Journalist goes undercover at Walmart

[plinkplonk]

"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.

[jaxn]

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

[tokenadult]

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.

[jbarciauskas]

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.

[dablya]

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...

[wheels]

This was already posted here 2 months ago:

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

[bumbledraven]

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

[gaius]

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?

[toodlestech]

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.

[raffi]

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.

[geuis]

Says the article is no longer available.