Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Wal-Mart

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Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

It was announced today that the US retail giant Wal-Mart is buying one of the UK's biggest supermarket chains, Asda. For 6.7 billion smackeroos.

I gather, however, that Wal-Mart are not loved Stateside. Anyone wanna expand on this?

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Well, I'm a bit pissed as Kingfisher, the group who owns Woolies were gonna merge with them. Which meant that I would have got a discount at Asda.

Oh well.

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"In my defence that bush is actually quite big"
-M the F

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

I heard about that a few days ago. *lol* Well, I know people who hate it, but they've got cheap stuff.

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"O Notre-Dame!
Oh! Laisse-moi rien qu'une fois
Pousser la porte du jardin d'Esmeralda"
--"Belle", Notre Dame de Paris

Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :

Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Sam's Wholesale Club, I shop at them all. I like the cheap stuff. I can afford it on my meager college student salary.

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"Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

They're cool with everyone I know. They're the only U.S. discount store to give their employees discounts too!

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"Everything I needed to learn in life I learned from Optimus Prime."

Rule #3 : Whenever someone under you screws up make sure you teach them a lesson more so than you punish them.

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Welcome to Reality, Lee. Years ago, Canada had a large department-store chain called Woolworth and Co, which goes by the more common name of Woolco. Was swallowed up by the large Walmart giant after several years of losing money. *sniff*

Now there is only Zellers........

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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation

Posted by Jubilee (Member # 99) on :

Asda.... I LOVED that store when I was over there!!! ... I still have a reciept from when I bought that bottle of wine and the chocolate orange! Their pizzas are the BEST.

Bought out by Wal-Mart .... i'm not sure that's such a good thing.. are they planning on changing the ASDA's TO Wal-Mart's, or is ASDA staying the same?

I love Wal-Mart, don't get me wrong... but I mean, ASDA is a food store..... and Wal-Mart isn't...

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If I follow you home, will you keep me?

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Wal-Mart censors the albums they sell, often without warning.

To be fair, though, none of the albums I want to buy are ever there anyway.

Things ARE cheap there. There's the whole "destruction of downtown" thing, but that's more of a cultural shift rather than the fault of any one business.

That having been said, I hate the place. Annoying people. But, from time to time, I do go. Partly to simply observe the shoppers.

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"According to myth, the earth was created in six days. Now watch out! Here comes Genesis. We'll do it for you in six minutes."
--
Dr. Leonard H. McCoy

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

Every time I enter a Wal-Mart store, I have never felt more white in my life. It like you get a lobotomy as you enter.

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That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!
~Homer Simpson

Posted by Jedi Weyoun (Member # 110) on :

Wal-mart's cool. I wish they had one close enough to my house I could actually get there, though. *L*

Jay: i've never had that feeling in a walmart, but try taking a class on Native American studies in the southwest....for a semester i felt like three days a week i was being told "you bad white person! look what you've done to our people!" rather discouraging.
honestly, though. racial constructs make me sick. people are people are people. and i still say i'm not responsible for things my ancestors did solely on the fact that they are my ancestors. pleh. oh well.

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"Fear attracts the fearful"
([[[[[[*]}��

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

True fact, Jedi.

I always feel that someone is using spurious logic when blaming me for the facr that my parents could breed.

What? If they didn't, who would you blame?

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American Society of Newspaper Editors motto:
"Proudly Maintaining the (Continued on Page A-4)".
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

Racial constructs are crap. And a very good point Jedi. I guess that part of my feelings come from being the sole liberal in Orange County, a place where the pin the Fascist Party pin on you the moment you move into the county.

Orange County California is a very white and very Republican county. The population consists mostly the young urbanites trying to escape the proliferation of "other colored" people in Los Angeles. There are a few pockets of ethinc folks there, but by in large, the county is dominated by Republicans trying to keep them in their place.

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That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!
~Homer Simpson

Posted by Jubilee (Member # 99) on :

I never had that problem going into a Wal-Mart.. but the Wal-Mart near me is in an urban area, so there is a mix of culture there. EVERYONE shops at Wal-Mart, 'cause it's CHEAP. (There's also a grocery store right next to it, so that makes it even MORE convenient).

