Replying to an old thread doesn't make sense, because the person you're replying to has most likely moved on. At the very least, they've moved on from that issue.

Starting a new thread to ask a question that's already been asked doesn't make sense, unless you have reason to believe that the answers have changed.

Starting a new thread to rant about something that's frequently ranted about is a wee bit selfish.

Abusing minimum-wage retail workers who are only doing their job is the act of a bully.

Shopping at Wal-Mart is cutting your own throat.

What's with all the WalMart shills?

+1

We should archive the entire forum.

Old threads are not worth conversing about. New threads have a 95% probability of having been discussed before.

There is no logical choice save for searching those archives. The only forums that shall remain open are: Foo, for casual chatting and Road Bike Racing, for new race results. Any Commuting threads that are about anything other than "first commutes" will be deleted. Only first commutes are original by definition.

:D

Based on Walmart's track record...the one in the OP has probably been abandoned and a NEW Super Center has disgraced the landscape a couple of miles away.

Aaron:)

Here people would wonder wtf you were doing with you bike indoors, and then I am sure the staff of a the business would ask you to leave, if not call security.

No, but maybe better thAn making a new one.

I work as a service technician at the Wal-Mart auto center. I bring my bike inside everyday, and line it up against the gate that separates the customers from the auto bays.

I usually end up walking it out through the store at the end of the day. Our store has one of those far-from-the-front-door bike racks. The local Meijer stores, however, have one rack by every entrance. I buy groceries there =c)>

You have a right to loathe Walmart and there are many Americans feel the same. Unfortunately, most of these are people who dont shop at Walmart and dont need to (I'm not saying you fall into this either of these categories).

I would like to highlight a couple of things about Walmart that invariably gets lost in the media frenzy: they have played a key role in drastically improving the quality of life for Americans who need it the most, those with low incomes, as well as a large chunk of others who are not "poor" but like to stretch their dollar as much as they can. btw this is the way a market economy (as ours is) works: if you can get away with charging a high price, you do. If you choose to attract business by charging low prices, that's your choice as a business owner - but no business can force consumers to buy from them. Consumers buy because they see value, perceived or not.

Yes low prices are small consolation to those that lose their jobs because of outsourcing, but it is incorrect and unfair to blame Walmart solely or largely for this. We have been outsourcing for much longer than Walmart has been in existence. And manufacturing has been in a steady decline for a very long time as well, again much before Walmart came into the picture. In the past you could earn a very comfortable living with little education or skills - that's quickly disappearing and again that's across the board, not just at Walmart and it's certainly not a new or recent phenomenon

FD: I shop occasionally at Walmart and I think their products are great value

We are now outsourcing white collar jobs like IT, research etc, and again there is/was a huge outcry that we were losing Intellectual Property etc, but the fact remains that you always outsource the "low-value", repetitive, mundane tasks and concentrate on the value-adding tasks such as conceptual design, ideas, marketing - and that's what we are good at.

Again that's small consolation for those who've lost their jobs it's what keeps us strong and competitive as a nation.

Just my thoughts

+1

I've never had a problem finding a place to lock up my bike outside any business' in our area.

+1

That's HILLARIOUS.

I used to ride around my wally world all the time with my buddies at insane hours of the night...but we would do it on office chairs we got from their furniture dept. They didn't care for this much. My new goal is to see if I can ride in, walk a couple isles with my bike, get something, go through the self checkout thing and ride out. Wonder if it'd be possible. That'd be a real laugh for sure.

+1,000,000!!!!

...on both points...

Ok, I guess I'm going to get this sent to P&R....

1) No, I don't "need" to shop at wal-mart. Honestly though, I'm having trouble understanding why anyone does. Most of what I buy comes from ebay, craigslist, or some etailer -- all of which arrive at my door at a lower price and probably higher quality than what I could get at Wal-Mart.

2) Wal-Mart isn't truly selling at a "lower price". For me, that would imply they're selling the same item for less money. What they're typically doing instead, is manufacturing a lower quality item and then selling that at a lower price. Not the same thing.


I'm simply not buying that they're improving anyone's quality of life. They're systematically eliminating HUGE numbers of working class jobs in this country. They're eliminating full-time retail jobs with benefits, by not making them available to their own employees, and by running retailers who were providing it out of business. They're eliminating tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs by offshoring all production.

No, they're not the only ones, but they're a very major contributor. Imagine how many manufacturing jobs Wal-Mart creates in countries around the world. These are all jobs that aren't available in our country. These are jobs needed by the very people who now "need" low quality, low price goods.

