This Is Me--2024 A to Z Theme
My A to Z Themes in the past have covered a range of topics and for 2025 the theme is a random assemblage of things that are on my mind--or that just pop into my mind. Whatever! Let's just say I'll be "Tossing It Out" for your entertainment or however it is you perceive these things.
Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2015
Walmart (Elements of Blogging) #AtoZChallenge
Walmart on Blogs
Of all of the businesses that people blog about, Walmart might generate the most online chatter. Beloved by many and demonized by others, the mega monster chain has blogs in it's favor and blogs of detractors as well as company blogs that promote Walmart from the inside. When you start searching you can find many blogs focused on Walmart.
Originally I had not intended on using Walmart as my "W" topic until a very suspicious thing happened with my local Walmart that is an anchor store in the shopping center across the street from where I live. To me going to Walmart is somewhat of a hassle so I usually only shop there once or twice a month. However they offer much cheaper prices on certain items so I tend to shop for these at Walmart instead of the higher priced grocery store where I do the majority of my food shopping.
Suspicious Walmart Incident
Probably few of you heard of the situation to which I am referring, but I'll tell you the story and then let you come up with your own conclusions. On Thursday April 16 I heard mention on the radio that the employees of the Pico Rivera Walmart were protesting at a nearby hotel where a labor meeting was underway discussing the status of our closed store. Closed? I had not heard that they had closed.
Apparently on Tuesday April 14th with 5 hours notice to the employees, the store management announced that the store would be closing for an undetermined period of time in order to fix ongoing plumbing problems. The estimate was that they could be closed for up to 6 months. Some employees could have the option of moving to other store locations, but many would be out of work. This all with only 5 hours notice. They just happened to make the decision to start repairing the plumbing that quickly?
Now curious, I began researching online for any information about this closure and what I discovered next amazed me and left me very suspicious. Besides our Pico Rivera Walmart, the corporation simultaneously closed four other stores in the same manner--four stores across the U.S. in Oklahoma City, two stores in Texas, and one in Florida. Looking at a map these stores are somewhat evenly distributed across the southern United States. Some strategic connection could be construed by looking at where these stores are in relation to each other. The plumbing alibi at five different stores across the United States doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Conspiracy theories abound on this story and anyone who has been reading Tossing It Out for a few years probably knows that anything conspiratorial catches my attention, especially when corporate America or the United States government is implicated. When you add religious prophecy then you've really got my attention. All of these things start coming into play with the Walmart story.
What Is Walmart Up To?
The most immediate reaction to why these stores had closed was that it was a sort of punishment to labor and a warning to the unions to back off. As I had reported here on November 23rd of 2012 in a post called Does Walmart Deserve a Whipping?, our local store was one of the targets of the labor movement against the Walmart corporation.
The jabs at Walmart by labor have continued ever since at the Pico Rivera store and reportedly at the other stores recently closed for plumbing problems. Using the store closures as a retaliatory action against labor seems like a feasible corporate strategy, but on the other hand a questionable one that could backfire in a number of ways. The labor angle sounded possible, but I wasn't buying that explanation so I went further down the crazy rabbit hole of the internet.
A More Sinister Walmart Conspiracy?
My next investigations into Walmart connected the current events to suspicious reports dating back over the past few years. Google and YouTube are rife with stories about underground tunnels crisscrossing the United States for the purposes of troop movements and underground cities being built in case of some above ground catastrophic event.
This tunnel theory starts sounding a bit fantastical, but there is somewhat convincing evidence that it can be done more easily than most of us might think and that it has actually been achieved to some degree and this work is currently underway throughout the United States. When we consider the research now being done with ETT (evacuated tube transport) that is developing super trains that could potentially run at speeds up to 1800 MPH, we can see how a vast tunnel system would be necessary for this type of technology to be practical.
Some wild theories now abound that the closure of the Walmart stores have nothing to do with plumbing, but the Walmart Corporation is in league with the U.S. government to use the locations in conjunction with work currently being done on the tunnel systems. This is all far-fetched sounding and even impractical from the standpoint of why they would need tunnels that intersected Walmart locations. Then again Walmart is known for their highly efficient supply chain management strategy (Vendor Managed Inventory) that requires an intricate web of transportation and warehousing. The Walmart model of operating has certainly not gone unnoticed by the U.S. government. Besides how much do you trust the U.S. government or any corporations these days?
I won't go into too much detail in this post since I want to keep what is turning into a long article from becoming even longer. If you're interested you can do your own searches about the tunnel theories. But there is another sinister report that has come out that I think is worth a mention.
FEMA Detention Camps!!!
Either there are some people with wild imaginations out there who are trying to scare us or there is some element of truth to the story. Some of you have heard the rumors of government sponsored FEMA camps being organized around the country to be ready for some future event that will require rounding up large sectors of the population and placing them in camps or detention centers. It's happened in other places throughout history. Could it happen now in the United States of America?
There have been plenty of scenarios related to epidemics, natural disasters, civil unrest, foreign invasion, or the collapse of the power grid that could be motivations for the government to move populations into controlled areas to establish control and order. Any of these threats could potentially cause a chaotic state among the populace to the point where government would feel compelled to avoid the chaos that would likely ensue from any of these disasters.
