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Wally-World Wonderland

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by downndirty, Nov 26, 2011.

  1. downndirty

    downndirty
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    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15879139" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15879139</a>

    Black Friday at Wal-Marts across the US have been violent. From LA to South Carolina (my home state in the news again), several cases of violence at Wal-Mart have been reported associated with the shopping holiday. I remember working in retail during Black Friday around 6-7 years ago. It was a madhouse, sure, but not completely bonkers. I remember hearing that your average Wal-Mart does $1.5 Million on that day alone in sales.

    FOCUS: The white-trash wonderland that is Wal-Mart, or the local equivalent.
    ALT-FOCUS: Holiday shopping insanity
     
  2. Juice

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    Near where I live there's a Target Greatland which should be called Target Fat Fuck Land because of all the land beasts rolling around the place in their scooters like Jabba the Hutt. The patrons spend their time arguing with the Shemale-with-an-identity-crisis at the Courtesy Desk, opening and eating boxes of Bunch-a-Crunch before buying them, and just generally being fat slobs.
     
  3. ODEN

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    The only good reason I can think of to even enter Walmart is for toiletries, which are cheaper than you can find elsewhere. Unfortunately, as I live in the consumer/tourist wasteland known as Orlando; where once you leave the confines of Disney, you enter a bizzaro world ghetto that stretches for miles. That being said, even if you live in one of the nice pockets sprinkled around Orlando, you still end up going into a ghetto to go to Walmart.

    I have visions of shootouts and flash mobs when I enter the parking lot of these hellholes. So I make sure I have my CCW with me and I try to always accompany my wife there as well. If we go there, we have a plan; there is no lallygagging around in there.
     
  4. Frank

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    FOCUS: Not really white trash, but the BJ's I use to shop at has quite the collection of people. Most notably on three separate occasions I was caught behind people who used EBT cards, but they never kept a tally of how much they were spending, so they didn't know until they got to the register that they had more in their cart than they could afford.

    Two of them just picked things to take out of the cart to get the total down, which was annoying after waiting in line for fucking ever, but the other guy got all indignant and tried to barter with the cashier like we were in a Turkish market. I hope he gets hit by a bus.

    Having to deal with this made me decide not to renew my membership, I'm not giving up that much time and peace of mind to get a dollar off my toilet paper. Maybe if I had kids, but for just the two of us, fuck it.

    ALT-FOCUS: I don't even know why this is an issue anymore, you can do all of your shopping online in the comfort of your home or office now for cheaper, why are people still going crazy at malls? And for people who wait last minute, do you really have that much of a lack of foresight? It's Christmas, it happens every year, how have you not realized this?
     
  5. Kampf Trinker

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    Focus: I have no problems with wal-mart. It's simple cheap shopping for most of the basic necessities I use. Most of the time you're getting the same brand you would somewhere else, and often there's little difference between those brands anyway. One thing they emphasized in almost every marketing class I took is that most differences in quality between brands are grounded in consumer perception, not reality. When people talk about how they're too good to shop at these stores they just sound like snobs to me. Your monster 60k salary a year doesn't make you too cool to breathe normal people air. Also, don't you people go to gas stations, or ever eat fast food? The bottom barrel of society is everywhere, you can't hid from them. Well, you could, but it's just not worth the effort. When I want to shop for possessions and get new toys I don't use wal-mart, but for day to day shopping it suits my purposes just fine.

    Alt Focus: I might argue that it used to be even worse. Do you guys remember the beanie baby craze or when tickle-me-elmos were being auctioned off for ten grand the day before Christmas?
     
  6. Frank

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    I can't speak for everyone else, but my car runs on the tears of impoverished children, so no, I don't.
     
  7. Bourbondownthehouse

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    Pay at the pump really keeps people from seeing the wonder that is the inside of a gas station.
     
  8. audreymonroe

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    Last year, the big present I asked for was a nice pair of boots. For many obvious reasons, my dad was not going to be the one to actually shop for them, so I was out looking for these assholes for months. (Boot shopping is apparently really difficult, but I won't bore the 98% of people here who don't give a fuck with the details.) As much as I wanted to avoid it, I decided in a moment of weakness to try the Macy's in Herald Square a week before Christmas.

    Jesus Christ.

    My heart is starting to race just thinking about it. I've never been anywhere close to a Black Friday shopping experience, Walmart or otherwise, but I imagine that's what it's like. Every single inch was filled with person and I kept getting shoved and stepped on and everyone was screaming and rushing around and there were all these little kids that were dragged there wailing their heads off. It was like the third ring of hell. I was getting so panicky that I grabbed some random piece of clothing and went into a fitting room just to sit down and have a square foot of space for myself for a few minutes. Of course, they only had every single style of shoe left in a size 4 or a size 12, so it was a completely pointless trip that scarred me for no reason. Never again.
     
  9. Misanthropic

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    I had a weird experience at a football game a few years back. I've been to plenty of concerts and sporting events, and never had an issue with crowds, but I went to a Penn State/Temple game at Temple, and the crowd was packed in like sardines on the concourse. At one point I was trying to get back to my seat (stone sober, i might add) and I started fucking losing it. I started to panic, and began pushing people out of my way and yelling at them. Seriously, its a wonder i wasn't thrown out. I caught myself before i went completely over the top, but since then I avoid crowds like the plague. At Christmas I do my best to get in and out, and will avoid any store that is too crowded.