When we eliminated the farming jobs, some moved to the factories. When we eliminated the factory jobs, some moved to knowledge jobs. The problem is, not all people are cut out for these jobs, for one reason or another. They might not have any other options. Of course, globalization is removing the knowledge jobs now as well, so everyone better hope they either have a service job, or are REALLY good at what they do. In the end, it's the people at the bottom, without the mobility and flexibility that get screwed every time.

Yup...pretty much. Wonder if some day having a job will be so rare some day here that it will make you like a celebrity or something. Like you have paporatzi [however the hell you spell that...] follow you around and your poster on teenage girl's walls cuz you're in IT or something.

Anyway...enough weird brain spooge...I saw a show on tv about wally world once that really put it all in perspective. I think it was referenced in this thread once already. I highly recommend checking it out. Saw one about ebay that was 2405982039582345 times cooler, too...if you see either on while clicking around, check them out.

The Wal-Mart here in Lincoln is not too good for being bicycle friendly. There is a bike rack next to the cart push-in, but I don't trust the employees to not mess with my bike seeing how they all look like child molesters :/ There is an old guy that used to work there named Howard that would watch my bike for me, but he no longer works there and since then I have not ridden my bike to Wal-Mart.

Tell them it's your purse and your diaper bag and you'll have none of this anti-cross-dressing bias! I defy you to find a Wal-mart employee who'd still be willing to be in your presence, most of them don't care if you are going to steal everything and blow up the building as long as you wait until they leave for the day.

"Wal-mart, the only store where employees universally hate their employer." I think it should be their new slogan, it's more accurate than the drivel about low prices.

I've took my folding bike inside the Asian Food Center by my house. Almost nobody even looked at it oddly.

You got it wrong. They don't have employees. They are all "associates".

Serfdom was abolished a long time ago, and it is a big planet.

The person who castigates Wall-Mart for eliminating full-time retail jobs proudly proclaims that he buys almost everything online. Hmmmmm.

I went to my local Walmart the other day and saw someone had parked a bike inside the store by the carts. I usually lock up to trash can on the sidewalk of the plaza.

I'm a history buff so I'm just hanging out here on this ancient thread. Wow soak up all this history - a six yeard old thread! :)

We don't have walmart where I live and I'm actually pretty glad we don't.

I suppose that all depends on how you define "quality of life". It's a term that seems to get redefined periodically, much as "unemployment" gets redefined to mean (variously) people without jobs, people who are looking for jobs, people who are looking for jobs but haven't been looking more than a few months, etc. I think it's very hard to make the argument that the cheap retail economy of which Wal-Mart is the prime exemplar, really represents an improvement in "quality of life", unless you define a high-quality life as one with easy and cheap access to non-essentials, and increasingly higher costs for essential goods and services. You can go into Wal-Mart and buy a DVD player for under $30; when you consider that DVD players didn't even exist 20 years ago, that's really an amazing thing. But is it a good thing? Does it really add to your "quality of life"? Sure, it's nice to watch movies on DVD, but when the cheap retail economy that made that $30 DVD player possible is also undermining your wages, is it a good thing? When the price of things that you really need, like health care and heating oil and education and (increasingly) food, goes higher, where's your "quality of life" then?

That's not entirely true; I suggest you google the term "company store" to learn a little history. When Big Box Mart comes to town and squeezes out all the independent competition, consumers are forced to buy from them. When people suddenly don't have anywhere else to work but Big Box Mart, and are now making Big Box Mart minimum wage, they can't afford to shop anywhere else anyway.

I agree that Walmart doesn't own the problem; they're certainly among the most rapacious of its profiteers, though. The reason that Walmart comes up in these discussions is that a)they're blatant, and b)they're visible, and c)they touch the consumer directly. I can't make the decisions about how GizmoManufacturerX chooses vendors; I can make a direct consumer choice to shop at my LBS rather than give Walmart a dime of my business. I can also, by the way, make the decision to do without that $30 DVD player, or any DVD player -- to not purchase things that I really don't need.

So, in what ways exactly are we "strong" and "competitive"?

Is there anyway to get a copy of said letter? I would love to have that handy to mail to some places that give riders a hard time.

Sounds like an awesome letter. I mean you can remove the guys name and address and such if needed.

I had a an employee kick me out of walmart for trying to bring a bike in (no bike racks). I tried to explain that it was no different than pushing a shopping cart. I was not obnoixious just quitly pushing my bike in. So I went next door to Kmart which had a bike rack, i made sure to tell the employee thats where I was going too. He probably didnt care though.