The temporary closings of the Walmart stores have caused some to speculate that these sites might be getting retrofitted to act as detention centers that might be needed in the near future. In the event of the collapse of the infrastructure in the area where I live, I believe that this as well as all urban areas would be especially frightening as people struggle to survive. A detention center manned by government control officials might be seen as necessary to stabilize the societal deterioration. Has Walmart become complicit in helping to organize authoritarian rule of the people?
When you think about it, the Walmart machine is highly efficient at logistical movement of supplies, management of labor, crowd control. and organizational structure. A nation governed by a corporation or network of corporations is not unforeseeable and probably is in place already to some extent. Are you looking forward to being moved into a control center managed by the U.S. Government/Walmart?
Shmita!
No this is not some profane utterance, but a principle of Judaism that I will not go into detail about here. You can look it up. And why am I bringing this up in relation to the Walmart Conspiracy?
A few days prior to the Walmart closing and my investigations into all the crazy sounding conspiracies, I happened to flip the television on to some show about Bible prophecy where they were talking about things like "the Blood Moon", Shmita, the Rapture, and the Tribulation. (Again I offer these terms with no explanations but Google can explain to the uninitiated.)
The guy on TV was telling about how the next seven year cycle culminating in Shmita would be coming this September of 2015. He said at the end of every seven year cycle there is an economic downturn, the most recent being 2001 and 2008 which some of you probably recall as being somewhat bad economic years. The TV prophet added that this year the Shmita would correspond with a blood moon, which some of you might recognize as something with prophetic implications.
The upshot of all the prophecies was that in September we will be seeing the biggest economic collapse ever and perhaps the collapse of the U.S. as we know it. There will be chaos and martial law will be declared with government troops fanning out across the nation to take control of every community.
Okay, I know that now some of you are thinking I'm heading into Crazy Town, but I'm just telling you things I heard and observations I have made. One thing that did come to mind when the Walmart story emerged was that if the stores open in six months as projected, that would be in September just in time for the Blood Moon, Shmita, and martial law being administrated due to a chaotic state resulting from everything falling apart. They would need dentition camps and strategic networks for movement of troops and supplies.
Yes, wild sounding I know, but could it happen? If anything I think there is some great material here for some dystopian fiction. I hope it's fiction.
Have you heard about the Walmart closures, the tunnel network, or Shmita? Why do you think the Walmart stores have been closed for an approximately six month period? Do you read any of the Walmart related blogs?
Blogs about Walmart (can you believe it?):
Walmart Is Pure Evil
Walmart Watch
Walmart Blog (official company site)
Walmart Sucks
I Heart the Mart (coupons and deals)
The People of Walmart (hilarious and at times unbelievable though true)
...And the list goes on...
Monday, November 26, 2012
It's All Because of My Hangover!
English: Photo showing some of the aspects of a traditional US Thanksgiving day dinner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Those meals included two casserole dishes of the different types of dressing that satisfy each of our preferences. I always fix her a dressing with sausage and fruit because she refuses to touch my preferred dressing. Since I grew up with oyster dressing it's a tradition that makes Thanksgiving feel incomplete without it. I love my oyster dressing and had it for breakfast and lunch on Friday and Saturday and then polished off the rest for my Sunday dinner.
What is it about oysters anyway? It's one of those foods people love or cringe at the mere thought of. Have you ever tried oyster dressing? Are you anti-oyster or pro-oyster? Come on let's get into some real controversy!
Seriously, though, I thought I had my Monday blog post covered. I smugly believed that Bridget Straub's guest post was all set to go this morning. Then when I checked this morning to make sure it had gone up, I went into a frenzy to find out why it had not. --Because it's actually scheduled for Wednesday, that's why.
Bridget has gone along with my theme of offering topics to generate discussion with the topic of profanity. This is a topic some of you have written about in the past and one that I will undoubtedly discuss in the future--it's been on my topic list ever since it appeared on The Alliterative Allomorph quite a while back. It's a topic always worth discussing. Besides, who gives a chitterling if a topic is repeated.
Be sure to be here on Wednesday to offer your own thoughts about what Bridget Straub has to say about the subject of using profanity in ones writing.
By the way, if you missed my post about Walmart on Friday, you might enjoy going back to read through the comments. There was some epic discussion going on that covered both sides of the argument and the comments were outstanding. This topic will be expanded upon in future posts.
Hope you had as good of a Thanksgiving weekend as we did. It's creamed turkey and biscuits for us tonight. This is a leftover tradition from my childhood and I've been craving it. I don't know how much my wife will like it because she doesn't like gravy or anything resembling gravy. Still, I'm making it anyway.
Did you have a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers? What are some of your traditional leftover meals? Are you revived from your Thanksgiving coma yet?
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Friday, November 23, 2012
Does Walmart Deserve a Whipping?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Stirrings of Protest
One day in early October when I was out for one of my morning walks, I noticed some unusual activity going on at my neighborhood Walmart. Several people in matching green t-shirts were preparing signs for what was obviously going to be some sort of demonstration.
