Sunflower Blog

Walmart

I dread shopping at Walmart. I've overcome my negative feelings shopping at the Neighborhood Walmart store. I do that frequently. It's the BIG Walmart I dread going to.

So many aisles. The store will have been reorganized since I was last there, so I'll have to look around, rather than direct down the aisle--in and out--which is safer for me. I get distracted and buy more.

I get agoraphobia sometimes. In my case, it's a fear of being stuck in a long, long, long line, in a huge store, where the majority of people are speaking a language other than my own. The lines are slow. The jillions of children are unruly. As a former teacher, I'm always tempted to discipline. I have eyes that'll scare the crap out of little kids. But I usually don't.

The political problems that I have with Walmart are twofold: The meat union, and the infusion of Chinese labor practices into my life.

Meat at Dallas Walmarts is cut and packaged off premises because Walmart wouldn't work with the meat union. Damn pushy of them. Unions look out for people. They just step right across a picket line that doesn't even know it's supposed to be there. A sacker at Kroger told me what good meat prices he found at Walmart, and I had to educate him about sticking together for the good of the fold. I don't think he got it. Bottom line savings.

If you get a chance to catch the cable show "The Making of Walmart," It's full of very interesting information. Walmart is expanding to other countries, and learning that cultures can't be overcome. You adapt to market. Lots of rice and fresh fish in the Walmarts in Asia. And the Asian employees wear uniforms and do store cheers in English. It all seemed very strange.

They interviewed a Pakistani owner of a doll maker who was using Chinese labor. We all know that the Chinese don't have decent human rights as the government stands now, and buying that sort of product only enforces the need to not change their governmental system. Keep the people oppressed. We don't care about the other side of the world, unless it's got oil in the dirt.

We buy more, at cheaper prices, but across the world, doll makers who string hair, and stitch tiny stitches, aren't getting minimum wage or health benefits. China, I see, as a Nineteenth Century Industrial Revolution type labor pool. The people are downtrodden for the benefit of the product. I could rant on, but won't.

Bottom line is that Walmart, in having cheapest prices, is the magnet for my pocketbook. I have not enough money. Money goes father at Walmart.

So I shall venture forth. . . after a stop at Petsmart--which is another blog.