stuff is always just thrown in the aisles, etc. Target is laid out to be a better shopping experience for shoppers who normally go to regular department store, but who just want a bargain. Plus, you can always find some good deals on home things...you can't just run to WalMart and pick up a Calphalon pot or saucier, but yet Target sells them. The audience is a whole different group...

 

[madame_zora]

For me, Walmart is almost synonymous with screaming babies. I know we all have different ideas about child rearing, but what is it about that store in particular that people tend to just let their children scream at the top of their lungs for as long as they want to? I don't get it. My mother would have made me fear my next breath if I had ever acted like that in public, and she NEVER hit me! Likewise, I let my daughter know early on that I brought her into the world and I could take her back out too- we never had a problem. Why is it that child discipline in any form has become a thing of the past, particularly amoung Walmart shoppers? I can't go in there without getting a headache! For one thing, it's set up badly, so nomatter what things you need, you'll likely need to visit all four corners of the building to get them. Then, if you HAVE to find an "associate" to help with anything, well there's 30 to 60 minutes of your life you'll never get back. If you survive all that, by the time you get to the checkout, you'll feel your temples pounding. That's when you realise that the noise volume is several decibals higher than your average airplane hangar, and it's all being brought to you courtesy of the snotty, filthy, unkempt, uncared for child in front of you. If the parent pays annention at all (unlikely), it's just to add to the noise, not to control it.

Shitty treatment of employees, bad policies in regards to foriegn labor, sucking the life out of anything good about American small business- these reasons fall short of self-interest to me. I just can't take the idiots.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Originally posted by madame_zora@Dec 3 2004, 05:30 PM
For me, Walmart is almost synonymous with screaming babies. I know we all have different ideas about child rearing, but what is it about that store in particular that people tend to just let their children scream at the top of their lungs for as long as they want to? .....and it's all being brought to you courtesy of the snotty, filthy, unkempt, uncared for child in front of you. If the parent pays annention at all (unlikely), it's just to add to the noise, not to control it.

I have the same view of Walmart. It always seems there are screaming toddlers running around the aisles in their underwear while sneezing and coughing viruses and germs on everything in sight.

I avoid the place like the plague because it basically is the plague.

SG

 

[KinkGuy]

at the very least, a rash.

 

[prepstudinsc]

MZ and SG have summed up WalMart pretty well. It is the scourge of discount retailing in the USA. The people who shop there (not everyone, but a majority) just have no handle on their children, their hygiene is lacking, and so are their teeth. Around here, we sum it up in one word...TRASH. I truly think that a lot of those people come out of the backwoods to shop there, and while they need a store to go to, you'd think that they would at least wash their kids and dress them before they went into the store. I find the whole experience of going to a WalMart repulsive at best.

I'll stick to Target, where things are laid out better, the quality of merchandise is better, and the clientele is better, too. I hate to be "classist", but those snivelling, snot nosed undressed kids with no shoes in WalMart grow up to be the fat parents in WalMart with teeth missing, bad bleach jobs with roots showing, pink and purple sweat pants and stained logo t-shirts (mothers), denim overalls and plaid flannel shirts (fathers), pushing around the buggies loaded down with discount sodas, WalMart brand cookies and potato chips while looking for the latest DVD release that they can bring back to watch on their wide screen TV set up in their trailer.

The Target shoppers generally are more well behaved, and regardless of race, they all tend to be more of the middle/upper middle class status. Target's focus is to get the middle class shoppers who want a good deal on good merchandise. WalMart seems to focus on the lower income strata. The whole experience is just rather surreal to me...I just prefer to avoid it, because it's a nightmare everytime I've been.

Here's a Target thing, though...no matter where you go in the country...every Target store smells the same. There is a "Target" smell of popcorn. I don't know if it's because the snackbar is near the entrances, or if it's something they pump through the airhandlers. Think about it the next time you're in a Target store. LOL

 

[ashlar]

Originally posted by prepstudinsc@Dec 4 2004, 03:10 PM
Here's a Target thing, though...no matter where you go in the country...every Target store smells the same. There is a "Target" smell of popcorn. I don't know if it's because the snackbar is near the entrances, or if it's something they pump through the airhandlers. Think about it the next time you're in a Target store. LOL

[post=265925]Quoted post[/post]​

It's because the "Food Aveneue" Is right up front and the salt/butter/oil they treat the popcorn with is supercharged to make as much smellyness as possible. It's an attempt to get people to crave something to eat as soon as they walk through the doors.

I used to work in Target and was a supervisor of the front end as well as for the price change team. There were a lot of nasty assed people that came into that store too but generally the cooperate offices allowed us to just about anything to help the guest, provided it did not jepordize various policies. The stores will do what they can for you, but if they can't help you it's because they are not allowed to, then you simply have to contact the cooprate offices and they are really nice.

