Friday, April 17, 2009
Part Two
Started rant yesterday and got distracted. Anyway, now ecomonically we are producing were little in the way of actual things. So we replace the jobs making actual things with jobs doing things for other people, cooking, cleaning, selling them things. Okay I see three problems here. One, the job making things paid (local estimate) 12-16 US dollars per hour. The other jobs pay 7-10 dollars per hours. Two, as more factories close, who are we supposed to cook, clean and sell stuff too. And three, who is going to buy this stuff we are now making in China, India, Mexico and other places. The US is it's own best customer, but if we put all the people out of work they won't be able to afford to buy the stuff we make in other countries and then more business will close. Also, a lot of the service jobs are now going out of country. Any service that is offered that doesn't have to be done local and in person is going out of country. Anything that can be do via telephone or computer, data processing, data entry, telephone sales, telephone help services, order processing is all leaving the US. This all seems really stupid and short sighted to me. With fewer people working, the ones working making less money, who is going to be able to afford these goods and services. The companies say it is cheaper to subcontract it outside the country, but eventually it will be even cheaper to not offer the service at all, cause without work here, we won't be able to pay for it anyway.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Modern Times
You know it is really kind of odd to me. This recent economic downturn is scary. I remember way back in college they told us our economy was shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and most of the jobs would be in service industries. That's didn't make sense then and it makes way too much now. When I was in high school all the kids that weren't planning on a university or tech school figured on getting on at one of the local factories. There were 5 major ones in our city and maybe another 6 smaller ones. The thing about the big factories were they paid well, you had a long term job with insurance and retirement benefits. Now, only one of those plants is still in the town. Most relocated to Mexico. Only 2 or 3 of the little plants, which don't offer the benefits or pay near as well still exist. The manufacturing businesses that came in to replace them are mostly automated and only work a few basic people or employ only specially trained people.
A client recently told me he was hoping his son could get a job at Walmart as he thought that would be a good place to work and would offer long term job security. With as much information as is out there about Walmart, it still surprises me the number of people who have misconceptions about the company.
I have experienced the glories of Walmart from 4 different perspectives.
Competition. Walmart seems like heaven on earth when it first comes into a town. It has really cheap prices on everything and seems to have everything you could ever want. Those low prices are there to kill off all the competition. When the local stores close the doors and the nearest large competitors start faltering, those prices go up. The local super Walmart here is actually more expensive than most of the grocery stores on food. Honestly if you have the time to look, you can usually find everything you want somewhere else for the same or less money, the only real advantage is everything is in one really huge place.
Employee. I haven't worked there but have many friends and family that have. The pay is crap, the local version treats the employees poorly. They pay no overtime and tell the employees they won't get any. Then they keep them late two or three days, then notice on Friday that they have a couple of hours over, so they tell them to come in late on Friday, but then schedule a mandatory meeting at the start of the shift and won't let them clock in. Then there is no sense in driving home so they stay in the store after the meeting and the bosses keep telling them to do things, even though they aren't on the clock. My wife came home several times crying because she ended up doing 2 or 3 hours work off the clock. Then insurance they off is so expense the employees can't afford it unless they work a second job.
Security. Until recently Walmart had the sorriest anti-theft program I had ever heard of. Recently they have beefed it up some, but basically the place is a bug light for shop lifters. Due solely to the number of shoplifting charges from Walmart, the local police no longer arrest and take in shoplifters unless the merchandise is $500 or more, instead they just write a citation, like a speeding ticket. This is much harder for probation officers to track.
On that note, an aquantance of mine was recently accosted in a Walmart by one of the loss-prevention thugs. Now these guys have no authority. They can call the cops, but they have no right to detain or to arrest beyond that of any other citizen. Apparently they thought my friend had not scanned some of the merchandise on the self checkout. They actually attempted to detain him and his wife, going to far as to rip her shirt off and knock her down in the struggle. Then he was arrested for assault even though he hadn't taken anything out to the store he had not paid for, nor had he hit anyone, he had just pulled out of there grip when they knocked his wife down. That was in the state, although not local. For that I am glad, as a local judge told one of the local walmart security people that they had no authority to handcuff anyone or take anyone to there office.
A client recently told me he was hoping his son could get a job at Walmart as he thought that would be a good place to work and would offer long term job security. With as much information as is out there about Walmart, it still surprises me the number of people who have misconceptions about the company.
I have experienced the glories of Walmart from 4 different perspectives.
Competition. Walmart seems like heaven on earth when it first comes into a town. It has really cheap prices on everything and seems to have everything you could ever want. Those low prices are there to kill off all the competition. When the local stores close the doors and the nearest large competitors start faltering, those prices go up. The local super Walmart here is actually more expensive than most of the grocery stores on food. Honestly if you have the time to look, you can usually find everything you want somewhere else for the same or less money, the only real advantage is everything is in one really huge place.
Employee. I haven't worked there but have many friends and family that have. The pay is crap, the local version treats the employees poorly. They pay no overtime and tell the employees they won't get any. Then they keep them late two or three days, then notice on Friday that they have a couple of hours over, so they tell them to come in late on Friday, but then schedule a mandatory meeting at the start of the shift and won't let them clock in. Then there is no sense in driving home so they stay in the store after the meeting and the bosses keep telling them to do things, even though they aren't on the clock. My wife came home several times crying because she ended up doing 2 or 3 hours work off the clock. Then insurance they off is so expense the employees can't afford it unless they work a second job.
Security. Until recently Walmart had the sorriest anti-theft program I had ever heard of. Recently they have beefed it up some, but basically the place is a bug light for shop lifters. Due solely to the number of shoplifting charges from Walmart, the local police no longer arrest and take in shoplifters unless the merchandise is $500 or more, instead they just write a citation, like a speeding ticket. This is much harder for probation officers to track.
On that note, an aquantance of mine was recently accosted in a Walmart by one of the loss-prevention thugs. Now these guys have no authority. They can call the cops, but they have no right to detain or to arrest beyond that of any other citizen. Apparently they thought my friend had not scanned some of the merchandise on the self checkout. They actually attempted to detain him and his wife, going to far as to rip her shirt off and knock her down in the struggle. Then he was arrested for assault even though he hadn't taken anything out to the store he had not paid for, nor had he hit anyone, he had just pulled out of there grip when they knocked his wife down. That was in the state, although not local. For that I am glad, as a local judge told one of the local walmart security people that they had no authority to handcuff anyone or take anyone to there office.
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