It looks like Wal-Mart is at it again
It looks like Wal-Mart is at it again
By: Bill Mead
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Posted by editor Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:06:21 PST
Viewed 959 times
0 responses 0 comments I'm having violent attacks of self-disgust and it's all the fault of Wal-Mart.
For years I have been a tiresome loudmouth in skewering Wal-Mart for a whole bunch of reasons. As if my opinion means anything to anybody, I have characterized Wal-Mart as one of the most irresponsible business firms in world history because of the way it has slaughtered smaller competitors, emasculated its suppliers and abused its own employees. Give me a few seconds and I'll think of some more sins of the Bentonville Brute.
Now, I'm told that Wal-Mart is going to slap around its workers even more. According to news reports the company plans to increase its part-time workforce at the expense of full-time jobs and intends to shuffle work schedules in ways that interfere with the private lives of Wal-Mart employees. I'm not sure what this will mean to workplace benefits like health insurance but if past performance is any guide it won't make them any better.
So why am I feeling guilty? Hand me a hanky and I'll let it all hang out.
I feel like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth because I've found it a pleasure to buy from Wal-Mart. These guys deliver the goods and I'm not talking just about low prices. Like millions of other Americans, I appreciate the customer-orientation of Wal-Mart which has caused it to leapfrog over larger competitors who didn't see this upstart from Arkansas in their rear view mirrors. That's why the chain has become the 800-pound gorilla of the retail world in spite of its adverse impacts on society. People can turn a blind eye to lots of transgressions when they get what they want.
My ambivalence toward Wal-Mart began when I tried to buy some new overalls off the Internet. Penney's didn't have any. Sears didn't have any. Wal-Mart had tons of them and they had a pair on my front porch in just three days. Then came the coup de grace. When I went to the Wal-Mart web site later to check on new shorts (my wife was scandalized by gaping holes in critical areas of my old skivvies) up popped my name on the screen with a cheery message about how much they love me, along with simple instructions on how to get my underwear underway with just one key stroke.
I hate to admit this, but since then I have purchased rather expensive patio equipment from Wal-Mart's web site with equal ease. Other retail web sites tried to make me jump through hoops to place an order. If Wal-Mart can find computer nerds capable of setting up a web site that even an old coot like me can navigate without going nuts, why can't other companies?
It's a mystery to me why competitors of Wal-Mart don't see that the secret of its success lies in what I have just described. If you point out that Wal-Mart's management is cheap and mean-spirited, I won't argue. Yet the company's current leaders don't appear to have forgotten Sam Walton's principle that customers come first, no matter how devastating this might be to everybody else.
You tell me how to fight this and I'll put in with you.
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