 

[SomeGuyOverThere]

Reminds me of FirstBus in my area, I waited over an hour and a half and didnt manage to get a damned bus.

I ended up haveing to take the wrong bus, which got me about half the way home, and I had to walk the last 3 to 4 miles, which took I dunno, about 1+1/2 hours after a long day at school.

I had a friend with me for the begining of my lovely trip and I borrowed hs phone and left a 5 minute rant of the answer machine of the local head of public relations for FirstBus.

Supriseingly they've phoned me back several times, appologised profusely and promised to amend the service.

They won't, but It'll give me another oppertunity to blow a fuse at important people! ^_^


I cant however, ever remember a time when a company absolutly refused a refund or exchange, but here in the UK, we have the Consumer Rights act, which means that companies are forced to provide either an exchange or a refund if the product was not up to satisfactory standards (i.e. working), so most places wont even argue, because its technically illegal for them to try and force you not to get a refund/exchange.




I am really annoyed with Sky and BT though, if there is a problem, you phone up some guy in India to ask you "hello, please please, is the product plugged in?" (note: i hate racism and I have generally found people from the Subcontinant to be very decent and helpful, and I am not prejudiced against any group, HOWEVER,I am irritated by outsourceing because, through no fault of their own, they can't allways understand what you are talking about), and they go through this whole script, while Im sitting on the other end of the phone repeatedly telling them I have done all this stuff before and it didnt help, its allways:
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"I've done this and it doesn't work"
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"Are you L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G? i have done this before, and it does not work."
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"I just restarted the equipment*sigh*"
them-"You should now find your product works!"
me-"no it still doesnt, as Ive been sa-"
them-"thankyou, goodbye!" (phone goes down)
me-" :mellow: I am now, very very angry, :mellow: so angery I am past rage mode, Im on controlled calm yet evil incarnet mode, and I'll tell you what Im going to do, Im goig to hunt down Rupert Murdoch, mericlessly, with dogs. :mellow: "

 

[prepstudinsc]

Originally posted by SomeGuyOverThere@Dec 4 2004, 08:05 PM


I am really annoyed with Sky and BT though, if there is a problem, you phone up some guy in India to ask you "hello, please please, is the product plugged in?" (note: i hate racism and I have generally found people from the Subcontinant to be very decent and helpful, and I am not prejudiced against any group, HOWEVER,I am irritated by outsourceing because, through no fault of their own, they can't allways understand what you are talking about), and they go through this whole script, while Im sitting on the other end of the phone repeatedly telling them I have done all this stuff before and it didnt help, its allways:
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"I've done this and it doesn't work"
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"Are you L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G? i have done this before, and it does not work."
them-"restart the equipment please"
me-"I just restarted the equipment*sigh*"
them-"You should now find your product works!"
me-"no it still doesnt, as Ive been sa-"
them-"thankyou, goodbye!" (phone goes down)
me-" :mellow: I am now, very very angry, :mellow: so angery I am past rage mode, Im on controlled calm yet evil incarnet mode, and I'll tell you what Im going to do, Im goig to hunt down Rupert Murdoch, mericlessly, with dogs. :mellow: "

[post=265953]Quoted post[/post]​

I thought it was only companies in the US that outsourced jobs to the Indian Subcontinent. I had a tech issue the other day and after 45 minutes on the phone, then being put on hold for 20 minutes while he "went to get a supervisor", I called the company back on my other phone, to get someone at a call center in the US, who solved the problem in less than 2 minutes. The problem was all a matter of lack of understanding the problem, and the guy in India just reading his script. No fault of his, but because my problem wasn't addressed in the script, he was at a loss, so OF COURSE, the problem was my fault, not a problem with the computer program. All that I needed to do was uncheck a box in one of the set up areas of the program, but the script didn't allow for that...he wanted me to uninstall and reinstall the program because my program was corrupted he said.
Then it was operator error, etc. All the way down the line in the script he went, meanwhile I knew that it all came down to something that was going to be in the set up of the program, which it was. Ah...outsourcing. The American way. Gotta love it.

 

[headbang8]

Originally posted by KinkGuy@Nov 29 2004, 12:38 PM
Well, it's almost cliche now days, but WalMart hasn't seen me and my credit cards in over 2 years and will never again see one dollar of my money. I just choose to support companies with at least a somewhat acceptable corporate and human rights philosophy. btw, still won't drink Coors beer either. :angry:

[post=265163]Quoted post[/post]​

Read Barbara Ehrenreich's extraordinary Nickel and Dimed for a glimpse of Wal-Mart's behaviour toward its "Associates". You'll be even more convinced.