A majority of the people I come into contact with hold such abhorrence for Wal-Mart, that I sometimes wonder if they were molested as a child by a man wearing a yellow smiley-face mask. Maybe it's a feeling of being unable to escape, the dependence they have on one store. Nobody can beat Wal-Mart's prices, so Joe Blow has no choice but to grab a germ-infested shopping cart and fight his way through a crowd of people who feel it's ok to not shower or make themselves somewhat presentable to the public.
And do people find it to be a little unnerving that they can purchase everything they need under one roof? Is it tacky that they sell lubricated condoms and birthday cards for your grandma? Or do we just get sick of going to the same place over, and over, and over again?
Personally, I don't hold anything against Wal-Mart for being a mega-corporation that puts other retailers out of business. That means Sam Walton was successful, and I have to admire anyone who has worked hard and achieved enough financial gain to support their family for generations.
But I do empathize with the people who hate going to Wal-Mart.
Parking.
Crowds.
Blinding white floors and fluorescent lighting.
Overwhelming mass consumption.
Lack of sanctity.
Smiley faces.
There are many reasons to love Wal-Mart as well, but I rarely meet anyone brave enough to admit it. Do you think some people lie about hating Wal-Mart, simply because it's the en vogue thing to do? Why do you hate it? Or love it (Blasphemy!)?
Comments (698)
I don't shop at my local Wal-Mart that often, but that's not because of any big philosophical reason. I just don't prefer it. I like my nearby Kroger's or Meijers better. although I will go to Wal-Mart if I can't find something at those.
People hate walmart?!?! i was just telling someone how excited i am that they opened a supercenter here in my city...
Wal-Mart was the first "big" store to come to Hawaii to actually stop the price gouging that was happing at other smaller stores. It has helped our economy with jobs AND low prices that we need here in the islands. I am a Wal-mart junkie.
I try to avoid Walmart as much as I can. If I can get whatever I need on sale somewhere else, I'll pay the extra buck or two just to avoid the long lines at the checkout counter. I also don't like coming into contact with that many people in one place (germ-o-phobe). I also hate the rudeness I encounter both from shoppers and employees. I try to be nice as much as I can and let people go first and actually say "excuse me" when I want to pass instead of rudely brushing by, but no matter how good of a mood I'm in when I start, I usually end up leaving Walmart feeling as depressed and irritated as everyone else there. For some people, it's a necessary evil, I suppose.
walmart treats theyre workers really badly. so i dont shop tehre, and i tell people that they should either not shop there, or they should not work there b ecause working there sucks. there's a documentary about walmart, i forgot what itw as called but if you really want to you can look it up and watch it.
I am moving from a big city to a small town for a new job.
The first thing my new employer told me about my new small town... "We have a Wal-mart!"
I have a love/hate relationship with Wal-mart. I love the fact that they have ridiculously cheap merchandise and everything you could probably need to survive the apocalypse in one store. But I hate the fact that the arrival of Wal-mart has killed off a lot of mom and pop shops in small towns.
Wal Mart is making money by exploiting its labors!
Check out Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price at
http://www.walmartmovie.com/
really?
all the people i know like it
(or just dnt care either way but thats another story.)
hayley--
Horrible workers compensation, outsourced resources/business, ruining the economy [don't be fooled by the cheaper prices for single items, the long term plan reveals the truth], unsustainable practices, and over the years have shut down smaller stores due to their competitive pricing.
Wal-Mart hater here....for so many reasons.....I could go on forever. I avoid it whenever humanly possible, but on the rare occasion that I do go there, my biggest issues in the moment are the pervasive smell of cheap cologne/perfume and the CONSTANT noise, noise, noise from their employee announcements, Wal-Mart radio station, sales, etc. The shelves are piled so high that you can't even see where you are going, let alone find what you need to buy. My entire family gets so overwhelmed by the Wal-Martian assault on our senses that we start bickering and snipping at each other more than we would anywhere else and at any other time. Even the parking lot is enough to give me palpitations. And that's not even getting into their business practices.....if you haven't seen it - watch "WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price." UGH!!!
I have a like/hate relationship with Wally World.
I like, not love, it because I can go there and get everything I need and be done with it. No running to 50 different stores to get what I need. The one big complaint I have is that they are often out of what I am going to get there by forcing me to go to another store.
