Journalist goes undercover at Walmart | Hacker News Reader

Journalist goes undercover at Walmart

nypost.com

27 pointsbokonist11 comments

"A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same claustrophobic, windowless room."

Is this supposed to be tongue-in-cheek humour? "elite"?

EDIT: ok I shouldn't have expected any less. This is just a corporate puff piece, with the writer praising Walmart every half a dozen words or so.

Thanks for posting this. It was a very interesting read.

I worked at one of the competing discount retailers some years ago, and this was interesting information about what makes Wal-Mart different for career employees.

What a complete and utter piece of corporate stoogery. The first two sentences reveal the author's intent from the start: "Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain."

Which I read to say, "Some people, like dirty fucking hippies, loath Wal-mart. Others, like normal people, are in love with the chain." "Some" and "others" are the classic hallmarks of absolutely lazy, shoddy, yellow journalism. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with dirty fucking hippies, but I get the distinct sense this author does. Are we to believe that because this guy had a good experience, all the other employee complaints are invalid? Do a few pennies off socks justify Wal-Mart's behavior in other areas?

Now, admittedly, I'm not up to date on the latest practices and it sounds like things have improved somewhat. I'm not even anti-Wal-Mart, although I try to go to Target instead whenever I can because I find it a much more pleasant atmosphere. This article just smacks of corporatism run amok.

I happen to like Target more as well, but I really don't mind going to, or the idea of Wal-Mart either. However, the article does read shady...

This was already posted here 2 months ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462531

That's just a brief bit by the same author at boingboing - the nypost article linked here is much more detailed.

This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have to create additional wealth

Is this not practically the HN mantra?

1. What does this have to do with "Hacker News". 2. I don't remember where but I read this article with the exact same picture over a year ago. Perhaps the author just updated an old article of his? I find it odd that it was just now posted to nypost.com so far after it was written.

The picture was on boingboing I think. I remember reading it. It wasn't a year ago though. More like within the past three months.

Says the article is no longer available.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com