Black Friday Aftermath for Walmart

Now that Black Friday is behind us, it seems that things were not so good at Walmarts around the country. Some of the stores had protestors in and around the stores as employees demand more from the company. Rumors were that many of these “protestors” were not even employees of the company! These “protestors” should be protesting in front of Staples stores as many of their employees don’t make nearly as much as many Walmart employees are making on an hourly basis. Maybe the Staples employees are just afraid of being fired and given the company’s anti-union stance.

It was reported that in Georgia, that store employees stopped a shoplifter by sitting on him which unfortunately killed him. Shouldn’t employees be taught not to perform this type of physical harm to people in this matter? Staples policy is to let shoplifters go which is going stupid in the other direction! Certainly an employee should try to stop a shoplifter without putting either party in harm’s way. There has to be a happy medium somewhere along the way.

And finally here in Maine, a couple of customers were passing counterfeit money early Friday morning at the local Walmart. The excuse was that it was too busy and the employees weren’t checking the money that the cashiers were taking in. Personally, I see no excuse to making sure what cash is being taken in is real. This just adds to the problem that most Walmart employees are incompetent and don’t care enough or are trained enough to know a fake bill even it bit them in the ass. I have yet to find a competent Walmart employee in any of the stores that I have ever visited.

It’s apparent that Walmart needs to make some serious changes with some of their policies. It will be interesting to see how long it will take them to decide to make those changes.

On another note, it has been reported that there was an increase in sales on Black Friday than the previous year. My total expense for the day was $9.00 and it was NOT at Walmart. They didn’t have what I was looking for and neither did most other retailers when I arrived on Friday afternoon. Oh well, there is always next year!

Black Friday Gets Blacker

Apparently this year many stores are celebrating Black Friday on Thursday night. Some stores opening as early as 4pm on Thursday to be exact. In Maine, laws prohibit businesses from opening before midnight on Friday morning. Lucky for us here this is not the case.

Things are worse for employees for Target and Wal-Mart as work stoppages could upset the flow of business on Friday. It seems that employees at Wal-Mart are making demands that I find rather foolish. The following is a list of some of their major demands:

1. Better working conditions – Seriously, what are they looking for here? It’s Wal-Mart known for being a dumpy place to work anyway. Are they expecting massages and buffet meals for lunch breaks? If you work at any retail store, expect a crappy work environment no matter what.
2. Desire to unionize – This will never work, as people will complain that they are never paid enough and there never would be any fairness.
3. Increase the minimum wage to $13/hour – This is absolutely crazy. During my 12 ½ years I spent with Staples I barely made over $10.50 over all them years. I saw a television interview with one employee who has worked for Wal-Mart for only 4 years and is making almost $10/hour. It took me nearly 9 years to get to that level. These employees don’t know how good they have it when compared to other retail jobs. In fact, I applied several times in the past with Wal-Mart and each time I went for a lower pay rate each time starting at $10, moving down to $9 then to the low point of $8.50. Still, the company NEVER considered my job application even though I had over 21 years of retail experience! Certainly Wal-Mart is a stupid company.

Overall, I feel that if you work in retail, then you should not bitch about Black Friday. However, during my existence with Staples, I had made an agreement with the manager who gave me full time status that I would work both Saturday and Sunday of every week (except vacations) in exchange for having off Tuesdays and Fridays for personal reasons. This worked for several years until one dumbass manager wanted everybody to work that Friday no matter what. What really bothered me about that was the first year I did that was that my annual trip to Connecticut had to be cancelled because I had to be back on Friday and would otherwise not have made it back on time. What was really sad about that was that my uncle died a few months after that Thanksgiving and I would never be able to spend another holiday with him ever again. I never forgave that manager or Staples for that as a promise was broken and for showing up at 1pm on Friday to a near empty store for the rest of the day. Certainly wasn’t needed that day at all nor was I ever needed on any following years that I was forced to work or else get fired.

This leads to my final comment about this day. No job is worth losing. However, if these employees wish to strike and jeopardize their jobs then there are plenty of people who would be glad to take their jobs and possibly at a lower pay rate. I can’t wait to see how all this plays out.

So maybe I will be joining the crowds at the mall or Target or possibly even Wal-Mart just not at midnight though. Until next time, enjoy the extended weekend and the impending holiday.

Microsoft Updates Cause Problems (Again!)

It has happened again. Microsoft has released a huge number of updates to Windows causing all sorts of havoc to my primary computer. Why does Microsoft release updates only once a month only to be buggy? Nearly 140MB of updates this month and really too many problems to think about. Add to this the fact that Time Warner Cable has been having internet problems in the last couple of days. Really getting frustrating on all fronts. Hopefully, things will get straightened out soon as this is getting really old really fast.

One Big Win and One Huge Loss

Well, the elections are over and it was a 50/50 split for me.

Obama got back in which was a good thing.

Unfortunately, Maine decided to approve the gay marriage law. It’s sad to say that now we will have to work to repeal this law and make the state livable again. It is so bad that the people of the state were fooled into approving this bad law.

However, one thing that really bothered me when I went to vote yesterday was the sheer number of people who were registering to vote for the first time. This line never had less than 15 people in it at any time I was there at the voting location. What really bothersome was how were these new voters being processed? I did not see anyone around to input data into a computer much less anyone with a computer. How were these people prevented from multiple votes at different locations? Since these people looked like college age people (and many looked gay), I really think that people who should not be voting in the first place persuaded the voting. Can we say crooked voting? I believe it is. All we can do now is unite to repeal the awful law and become the state where “Life Should Be” and not “Gay Life Is”. I can see many people being very angry given how close this referendum was and much discrimination will still exist no matter what the law says. Let’s start the repeal process NOW and get this on the ballot as soon as possible!

Vote Against Romney

Tomorrow is a the biggest day in political history in a long time.  It is important to vote against Mitt Romney to protect society as we know it.  Unless you really want to go back to what caused the problems in the first place, we must keep Romney out of the presidency.  

Do the right thing and keep the multimillionaire and his friends from destroying our society again.

Vote early and vote often.