The one problem I DO have on occassion in a Wal-Mart is the fear of bright yellow smiley people watching me. Can anyone identify with that? ... Wherever you go, that smiley face is watching you. You can't escape it!!!.. It's there..... it's everywhere!.. *insane laughter..*

okay, J/K... *L*

But seriously, the feeling I get when I go into a Wal-Mart is "This is a christian owned store, and I'm not Christian". I often wonder what they'd think about MY religion if I told them. I at one time almost had a job there.. I think that would have been VERY interesting. Do you know they do random drug testing and stuff there? They want thier employees to be "as pure as possible".
Now I can understand keeping a professional image and all that, but.... it's really NONE of thier damned business....

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If I follow you home, will you keep me?

Posted by David Sands (Member # 132) on :

First One: The general low regard you may have heard about in referance to Wal-Mart stateside is real in some areas. Probably the biggest PR disaster they tried was right here in my state of Virginia. They wanted to build a new store right near Ferry Farm, the boyhood home of George Washington. The assessment of what this store would have done was that it could have a severe negative impact on the preservation of Ferry Farm, and here in Virginia, history is almost everything. However, they backed out at the last minute and all is forgiven to the extent people shop there because they've just about run K-Mart out of existance. The above episode and the mega-success they've had due to their control over inventory and shipping has made them the store that many love to hate. Hope this clarifies.

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"Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."

"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

David Sands: Actually, I think K-Mart is no longer in existence, bought out by the Hudson's Bay Company of Canada. Or was it some other department store chain? Someone please confirm.........

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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

There's a K-Mart in New Boston!

Hill's was bought out recently, though

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"Everything I needed to learn in life I learned from Optimus Prime."

Rule #3 : Whenever someone under you screws up make sure you teach them a lesson more so than you punish them.

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

I like Wal-Mart. A very handy store. I was pleased to hear we were getting taken over by that, actually. But the Americanization stops there.

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Doctor: "Run along. I'll reattach any severed limbs. Just don't misplace them." (Voyager: "The Killing Game")

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

Within a couple of decades, it's estimated Wal-Mart will have taken a giant foothold in every habitable continent. Europe, then Oceania, then Asia, then Africa, then Sourth America happens to be their "conquest order," I believe.

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Doctor: "Run along. I'll reattach any severed limbs. Just don't misplace them." (Voyager: "The Killing Game")

Posted by Deep6 on :

Leave Wal-Mart alone!! It's a great store..but its got nothin on the wholesale club also owned by Sam Walton (or his family as it were).

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"So where are the nuggets on a chicken anyway?"

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I've got my bid in to own and operate the first Lunar Wal-mart. And I've staked a claim for another franchise near Valles Marineris. Captain Braxton tells me that by 2245, Wal-Mart controls 1/8 of ALL interstellar commerce.

We are First of Two of Wal-Mart. Resistance is futile. Our prices are lower. You will all be assimilated.

K-Mart still lives. Indeed, a Super-K K-Mart opened up right NEXT to the Wal-Mart in my town, and the two are duking it out -- having already annihilated most of the small businesses.
I don't know HOW this economically-stunted area manages to support both stores PLUS a fairly large mall. Tax write-offs, I guess.

Hills was assimilated by Ames.

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"... Then you'll see me do some MAJOR dancing on your face!" -- Cosby

[This message was edited by First of Two on June 16, 1999.]

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

HEY! Did anybody notice that the forum's smiley faces

look just like the Wal-Mart smileys?

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"O Notre-Dame!
Oh! Laisse-moi rien qu'une fois
Pousser la porte du jardin d'Esmeralda"
--"Belle", Notre Dame de Paris

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

But they don't fly around knocking down prices-! *get thwapped in the head as Ziyal's smiley comes out in 3D to knock down the price of an item down the road*

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Doctor: "Run along. I'll reattach any severed limbs. Just don't misplace them." (Voyager: "The Killing Game")

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

Well, I don't know what wal-mart is like, but for you Brits out there, I've been to Tesco's several times and it's already kinda big for Dutch standards, and I expect some wal-mart stores to be even larger. We like things small. There's simply not enough room for big things. Like me. *wiseass grin*

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

That whole 'Walk-Mart is a Christian store' thing. How serious is that?

