Wal-Martians

[digitaldiscipline]

[crossposted from a thought-provoking post by anassadeina]

I don't like to patronize Valmair because, basically, they're slower than fuck and their produce is terrible. If i need a quick-hit thing that isn't groceries, it's the closest place to the house. but there's something about the "Lowest Common Denominator" aspect of it that bothers me. . . not just because I'm a crass, elitist fuck, but because my current employment/financial situation makes shopping there easy to rationalize.

I do not wish to become one of the fat-assed, brain-dead, drawling hicks in their commercials. That is an image that is antithical to my own self-image and feelings of worth. It works for millions of people - great. It's bad enough that I've had to subvert large tracts of my personality to corporate life, I fully intend to react negatively against having to do so in my personal life as well, but am compelled by factors I can exert almost no control over, to knuckle under to these blase` purveyors of basic things.

I am a beautiful and unique fucking snowflake. Tyler Durden wears blue overalls, and he's my bitch.

Comments

[angel-renewed.livejournal.com]

Tell ya' what: try living in New-F*cking-Jersey where there ARE basically NO-F*CKING-WAL MARTS. NO TARGETS. NADA. Just sh*t ass KMarts that have no selection and knuckle-dragging employees who move slower than Jabba the Hut on quaaludes and have the customer service skills of Bobcat Goldthwait going through withdrawl. Really. It sucks. And endless amounts of tiny stores in decaying strip malls - none of which stock anything in quantity.

If all I want is...say.. some office supplies, a thing of soap, and a DVD - it requires multiple runs to multiple stores. The office supplies have to come from Staples, because the grocery stores out here have sh*t for selection of food - let alone sundries. The soap, well maybe I can get it at the grocery store - but it might require a drug store proper. Then we get to the DVD. Oh, the DVD has to come from something like Best Buy or its' ilk. Living out here has made me yearn for the days of Super WalMart and Super Target. Mind you - we are getting a Target Greatland, but its' taken 18 months.

F*ck I hate shopping in New Jersey.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

"you have to give up. you have to give up. you have to realize..."

*smacks self*

sorry, automatic reaction from the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. :)

[the-tsm.livejournal.com]

"Howe kin ah hewp ewwwe? Wha kin ah du fuh ewwwe?"

[geekers.livejournal.com]

I *enjoy* going to the Super Ks and Targets, but sometimes I just have to suck it up and go to WalMart. Homicidal environment, that's for sure. Unlike one of the K-marts here where on my second visit one of the workers in electronics remembered me from the first trip about a month prior, and hesitently asked me if I was the one with the blue hair (I was wearing a hat covering up the colored bangs). I lifted up my hat to reveal green bangs and said, "... they were blue." The lady then told me, "I went home and told my husband about you... and before I finished he said 'no'. Hehe." Nifty worker.

[katyakoshka.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I have been in two Wal-Marts, one time each, in my life. I'd like to keep it that way. I find their commercials offensive for that LCD quality, the "just folks" angles, and the gooey family sentiment that they use. Plus, hey, way to mimic the AOL commercial feel. Add the fact that I've worked with them on the vendor side of things, briefly but not briefly enough, or that their main center of operations was (and may still be) in Bentonville, AK, where they may only recently have acquired an actual FedEx office, as opposed to a drop box in the middle of town, and of which I only otherwise knew as home to the two guys who kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered a 13-year-old boy several years ago... *chime* You've got antipathy!

That said, I do go to Tar-zhay... because I'm their target demographic, I suppose. They're urban in orientation, evident in their business partnerships with Mossimo and Isaac Mizrahi (the former has its own shop in South Coast Plaza, land of Prada & Chanel boutiques, Barneys New York, marble floors, and Rizzoli Books; the latter occasionally writes articles for Harper's Bazaar, has been in a couple films -- including one about high fashion, and shows his lines in New York every spring & fall, IIRC). And, also, Cynthia Rowley (the Swell line) and Todd Oldham have likewise lent their talents to Target for partnership lines. Their ads are slick & understated. They recently had one of the lead ad spreads in Elle Decor -- Target. Yes, money put it there, but editorial staff have discretion regarding the ads that they run -- and they chose to do so. One difference might be that they're based in Minneapolis, not Bentonville.

Of course, they've not made forays into selling produce (and they won't, because that's not their demographic -- at least, not in California). They don't market themselves in the same way as Wal-Mart. [Side Note: AFAIK, because of California laws and liability issues related to such, neither store sells alcohol, tobacco or firearms. I've heard that things are otherwise elsewhere.]

And for all the standardization, they have such high turnover of product (based on their Plan-O-Grams -- official name, I shit you not!) that barring their standard items (like the Furio furnishing line), most of what you get there still tends to come off as fairly unique -- especially since it works well with non-Tarzhay stuff. I buy way too much of my wardrobe there -- as do several officemates, but we don't look uniformed.

Of course, for books, there's another big-box devil, Barnes & Noble (that they support outposts of the Evil Coffee Empire... ugh.), as well as smaller stores; for CDs, there are several local & semi-local independents that do a good job of covering wants. Plus, used clothing stores and furniture resale shops supplement Tarzhay. But when I want cheap toilet paper, tissues, cleaning stuff, or a no-frills wastebasket, Tarzhay usually does the job.

As far as big-box devils go, Target's not as evil as Wal-Mart. Not by a long shot. While both are high-volume/low-margin operations, Wal-Mart puts itself squarely in the market for the masses category; for some reason, Target doesn't make me feel tainted the way shopping at Wal-Mart would.

I think I've been listening to my MBA-student mother too much. Or working in marketing too long. Or with both companies, indirectly, for that matter. Ghaa. It's a pain to do multi-stop shopping, as angelsil pointed out -- an annoyance which Target and Wal-Mart frequently circumvent for many people.

[marillion.livejournal.com]

Target does indeed sell produce. Here in Texas, we've got SuperTargets right along with SuperWalmarts, all peddling groceries.

[katyakoshka.livejournal.com]

Well, I know Target doesn't out here in California. Wal-Mart might not, either. It may be some sort of statute or something, separate from the ATF stuff.

I've heard rumors of all sorts of wild things being available in such stores outside of California. Then again, when my family was living in Oregon, my parents would come down to California and find that you could buy hard liquor and wine in your regular grocery stores. *laugh*

[marillion.livejournal.com]

You can do that in the great state of Louisiana too, but they definitely won't let you sell hard liquor in the groc store here. Wine is available, though. The Shell station by my house even stocks good wine!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

that was probably one of the more surreal discoveries down here: the ability to buy liquor. . . at Wal-Mart.

[katyakoshka.livejournal.com]

At least it's not like Canada, where you have to hunt down a green front [government-run] store if you're feeling flush enough to shell out the cash for beer and wine that's much more expensive up there -- or if you just didn't get a batch of beer or wine started at the local U-Brew in time for a bash. When my relatives come down to California, the combination of alcohol-in-grocery-stores and wow-this-beer-doesn't-cost-an-arm-and-a-leg-even-though-it's-weak tends to intoxicate them... which is fortunate, since mainstream beers are much weaker than they are up there. (I don't go for MGD myself, but they can't resist, even if they laugh at the alcohol content when they drink it.)