Mistakes or sloppy work

I was at Walmart the other day getting a tire repaired. As I wandered around the store, I came up the 'furniture' aisle and saw an unfinished spruce/pine chest. It was crudely made of rough milled (read construction wood) and warped 1x4, rough cut ends, badly fitted and nailed together with a pallet nail gun. Only 49$. This thing makes Ikea knock down furniture look like heirloom craftmanship.

Puts a whole new perspective on things. The next time I beat myself up for the flaws I see in my finished stuff I'll go wandering through Walmart.

I got to get out more.

Pete

Reply to
cselby
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You're only seeing one side of the picture. You're forgetting that Walmart screws their employees out of benefits.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

And that is related to the quality of the furniture they sell exactly how...?

Reply to
Doug Miller

Screws them out of benefits? Are you saying that Walmart tells their employees that they are going to receive benefits but don't actually give them to them?

Reply to
Locutus

I'm no fan of Wal Mart but would like to know how "Walmart screws their employees out of benefits."

Reply to
RayV

It's my understanding that the benefits are so expensive that the low wage workers can't afford them (only management can).. So the cashier/stockers can't afford benefits. Whether that's screwing them or not is a matter of perspective, I guess. I boycott Walmart (for various reasons), but I don't want to get in an argument about them here... I know there's people here that buy everything there.

Reply to
bf

On the benefits issue, which would you prefer, no benefits or poverty level wages? Wait! Wal-Mart provides both! :-)

On another note, I love waking through stores looking at furniture. It can be rewarding or condemning. Sometimes I'm checking to see if I can beat craftsmanship (usually not too hard in discount stores) or whether I can build better for less. Other times I study their construction techniques, joinery, finish, etc. Same with catalogues. I think one of the great rewards with woodworking is that you find, after practice, you can build the same quality or better (sometimes exponentially better) than what you can buy and that it came from your own hands. If there's anything good for America I really think it is the spirit of woodworking. Wait, I'm getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. . . . I'll give you a new topic. The Italian Neo Realist Movement in film was neither Italian nor neo nor particuarly a movement. Discuss!

snipped-for-privacy@mts.net wrote:

Reply to
Chrisgiraffe

If the worker pays for it out of pocket then it's not "benefits".

Reply to
J. Clarke

No body makes them work there. They are not "screwing" their employees out of anything.

Reply to
Locutus

I never rant but there is always the exception.

I love Walmart when I need to by cheap shit. They have the best. I think there is a union crowd that hates Walmart and they are aligned with the same crowd that thinks a minimum wage job should pay enough to raise a family. Walmart has cheap jobs for unskilled people. Whats so bad about that. I agree we need a minimum wage but some concept that says every job should provide full benefits and enough money to live on is just socialism and we decided not to go that route a few hundered years ago. Get used to it.

Locutus wrote:

Reply to
SonomaProducts.com

How about getting used to being forced to work "off the clock"?

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Reply to
Nova

Here's at least one on-topic response to your observation:

The Wal-Mart where I shop has a small collection of furniture, usually low cost and assemble-it-yourself type. Most of it is adequate quality but as you found out, there are exceptions. I bought a good quality hi-fi shelf unit for $79, whereas the identical unit was selling at Best Buy for $250.

Regards, Key Bored

Reply to
Key Bored

Sure they are. If you get employee health insurance at work for, say $50 a month, yet the insurance company is charging the employer $300 a month for it, what do you call the $250 picked up by the company?

Reply to
Lee K

How about _not_ "getting used to it", filing a lawsut, and collecting damages? Because that's what that story is reporting.

That has nothing to do with benefits or wage levels.

Reply to
J. Clarke

You mean the uneducated, untrained, unskilled employees who are lucky they have jobs at all? They don't deserve benefits, they haven't earned them.

Reply to
Brian Henderson

Again, nobody makes them work there. Nobody "forces" them to work off the clock (though I'm sure that is an isolated instance... no company has perfect managers)

As Sonoma said, Walmart provides jobs, it's up to the job marketplace to determine how well those jobs pay. When the demand goes up for that valuable unskilled labor, I am sure we will see a raise in pay.

Reply to
Locutus

Or even if the company is only paying $50 and the employee is paying $250, it's still a benefit. Heck, the employer could not pay anything and it could still be a benefit if the employer size allows the employees to get discounted rates.

Reply to
Locutus

That is illegal and wrong and should and was prosecuted. If my company became so large I assume some asshole managers looking to make a better bottom line might try crap like that too. I wouldn't stand for it and I don't hear any Walmart executive standing up for it.

Our great country is great because we have and enforce laws. Take Pakistan or Malaysia where that crap furniture is be> S> > I never rant but there is always the exception.

Reply to
SonomaProducts.com

Walmart has also been busted numerous times for paying below minimum wage to illegal aliens.

They've also cost a lot of Americans jobs by encouraging/helping/forcing manufacturers to move overseas.

State Governments have to pay a lot of money in health care benefits to those walmart workers that don't have insurance.. that's your and my money.

Sure, nobody forces anyone to work at Walmart, but Walmart is certainly not a model coorporate citizen. In the end, I'm not sure it's helped America (other than the Waltons) that Walmart has grown so big.

Reply to
bf

Have a source for that statement?

Only uninsured Wal Mart employees get health care from the taxpayers?

Reply to
RayV

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