I come here today and find a whole host of people bitching about everything from self check outs to Amazon, to Walmart, to Home Depot. I have just one question for you:
When does a small sucessful chain become the object of the hatred now reserved for the large box stores and such?
At one point, Walmart was a small company, and it did well and got bigger. People were very excited that an American store was doing so well! The stock did well, people loved to shop there, and there were parades in Bentonville for the marvelous Waltons.
Then it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. The owners changed, the way the place operated changed, but it mainly looked the same on the outside as it always had.
These large stores that many Kossacks despise were at one time the mom and pop stores of yesteryear, were they not?
It almost seems like a teenage thing where one kid thinks his sneakers are really cool until the whole school has them, then he doesn't want them anymore.
Now, I'm not writing this to be inflammatory, but if you like a small Mexican restaurant, and they open another location which is closer to you, you now have two marvelous Mexican restaurants to go to. At some point, when the small place becomes Chipotle, national chain, does that change your perception of it?
When Apple was not merely the underdog, but the almost unknown computer company, was it better then than it is now? Are their products better than ever? Less damaging to the environment, do they treat their employees better? Or are they just some big company peddling their wares and putting the little guy out of business?
Or have you moved on to hate something more convienient to your liberal tastes because it is too hard to justify hating a company like Apple? A company like Walmart, maybe?
I guess I just don't understand the difference between a small mom and pop store and a big chain as far as jobs go. I love a good little corner nook book store as much as the next person, or a small coffee shop, but I have nothing against Barnes and Noble or Starbucks.
I don't see these big companies killing competition. I see them forcing other companies to become chains like they are (not saying it's a good thing, just...seems to be the way of things). Eventually they become self sustaining chains or are crushed under their own cancerous weight.
We want people to be employed, yet we hate Home Depot, who supplies hundreds of thousands of jobs. Is it at the cost of smaller companies going out of business? Perhaps so, but it doesn't mean that the people who work there are clueless idiots wandering around in the gigantic warehouse with no idea what they are doing, or no idea which hinge you should use for your door. When I walk into a Home Depot, generally I am the clueless idiot with no idea what I am doing, and I am grateful for the help.
Maybe they were the people who worked in the small stores before Home Depot came around. Maybe not.
I have met plenty of skilled people working in large chain places (working in one myself gives me lots of access to that).
I have also met plenty of people who are paid no better who work in small shops, and have fewer health insurance benefits because their employer cannot afford them.
I like variety, sure, and I want people to have good benefits and pay, but the whole point of a business is to make money (I know, cutting to the bottome line is something that drives some Kossacks up the wall, IT'S always about MONEY!! We scream), and the smaller store is unable to do so, whose fault is it?
We always assume these places were profitable UNTIL big box store XYZ moved in, stole all the business, and sucked them dry. It's not always what happens. Sometimes stores just go under.
Perhaps this whole thing with huge chain stores will end somewhat like the dinosaurs did. Mother nature experimented with hugeness for a while, and after a cataclysm, changed its ways.
Maybe we are at the edge of that cataclysm. Because when something is "too big to fail" and then it does fail, it seems to leave our government no choice but the throw huge amounts of money at it.
I'm left in a quandry. I don't hate the big retail corporations, and I don't have the low opinion of the workers that others have whose comments I have read elsewhere today on this site.
But so far, and I am young, so maybe my experience with small mom and pop stores is not what many of yours is, I haven't found much in retail that is better done by a mom and pop store.
I can hardly ever find the books I want in small shops.
Forget finding clothes I will wear in a local shop. They all seem to be geared for old ladies (maybe that is the point).
Mom and pop grocery stores are usually not in very good shape, and I am wary of buying food in places that seem to not be in good shape.
I tried buying computer parts from a small shop down the road. The guy was selling ancient monitors and crusty keyboards. I tried two other places, one didn't have the part I wanted, and one was closed because they had ridiculous hours of noon-5. I finally just went to Best Buy and got it over with.
Muscial instrument shops are, on the whole pretty good selectionwise, but their prices suck.
Why should I shop in these places?
I like roadside produce stands. I bought the most amazing jar of honey at one in northern Georgia once.
Now, restaurants are usually really really good. I LOVE small restaurants. Every time I go to a new place, I try to look up new places to eat. I do the same for coffee shops, but I don't have a problem with going to Starbucks or Caribou coffee.
I don't know. Maybe I've just been wandering around suburbia too long, but if a mom and pop shop can't cut it, I am not going to go there is all I am saying.
I know there are people working tirelessly in organizations to make sure that us big box workers have the benefits and pay we need to survive, and I appreciate that, because I know that I wouldn't have jack shit for healthcare if some brave soul somewhere wasn't out there fighting it out on the legal front for us. I understand that is the major complaint with large companies. Make everything in China, ship it here, sell crap, pay the employee crap, kill American factory jobs. What are the small companies doing that is so much better?
I thought I had a paragraph to kind of tie it together here at the end, but I really don't. I haven't solved anything for myself, and I've probably wasted your time. But this big box worker still doesn't understand why everyone hates us so much.
I'm not an economist, or one who studies job creation/destruction. But I am intensely interested in why a group of people who have so much tolerance overall, have none when it comes to retail.
Gods, I am probably going to go down in flames for this. Fire away.
Edit:
Thanks very much for all the ideas, facts and opinion you all have offered. I have learned a lot so far. Thanks again, Kossacks.