An hour or so later when I returned to Walmart to pick up some groceries, I was taken aback by what I found there. A picket line of perhaps 30 or so green t-shirted people marched orderly in front of the store. In the center of their path blared a very loud and exuberant mariachi band. More "strikers" wandered the parking lot with more professional types watching on. I could tell that the business attired latter group were the organizers of the event. This was obviously union organized.
After I got home that day I began exploring the website referred to by literature that was being distributed at the protest event. The site confirmed the union connections as did several other sites that a Google search led me to.
In the succeeding weeks I began to read and hear more about the Walmart attack. It was a nationwide tour organized by union activists. I had already been annoyed to learn that possibly none of the protesters worked at my neighborhood store and the ones I spoke with said that they either knew someone that worked at Walmart, worked at a Walmart store elsewhere, or were hired to walk the picket line. To me this was all a union instigated sham that apparently didn't interest many employees at my neighborhood store.
A Black Friday Threat
With the coming of Black Friday, threats of walk-outs and sale day disruptions have been talked about nationwide. By the time you are reading this, the whole situation will be seen in better perspective. For now I can report on my observations of my local store in Pico Rivera, California.
At about 2 PM my wife and I walked over to the store--Walmart is in a shopping center across the street from where I live. Business was brisk at Walmart and we were surprised at the number of smaller stores that were also open. The Walmart customers were busily shopping and the employees appeared to be contentedly at work preparing for the Black Friday sales that would commence at 8 PM and then run periodically through the actual Friday. No sign of any problems.
Later at about 7:30 I returned to the store by myself to see the chaos that I expected to erupt at 8 PM and see how many employees would walk out to join the picket lines in front of the store. Except there was no picket line and there were no demonstrators. A local TV news truck was on site in case anything exciting happened, but they looked pretty bored.
As 8 PM approached I wandered the store. Customers patiently were queuing up for the sales items they were interested in. Perhaps as many as 400 or more store employees stood waiting to unwrap the pallets for Phase 1 of the sale. All of the employees seemed happy and enthusiastic. Several asked me or others if we needed any help.
When 8 PM hit, the employees opened the first pallets and calmly guided customers to pick up the items they were waiting for. No screaming and shouting or any anger that I could see and no pushing or stampedes. It was one of the most professional and well-organized events I have ever witnessed.
A Change of Perception
I was all ready to write a post about stupid Walmart employees, but I was impressed by my first Black Friday experience. These sales are something I have always avoided and will probably continue to avoid. However, these employees were top notch with no signs of disgruntlement.
As I strolled about the store before the first phase began, I conversed with several employees. They were all very friendly and seemed happy to be there. I asked each of them if they thought anyone would be walking out on the job. They all indicated that they did not think so and that there was apparently not much interest in doing so at this store. I can say nothing bad about the employees I encountered on this visit to Walmart.
My observations may be hasty since Friday hasn't even arrived as I write this. Things may have entirely changed at the store since I left and the sales will be going on for several more hours. A lot could still happen or may have already happen as you are reading this. And this is only one store that may not exemplify other stores across the nation. It all remains to be seen at this writing.
There are many videos about Walmart protests that can be found on the internet and a Google search will reveal a great deal of information about the issues between Walmart and labor and the unions. The Care2 site has a petition to "Avoid Walmart when workers walk out on Black Friday". It's been signed by a whopping 17 people. Not 17,000 or 1700, but 17 people. Pretty sorry participation there.
The sign-up for the Worker's Manifesto at the OUR Walmart site (not affiliated with Walmart) managed to fare a bit better passing the 1700 mark. Not a big deal if you consider the two million workers employed by Walmart. And most likely many of these signers are not employees of Walmart at all, but most likely just rabble-rousers who would sign anything to disrupt society.
Stay Tuned for More
I will be having a lot more to say about things like Walmart, unions, and job market in future posts. Black Friday seemed the most appropriate thing to focus on today. There are many problems in the workplace, but sometimes those problems are exploited and even generated by forces outside the workplace. There are also problems concerning wage disparity and workers' rights, but what are the arguments in these cases? Stay tuned. This won't be going away soon so I'm sure I'll be bringing it up again.
Did you go or are you going to go to Walmart for the Black Friday sales? If so, what was your experience at Walmart? Do you think there are pervasive problems among Walmart employees concerning their jobs or do you think this is a ruse stirred up by union organizers? Would it be a good thing for unhappy Walmart employees to walk out at an important time like Black Friday? Does Walmart deserve a whipping?
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Do You Know Where Your Local Walmart Strike Is?
Protests Planned at Local Walmart Stores
Walmart Workers Plan Black Friday Protests
WalMart 'Black Friday' protests in the USA
Walmart Files Complaint Against Union In Attempt To Thwart Black Friday Protests
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Union asks suppliers to stop handling goods for Walmart
Why Walmart workers plan to strike
Walmart Not Too Worried About Possible Protesters
Labels:
BlackFriday,
Employment,
OUR Walmart,
Pico Rivera California,
Protest,
Walmart
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