Asda staff pretty much depends on the area where the ASDA is. But they'll mainly be 18-21 year olds working off their overdraft anyway.

I went to a Wal-Mart in the US once. Big. But I was still shocked from the 23 flavours of Milkshakes that the McDonald's I had just been to sold, so I wasn't paying much attention.

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"In my defence that bush is actually quite big"
-M the F

Posted by Deep6 on :

Oh yeah? Well our Wal-Mart has a McDonald's in it....so there!

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"So where are the nuggets on a chicken anyway?"

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

Sam Walton may have been Christian, but the only thing Christian in corporate America is
Chik-F-Lay.

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"Everything I needed to learn in life I learned from Optimus Prime."

Rule #3 : Whenever someone under you screws up make sure you teach them a lesson more so than you punish them.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Which may explain the rousing success of Chik-fi-la.

YECCH!

Like I give a rat's *** about the religion of the people I'm buying from. I'd buy from a worshipper of Molech if I could get a better deal. As if so-called "Christians" don't lie, cheat, and steal just like everybody else.

Difference is, they can tell God they're sorry and that'll make it all better, for them, anyway, while the rest of us just have to live with it.

Sorry. Documentary-Induced ranting. (Just watched a program on the Salem Witch Hunts.)

I went to a mega-Wal-Mart out in central PA once. It was a Wal-Mart PLUS the distribution center for the entire area. HUGE!!!!! even had a full grocery store and a McDonalds AND a Fried-Chicken place in it. WOO!

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"... Then you'll see me do some MAJOR dancing on your face!" -- Cosby

Posted by Deep6 on :

I dont care about the religion of a business owner. As a matter of fact, it really pisses me off when I want Chick-fil-A but i have to go somewhere else because its Sunday!! Its ludicrous I tell you.

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"So where are the nuggets on a chicken anyway?"

Posted by Sunspot (Member # 77) on :

Hey! I love Wal-Mart, K-Mart, ShopKo and Pamida! They may not seel the best music, but they have cool toys and the clothes are cool. I can get a ton of school stuff for a few hundred bucks while my susters spend twice as much by shopping at Fashion Bug and other stupid shops like that.

We have a Super-K in Iron Mountain, which is our little corner of the U.P.'s hub-of-commerce. Nearly every major business is there, and it's only 50 miles from most towns. I think it's like the 3rd largest city in the area.. or something.

I mean, if you can get good-quality snacks, food, toys, clothes, etc, then what's the problem? I don't care if I get BigK soda or Coca-Cola, since they taste the same. Malt-o-Meal bagged cereals or Corn Pops, same taste. Just because they aren't as fancily-packaged or advertised doesn't mean they're not of the same or higher quality.

Plus, K-Mart has those nifty video camera displays that you can film people with...

And Wal-Mart or K-Mart (I forget which is in which plaza..) have all the neat LEGO sets and magazines like Popular Science, I can get all my junk at one stop rather than running to Angeli's Foods for milk and soda, then Pamida's for some magazines, then Angeli's Video for some movies, and Snyder's Drug for some books, like I hafta do here in town.

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"You were right about the negotiations...they were short."
Obi-Wan Kenobi to QuiGon Jinn, The Phantom Menace

Posted by Sunspot (Member # 77) on :

AND...I never picked up any Anti-Non-Christian vibes or anything like that while in Wal/K-Mart stores...And I'm usually good at picking up on those kinds of things.

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"You were right about the negotiations...they were short."
Obi-Wan Kenobi to QuiGon Jinn, The Phantom Menace

Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

I like to go to the hardware section, pick out a sledge hammer, and walk around the store. I would use an axe but they don't come equiped with a handle.

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"I'll try a roll."

Obscure SW:TPM quote

Posted by zilla on :

Walmart is da-bomb!

)) they have smiley faces!!! I love smiley faces... hehe