Are DU'rs getting old?

I have to say I LOVE the Wal-Mart cart idea!!! Not because I think this will have much impact on Walmart or that its even that great of an idea but because I think it sounds like fun! I was looking forward to doing this and feeling young again. It absolutely won't hurt the employees as some have suggested. I know because I use to work at a grocery store and had to put items back from carts several times. Did I care? Hell no! Whats the big fucking deal???? I would have much rather put items back from a cart then run register, work in the ice cold cooler, bag groceries or clean.

I get the impression most on DU have gotten OLD!!!! Where is the youthful spirit and mischief we all had when we were young? This is legal and sounds like it would be fun. If if huts Walmart a little then GOOD!!!!!

Don't be an old fart! Have some fun and be young again! Fill up some carts and leave them all over the place! If ten thousand people do this it would really send Wal-mart a message!

As Emerson once said: "Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age."

It's looming in the minds and bodies of a good percentage of DU. Of the committed members, I'd say in 15 years time, a good quarter of the current DU will be in their graves.

You might be right....

Ack!

LOL, you're joking, right?

I mean, in the next 3 years a good half of us will be dead from bird flu or bush exhaustion.

Im 25.

cheery post

isn't being an asshole to my peers.
It would not send any "message" to Wal-mart except the minor inconvenience that they might have to make the employees work harder or need more overtime workers.

.

inventory left at the customer service desk, ie returns. It's just plain rude to deliberately fill a shopping cart for the purpose of leaving it. Old or otherwise, it's just rude! And I think it will hurt the employees without making one iota difference in walmart's policies toward how they treat their employees. Just my $.02.

on shelves when you could have been cleaning the bathrooms. :eyes:

:eyes:

:eyes:

So much for being on the schedule as early-out.

corporate citizen, which includes paying decent wages and benefits to their employees, are you telling me that you'd be pissed off that your time spent restocking was going to encourage HQ to start taking into account bad publicity?

I'd be upset if people were doing it because they were lazy. But if they're doing it to make a political message, I'd love it.

And work in a place like WalMart is drudgery whether it's stocking, restocking, or whatever. And like Don said above, it's better than cleaning the toilets.

the walmart heirs who have already made their millions? And how will your plan make life better for walmart employees? Will it make walmart suddenly paid their employees more? Doubtful! But knock yourself out!

Do you really think that just because you spent the last hour restocking a cartload of crap that was supposed to send some kind of "political message" to Wal-Mart employees, you will somehow be exempt from cleaning the bathrooms, if that's part of your job, as well? Is the manager just going to say to you, "Hey, thanks for restocking that crapload of "statement"! Know what? You don't have to clean the bathroom tonight! Just go home to your family; you've worked so hard today!"

Get real, or get a service job and see it for yourself, DUers.

I thought the same thing then i read the replies by the "grown up's" and now i won't. I guess i also wanted to do it so i could leave it in my friends department. He works nights there, LOL.

On edit: Screw it, I'm 24, i think i am still young enough to pull stupid pranks right?

NOT making their jobs more difficult) is NOT a sign of growing old, but a mark of basic good manners.

there are many, many other activities in which one may engage in order to let the inner child out to play. making more work for already over-worked employees is NOT one of them.

go skinny dipping, eat an ice cream cone from the bottom, run through a fountain, or go play on the swings. just a few ideas.

WalMart employees life more difficult. I can't believe that WalMart won't just work people harder to correct the chaos.

Also, I'm hoping for about forty more years of viability. My dad's 102!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3368734&mesg_id=3368734

55% of responding DUers were over 40, 51% between 40-59 and 21% 50-59.

on edit: you may remember I didn't "push" it very much... I pretty much forgot about it after I posted it. :sarcasm:

unlike Bush, when I was young and foolish, I was not anti-social and destructive. Just a little more naive and optimistic.

The action would really send walmart a message. Now here's the message they'd send back to the tired over worked and underpaid employee:
Empty the carts and re-stock the selves and be fast about it.

It's a stupid idea at any age.

I agree!

...in college. We used to just hide the crap, sometimes we would hide the whole cart (that's what pallets full of product are for) or (my personal fav)I would hide the stuff in the rubbermaid totes and garbage cans.

If you are going to fill a cart up and leave it, at least have the guts to ask for the store manager to come down so you can give him/her the cart and let them know exactly why you are doing it.

Cheers!

the overworked employee to find, explaining the little stunt! Yeah, that will make it all better! :eyes:

OMG, how gutless. If people are going to make a stand, at least have the
guts to do it person. A note....how cowardly. The whole thing is stupid...IMHO.

Cheers!

You will get old (if you're lucky). Trust me. I know, I didn't think I would either but before you know it, bam, here I am - 45 and counting.

Remember the older folk here have been young - you haven't been old yet. You don't know the perspective. Even at my hoary age, I'm always willing to "do something strange and extravagant", but I don't want to hurt people either. A 63 year old retiree working at Walmart has to go around and put back stuff, added to *all the other stuff* they would have to do? That's cruel.

Sorry, all you're doing is adding to the workload of an underpaid, overworked person. You may feel better about it, but he or she won't. And I won't either.

Why not go to Walmart as a protest and hand out a flyer to all their employees about better job training programs? That would hurt them worse and help the workers at the same time.

Making more work for the workers isn't a winning idea. It will probably just piss them (the workers) off.

:eyes: Was that the point?