I hate it because the workers are rude. One of them tried to accuse my Grandmother of stealing something after we had just spent over $200 in the store. The buzzers only rang at the exits because they failed to remove an ink tag
I also don't like them because there are goin to be 4, thats right 4,of them in my town. We are not small but we are not that big either. The ones that are here already have run everyother business OUT of town and have kept prosepctive bussinesses at bay. I lost one of my jobs because of them and I can safely say I will not be a patron of that particular strore. We don't need 4 and NEVER WILL!!!!!
i dont go to walmart because it's always crowded and full of, and i hate to say it, welfare no tax paying, illegal mexican immigrants. at least, the ones here are. you wont find a walmart in an upscale part of town/area.. theres no walmart newport beach, or walmart hamptons. walmarts are mostly in lower income cities and are a haven for those lower income families.. that shove 16 kids with an overweight overeating family into a 2 bedroom apartment. where the mom works 3 jobs and overtime, and the dad stands outside home depot all day long hoping to get picked up for a job.
i would rather pay more for the same merchandise in a quieter more sane and functioning retail environment (and not worry that my car is gonna end up on cinder blocks when i get out of the store -- or dinged up, scratched up, or whatnot) than to go through the frenzy that is always walmart. it's even worse if they have a mcdonalds inside with it.
summed up very shortly into a sentance; i hate it because it gets all its products from enslaving children and hurting animals and being evil. XDDDDD
The biggest problem I have with Wal-Mart is the person who chooses what clothing that is available for the Plus-sized women. That person needs to be fired and someone with REAL clothes sense needs to be hired. Plus.......not everyone wants to go to bed in pajamas but likes nightgowns instead, especially sexy or, at the very least, feminine lacy nightgowns.
I seldom go there.
I go to Wal*Mart for deoderant, because it's cheaper there. Ironic, I hate Wal*Mart primarily for the hellish B.O. and general stampeding rudeness of the place. I have observed that in the midwestern U.S., Wal*Mart is often a good deal more cleanly and orderly (in fact often it is downright pristine) but in California it is certainly a classless, tasteless experience. The demographic seems to be made up of the most loutish people of every background and every ethnicity (whiteblacklatinoasian), treating each other horribly, and posessing nothing resembling higeine or human dignity.
Wal*Mart also fails to be a solution store. Wal*Mart has somehow spread the myth that it has everything, which is hardly the case. They have a lot of basic things most stores have, then really lousy ripoff versions of everything else. Almost every time I have said "well, maybe Wal*Mart has it," they have in fact not had "it." For a store that has everything, I find it repeatedly frustrating to find no quality product in any but the most common categories (soap, food and iPods are brand-name, but everything else is as cut-quality as the prices are cut-rate.)
The fact that they're putting little specialized shops out of business across the country wouldn't matter to me, if it weren't for the general degradation this phenomenon seems to have proliferated. Replacing small, high-quality mom-&-pop stores with huge, cheap megastores is an overall negative and is decreasing standards of life.
But the DVDs are so cheap...and I can get TV series for dirt cheap! Although sometimes the music they play is godawful.
My boyfriend and I have a love/hate relationship with Wal-Mart. We love the cheap prices on some things. But we hate the cheap, meaning cheaply made, products. We try to avoid Wal-Mart as much as we can but we don't mind shopping at Wal-Mart, but if we can find the same thing cheaper, with better quality craftsmanship we'll go there and get it. The long lines are a huge thing too and the endless rows of cars in the parking lot leading to VERY few open parking spaces is a huge problem too. The one thing I hate about Wal-Mart is the rudeness of the customers and some of the employees. Is it so difficult to say "excuse me" when he need to brush by someone? I don't think so.
Love Walmart- good prices, better than Tar-jay...
@SecksyRx3 - Our Wal-Mart used to have a McDonald's, but they switched to Subway. I suppose it's an attempt to jump on the health bandwagon. Wal-Mart supports healthy lifestyles, woo-hoo! Kudos Wal-Mart...
Wait, people hate walmart? Recdnecks will kill you for saying that, you know.
I hate Wal-Mart so much. It is only marginally better that K-Mart.
It's just not a good environment, you know? The customers are usually really trashy and rude, and the employees are either a) teenagers who do absolutely nothing to help you or b) old people who jump on you every freaking second to help you. It frightens me.
what i don't get are the card swiping machines and the self check lines. these peoples wages are paid out of the money that i spend there. i'm not paying them to just stand there and watch me check my own stuff out. swipe my card, ring up my purchases. i don't work there, but why do they want me to do their job for them?