Dammit, last night I caved and shopped at Wal-Mart.
I read a book awhile back about a class-action law suit filed in the United States by thousands of female Wal-Mart employees, who had been systematically shut out of being promoted, prevented from working in “male-dominated” tool or fishing & hunting departments, and had been earning lower wages than their male counterparts. I vowed never to shop there after I read the book. That was back when our combined salary was about 30% higher than it is now.
It’s a lot easier to have high morals and refuse to shop at Wal-Mart when you make a lot of money. But people, they sell Restaurant-Style Tostitos for just $2.50. A jug of bleach is $1.17. Shower gel for $3.86. These are necessities in life. And these days, shopping is all about getting what we need for as cheap as we can.
Do you shop at Wal-Mart? And do you feel just a little bit dirty when you leave the store?
I shop there, and I hate that I do that. My parents each own small businesses and they hate Wal-Mart with a burning passion, for obvious reasons. There’s also the indications I’ve read that Wal-Mart brings nothing to a community incomewise–it hires a bunch of people and doesn’t pay them enough to keep them off welfare, so it ends up being more of a drain than ever. At least according to some articles I’ve come across.
My reason for shopping there is simple, though: IT’S OPEN. No small feat at 3 AM, when I’m most awake.
Fortunately, there is no Walmart in Tuvalu, but I probably would make myself go there for the same reasons you did.
Normally, no, because it is just too gross. But on Kauai when I was on vacation, I went there because they have all the cheap tourist crap you want – like t-shirts for $6 instead of $25 elsewhere.
Nope, do not shop there and will not shop there. But trying to convince my fiance to do the same is another matter entirely… guess our household will be responsible for some dollars headed their direction anyway. Grrrr…
I have to. Living on student loans leaves very few other options. Plus in the town where my husband grew up Wal-Mart came in a built a store when the oil field crashed and saved the livelihood of hundreds of families.
So I have to be okay with it.
I do feel a little gross when I go there, but there are few other options. Is it better for me to buy my toiletries at Shoppers Drug Mart? Or my groceries at The Real Canadian Superstore? They’re all big box stores that aren’t doing too badly….
No, we don’t shop at HellMart (unless absolutely necessary, such as to use the annual gift card my dad sends Theya for Christmas). We’re broke as hell but I guess we’re THAT hippy snobby.
A good friend of J’s (female) worked at one in Edmonton for a while and was literally and disturbingly sexually harrassed by a co-worker. She complained to every level possible and they all shrugged it off and did NOTHING. SO the asshole kept doing it because he knew he could get away with it. She is a very out-spoken and self-defensive person (black belt in judo) and did her darnedest to make it stop but wound up quitting because it was just too emotionally upsetting. They wouldn’t even change her shifts to alternate with his or move her to a new department. How totally screwed up is that?
When I’m back in the states, yeah, sometimes I do go in. What bothers me the most about the place is that it feeds customers’ feeling that they =need= things, more things, things in bulk, big bright shiny things, more and more. But when it’s not quite right, too much is never enough.
i shop there when I go visit my parents in the sticks. It’s probably no worse than Target (which i love and which I’m sure purchases sweat shoppy products) or Old Navy.
They’re all bad, but I’m cheap.
I practically live there when I’m away at college. Where else would I find Pop-Tarts so cheap?? I only don’t shop there when I’m at home because 1) the Wal*marts by my house are filthy and 2) I don’t really leave the house period.