    Black Friday? No way.
     
  10. Muley05

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    I put this in the YouTube All Star thread yesterday but it fits perfectly here as well

     
    #10 Muley05, Dec 2, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  11. Czechvodkabaron

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    About 3 months ago I went to Wal Mart for the first time in over a year, and I was stunned to find that almost everyone who was shopping there was normal looking. On top of that there were a lot of good looking women shopping there. I don't know if the bad economy had something to do with this or if it was just one huge coincidence.

    I avoid Wal Mart as much as possible just because I hate the lines. I couldn't care less about the type of people who shop there.
     
  12. Crown Royal

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    It's an easy score for a large varierty of things, but let's face the facts we all turn an eye to: Wal-Mart truly is an evil ocean of boiling shit. The containers holding their less-than-adequate turd merchandise come over the ocean to here full, and they send them back empty. A real high-five to the economy. That is the Wal-Mart way.
     
  13. suapyg

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    I've only been to a WalMart once in my life. I was visiting way upstate NY when a wicked cold snap hit, temps turned well below zero while I was there and unprepared.

    A friend took me there to stock up on long johns, and I discovered something about WalMart and their clientele because I'm 5'9" and a buck-fifty with a 30"waist.

    WalMart doesn't even have a section for size Small. They simply don't carry it.

    Any boy's size tall enough for me had a massive waist, so I wound up buying women's long janes. Fuck you, I look good in pastel floral patterns.
     
  14. D26

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    My wife and I went to Walmart yesterday to do some Christmas Shopping. In their infinite wisdom, they put the lay-away line at one fo the two electronics department registers, leaving only one register for the rest of the electronics department. The lay-away line was stupidly long. People were lined up with carts piled full of DVD players, video games, game consoles, and everyone looked annoyed. To top it off, they had ONE person working one lay-away register for a line of about 25 people, lined up out of electronics and into another section. My wife just shrugged and said that was normal for a Friday night, because Walmart can't staff for shit, and we hopped into the one-person-deep electronics checkout line.

    Then, it happened. One of the associates who was walking by happened to ask "is everyone in this line for lay-away?" a few of the people said they were told to check out at the electronics counter (Walmart does this with expensive electronics like laptops or iPods) just waiting to get their stuff and check out, and they were promptly told that they were in the wrong line.

    One of them let out the loudest use of the word 'fuck' I've ever heard, tipped his cart over, and just stormed out, pushing shit over as he went. He went right down 'action alley,' where they put all the stuff they are really trying to sell, shoving over display cases. I guess waiting in the wrong line for twenty minutes because there was zero sense of organization to that place just made him snap, and the havoc he left in his wake was insane.
     
  15. iczorro

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    Wait, we're not merging this with the "People of Walmart" thread? I guess I missed something...

    Like Walmart.
     
  16. wexton

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    Yea, kind of like the editors at /. always posting stories about the same things, i just kind of go with it.
     
  17. dixiebandit69

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    This right here. Walmart has the most godawful lines of any store I've ever been to. Most supercenters have 35 checkout lanes (I think), but on any given day, less than 10 of them will be open.
    This is not a problem at HEB or Target.

    When I was in my teens/early 20's and I would shoplift a lot*, that there would be times when I would go into Walmart to get a couple of things and I fully intended to pay for them, but after seeing the lines, I would steal them.

    *I don't shoplift anymore, and when I did, it was always from large retail chains that have insurance to cover shrinkage, never from mom-and-pop stores.
     
  18. sartirious

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    One of the interesting things about the way Wal-Mart runs their business (compared to the rest of the retail landscape), is that they are very decentralized. Despite the massive infrastructure required to supply the cheap shit on the shelves, local and regional managers have an inordinate amount of control in regards to presentation and experience. While HQ might still set down the guidelines, the store manager is directly responsible for alloting the hours to meet traffic and demand. In theory, this is better because each store can tailor their assortment, adjacency, and staffing to the local market. In practice, this means that you have a mouth-breather as manager who is simply more qualified than any of the other mouth-breathers because they have been wearing the blue vest for the longest.
     
  19. Chirpy

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    My state is pretty low-key and not really known for our violence. So when I hear stories of things that happen, I am usually open-mouthed in shock. I feel pretty naive lately, especially when hearing stories from one of my students who works at Urban Outfitters at the mall. I couldn't get over the following: (Ah the irony of these stories taking place on Thanksgiving...)

    ~People were tailgating in the parking lots the night of Thanksgiving. Tailgating. For shopping. I'm talking grills, music, flasks, and beer all to get ready for the midnight opening of some stores. This led to drunken brawls in the parking lot and many DUI arrests.

    ~At midnight on Black Friday, there were ambulances at the mall because of the tremendous amounts of fighting (thus broken jaws, ribs, etc) and alcohol poisoning. (My nursing students attested to those stories as well.)

    ~A woman bought $700 worth of clothes. She returned not fifteen minutes later in hysterical tears asking for her money back. Apparently she was jumped on her way to her car and everything, yes, everything was stolen. Every last shirt, every last bag. Gone. There was nothing they could do.

    I just marveled at every tale, each one worse than the last. I wasn't surprised that cars were being broken into but I was really shocked that people were fist-fighting over saving, what, like 20 bucks? I mean, come on.

    I finished my Christmas shopping in less than an hour this year. Click, click, click of the mouse and poof, done. Even had time to click, click, click my own mouse in celebration.