Kinja reply list

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PsilocinHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 2:05pm
I'm cancelling my Sam's Club card. Reading all of this has been too much. The Costco might be a little further away from me, but it'll be worth it to know I'm shopping somewhere that doesn't treat its workers like indentured servants.
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  ShootTheToast2Psilocin
  7/25/13 2:10pm
  Good for you. And you will be much happier! I've shifted my shopping to Target. Yes, it's a little more expensive but the atmosphere in the store is so, so, so much better, there are always plenty of cashiers and other customers are just generally happier. Shopping at Wal-Mart was always the lowest point of my day.
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  RandomDudePsilocin
  7/25/13 2:13pm
  that's a great move. Costco DO treat their workers well and almost all the story I heard from Costco employees are positive.
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mamasquishHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 3:40pm
So.....I fucking hate WalMart. My husband and I are living with my father in law while my husband finishes school. My father in law fucking LOVES walmart and sam's club. He goes to sam's a few times a month and comes home with hundreds, literally hundreds, of dollars worth of crap. He goes to walmart every weekend, sometimes multiple times in one weekend, and comes home with bags and bags of crap. He used to take my son out for breakfast once in awhile on a saturday, and afterwards he would take him to walmart "to run around and play!" Until we started living with him I had never shopped at a walmart or a sam's for the same reason you guys are publishing these stores....because it's fucking evil. I hate that so many of the things in our house are from there, now. I hate that I live with a person who spends hundreds of dollars there each month. I don't even know what to do about it.
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  Kitwenchmamasquish
  7/25/13 5:10pm
  You could - move out and support yourselves?
  
  It's one thing to refuse to shop somewhere you find personally abhorrent.
  
  It's another thing to complain that someone's 'wasting his money' while that person is providing you with a roof over your head.
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  raincoastermamasquish
  7/25/13 6:21pm
  You can't raise your father-in-law. But you CAN leave this article up on the computer where he can read it.
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AngryAngryHippoHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 1:59pm
In a cultural environment where workers are continually shit on for making "poor choices" and not bearing the "personal responsibility" or "insert classist/racist dog whistle," you're continuing to convey an important message to a pretty large audience. Thank you.
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TheBobBobbHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 2:11pm
Not saying that I think raising the minimum wage is a good or bad thing but what exactly was the justification for setting one minimum wage for employees of small companies and another for large companies? You could do the exact same work for the exact same type of employer but depending on the size of the company you would get considerably more than you would if it was smaller. That seems like an extremely strange situation/law. Just my 2c is all.
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  burningmisterTheBobBobb
  7/25/13 2:40pm
  The bigger the company, the more powerful it is, and the less leverage employees have for negotiating wages.
  
  In other words, big companies need to be shown a bigger stick to behave decently.
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  TheBobBobbburningmister
  7/25/13 2:49pm
  But if you are saying that the minimum a person should be earning is one amount then you should set the minimum wage to that. Not I don't see how the size of a company changes the minimum amount you deserve to be paid if you are doing the exact same work. I have worked a good few minimum wage jobs over the years all for small companies (well one wouldn't be called small but not within a million miles of the threshold for the higher wage proposed) and if I wasn't happy with the minimum wage they would have probably gone "Sorry to hear that. Well leave your uniform with joe and you will get your P45 in the post" and hired a replacement the next day.
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lastchanceHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 2:46pm
My mom worked at Sam's Club about ten years ago. She seemed to like it well enough. But she also suffers from chronic mental illness. She suffered some sort of psychotic break (this was in Mississippi, so it's not she received an accurate diagnosis) and was hospitalized. I was just out of high school and still living with her. I knew she was supposed to be working, so I called in sick for her.

The manager was extremely rude to me, saying that my mother needed to call in herself. I explained that my mom was in the hospital and couldn't call in.

The manager later called back, and yelled at me for lying to her. She said she had called the hospital "to send her flowers" and was told my mother wasn't there. I told the manager that my mother was in the behavioral health center, not the medical center.

They did not send her flowers. They fired her.

This is probably more indicative of stigma against mental illness than it is specific to the horrific working conditions of Sam's Club, but still. Fuck you, Sam's Club.
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  Adam Armstronglastchance
  7/26/13 1:28pm
  Did you ever bring a wrongful termination suit against Sam's Club? Cuz' that sounds like a situation where you totally could have done that.
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  lastchanceAdam Armstrong
  7/26/13 2:16pm
  No. At the time, this was something I was used to. Mom "goes crazy": Mom gets fired. To an 18-/19-year-old, that was just how the world worked. And I think my mom felt the same way.
  
  However, what sets this instance apart was that *all* her other employers at least conveyed sympathy and regret for letting her go, even when her behavior had been outrageous and dangerous, because they understood she was a person with mental health problems. They talked to me, and worked with me to try to get her help, to the best of our abilities. Sam's Club was the only employer that not only made no effort to understand it, but was hostile about it, and all she did at Sam's Club was not show up once.
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Mok, the Magic ManHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 3:28pm

While this is going on, I was also given a list of truly idiotic "sales" announcements that had to be read over the PA. One particularly stupid on I recall began with me having to say something along the lines of "Yeeha, shoppers!" I don't remember what it was trying to get them to go buy, but it was beyond absurd.

If this had been me, it would have turned into the announcements from M*A*S*H so quickly, I probably would have been fired anyway.
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  KristenfromMAMok, the Magic Man
  7/25/13 3:56pm
  Hee! My favorite: "What is this? Anyway?"
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  KyttengyrlMok, the Magic Man
  7/25/13 4:14pm
  I worked at Kmart back in the mid 90's as a 16 yr old Cashier. The BEST day I had working there, was the day they let me read the Blue Light Special. Kmart was a pretty decent place to work back in the day.
  
  "Attention Kmart shoppers! Over in aisle 3 we're having a blue light special on Planters 4 oz roasted peanuts. 2 for $5!"
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aismoHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 1:57pm
If the first guy has worked in an autoparts store and he says WalMart is bad, its bad.
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IrishishHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 6:48pm
All of my moral outrage aside (and there is a lot of it, fuck this company), it must be incredibly easy to steal from Wal-Mart.
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wizemanknowsHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 1:58pm
If you post one more article on this subject you need to change the name from Gawker to the Wal-Mart Journal.
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A. Nonie MeusHamilton Nolan
7/25/13 4:46pm
The thing about dressing room attendants taking incoming calls is fascinating! Also, I have such sympathy for dressing room attendants. People act like monkeys in dressing rooms.
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  jedifarfyA. Nonie Meus
  7/27/13 1:04am
  Target does the same thing. And yes, shit, urine, and drug happen. Often. I hated that job so very, very much.
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