JW,
I knew the Obama era of racial harmony was doomed when I saw an interracial fight in a Wal-Mart checkout line the day after the election. Woman A was complaining about Woman B’s speed behind the register when Woman B committed what can best be described as a linguistic violation of customer service. Voices were raised, managers were summoned, and Woman B was escorted out of the happily un-unionized aisles to which she had grown so accustomed. Today, my wife called from the same location to report that speakers all over the store were emitting a strange, high-frequency squeal, just above the threshold of audibility. Several shoppers, she said, had taken to pushing their carts with their elbows so that their hands could be used to stop up their ears. An older woman of frightening girth was clutching her husband and sobbing that she simply couldn’t take it anymore, and everywhere the vulgar strains of human misery sounded forth.
And yet no one seemed to be leaving. No one seemed opposed to the notion that discounts, ironically, must be bought at a price. And while I’ll admit that I’ve got to be the most sophisticated customer ever to set foot in a Wal-Mart (I’m listening to classical music and wearing slippers as I type this), I can’t be alone in thinking that the grocery shopping experience has gotten significantly worse since we were children.
So here’s my question. Forget union-busting and suburban sprawl. Can we abandon the fiction that liberals dislike Wal-Mart for anything other than aesthetic reasons?
-GM
GM,
It’s funny you should mention Wal-Mart. Last night, in dire need of a razor and even direr need of deodorant, I made my first visit there since seeing the documentary Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price. (I was on the road for business, and the actual deodorant part of my deodorant stick was nowhere to be found. It hadn’t just run out; it had fallen out. So why in the hell would I have put an unfilled deodorant stick back into my shower kit???) Upon seeing the film, it occurred to me that a working person’s only possible social justification for shopping at Wal-Mart would be that he also collected his paycheck there while wearing a royal blue vest or navy blue shirt. Are they so cheap that they can’t update the uniforms all at once?!
I support the free market because simple economics (the only kind I’ve learned) prove it to bring about the greatest surplus of wealth. Within the free market, however, I would encourage anyone middle-class and above to investigate Wal-Mart’s disputed level of corruption to determine if its policies offend the social conscience. And don’t even begin to paint me liberal because I wish for Wal-Mart to fail if it doesn’t change. The liberal wants the government to shut down Wal-Mart; I want the more-powerful-than-ever consumer to do it—or at least inspire change. People don’t realize that Wal-Mart’s failure to take care of its employees costs taxpayers money. It’s the closest situation we’ve had in a while to coalminers working 16 hours a day for a dollar at the company store. Most of their paychecks go back to Wal-Mart! And with most Wal-Marts having a fast-food joint inside now, employees are likely to work, shop, and even take breaks at Wal-Mart! I almost died thinking about that life just now!
I’m sure the high-pitched hum over the intercom was simply market research. “We’ve already offended the other four senses; will they even leave if we torture them audibly?!” My best Wal-Mart experience may never be topped. I found a 4-pound ham in electronics and searched for about 10 minutes before I found an employee. “I found this in the wrong section, and I don’t know if it’s spoiled by now.” I grimaced as I handed the ham to the woman worker. She had a full goatee.
-JW
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I had one of the most visually titillating experiences ever at Wal-Mart.
ReplyDeleteAt a location in a questionable neighborhood in my hometown, I saw actual, effective (and, in some instances, cooperative) looting.
It was in response to a store evacuation, which consisted of Wal-Mart employees shouting various reasons why all customers had to leave the store (the most popular reason was a bomb threat... but I'm not positive every employee hadn't decided simply to go on break at the same time and this was the only conclusion they reached as to how to solve the problem of leaving no one to serve the customers).
I was in awe as I watched TVs being pulled from shelves, cans of food stuffed into pockets, and mid-aisle displays treated in a way that would make a two-bit hooker cringe.
Never in my life had I seen such organized chaos. It's as though every looter knew the path he/she was going to take before the looting had even begun (maybe this is the mindset they entered every store with... maybe it's one I need to adopt). Cars would zoom toward the door, pick up their co-looters, then, tires screaching, haul ass toward the exit (and the respite offered by a nearby interstate on-ramp).
Needless to say, it was the first and last time I was impressed by people in Wal-Mart, employee or customer.