I did both back in my distant youth. When you're older and you're talking about knees and back, standing one place and cleaning is a blessing. The medication-needing working poor senior citizens whom Walmart whores for its own benefit could attest to that, I think.

That said, the issue is not adding work to that person's workload.
We're not talking about one person having to clear shelves and put things back because of one person. We're talking about a number of people doing that -- it's adding work to what that person would normally have in the day. Trust me, you don't just keep working until the day is over, you have to do everything you have to do within that narrow time period. That means the average worker working harder than they would have, because of some person's idea of "protest" (no matter how well intended).

retail, including walmart. I would never fill a shopping cart and leave it for employees to put back as a form of protest against the corporations' treatment of their workers. It will achieve nothing save for making more work for the already overworked and underpaid employees.

Some of these posts make this topic sound more important than the Iraq war. Give me a break, we are talking about leaving a few grocery's in carts not life and death for christ sake.

:puke:

You work all day when you're 55 and at the end of your workday have to face an extra basket of work to do for no reason. That becomes more important to that person at that moment in time than all the wars in the world.

Suffering is an individual experience not a collective one.

:thumbsup:

Doesn't have to include purposefully making some stranger's job harder for them. Would you like it if somebody came to your job and made an hour or more worth of extra work for you just for the fun of it?

If you want to feel like a kid again go get drunk, have a wild party and TP your trees, run off to Vegas and do something you wouldn't want your neighbors to know about. Just don't make life harder for some poor minimum-wage slave who never did anything to you.

I can think of very little that would be LESS fun than spending a bunch of time in Wal Mart, filling up a cart with crap I'm not going to buy, and then leaving it in the middle of the store for someone else to put back. I do shop some at Wal Mart, there isn't much choice in my small rural town. I know many of the people who work there because this is a small rural town. How effing RUDE and INCONSIDERATE an idea is this? It sounds like it came from some damned bratty spoiled asswipe who never had to work in their life. You worked at a GROCERY STORE...this idea would not be like restocking the canned vegetables, do you even realize that? There would be people filling carts with microwaves, computers, furniture; heavy, bulky items. And here near Christmas, when Wal Mart is going to be packed 24/7 with people who can't afford to shop somewhere else. A lot of the people in MY Wal Mart are working there because there is no where else TO work here, since the local industries have outsourced virtually all the jobs. These are ADULTS, some of them working 2 or 3 jobs, to keep from losing their homes to foreclosure, and shoes on their kids, and keep the electricity on. They're getting 4 or 6 hours sleep, and worrying all the time. THOSE are the people this would impact the most, the employees. The people at the top in the corporation probably wouldn't even KNOW or CARE. And the reality is that as soon as a manager at a Wal Mart figures out that something like this is going on...they will be on the lookout, and anyone caught would be banned from the store. And that would end that , and it would be the least important aspect of this incredibly stupid idea.

No, this would be NOT fun at all, nor would it be simply "mischief". Not to mention that I have better things, things that actually ARE more fun, to do with my time. And as far as activism to change the Wal Mart "way", well, I like the idea mentioned in another thread about saving all your receipts from other stores, and sending them to the corp office showing them how much money you did NOT spend in Wal Mart each month. I'm sure you've heard the saying "hit them in their wallet"? THAT sounds far more effective than acting like an ill mannered adolescent.

:applause:

...your's would be at the top of my list. Fantastic!

Best way to hurt Wal-Mart? Don't shop at Wal-Mart.

Tell your family, friends and coworkers why you don't shop at Wal-Mart. Tell them often.

That's activism, at any age.

I have nothing against creative mischief. This cart idea is anything but.

I'm 45. While I will admit to some youthful behaviors (blasting the radio in the car, listening to music that my DH and friends roll their eyes at,) I'd like to think that I would use the experience I've gained from my advanced age to do good instead of harm.

>Don't be an old fart! Have some fun and be young again!<

I can have fun without making a mess that people older than I am will have to clean up after.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Julie

are working in these jobs are getting up in age, and are in bad health. One lady is 76 years old, working so she can eat. Go ahead and make her life a little harder.

There's a thread here you should read:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5339989

Kinda puts things into perspective.

Best way to hurt Wal-Mart? Don't shop there. And explain to your friends and coworkers why you don't shop there.

Best way to piss off an overworked, tired, under-insured Wal-Mart worker? Stick him with a cart full of crap to put away, when he was supposed to be early-out, and looked forward to being home with the family an hour ago.

I'm a service employee too, and I don't know when the last time you worked at a grocery store was, but times have changed in the last, say, ten years. These jobs are getting harder, and more and more, they're not being staffed by teenagers and college kids. They're being staffed by people who are older, and who had different careers before, and feel like Wal-Mart might just be the end of the line. I don't think they'd find this task to mischievous in any manner.

I know I wouldn't.

Nobody is going to get it. That's why it's a bad idea. But, don't get me wrong... I have nothing against playful mischief. Just not at the sake of others who might otherwise be on our side.

There are other ways to reach them.

anything to break up the monotony of this decorous age

but many of the decent, hard-working, blue-collar people who once made America so great are slowing fading away. That's why it is so important to develop some type of intelligent base to replace them. Because we're getting too old for this shit. Most of the new minorities, primarily hispanics, who are supporting the party have their own agendas. Or so I have found from most of the ones I have spoken with. They want advancement of their group only and that's why they're democrats. It's the love of self, not of one's nation. Who knows, that may be the downfall of this once great and mighty country.

I'm a nurse now but I've worked at McDonalds, 7-11, a drugstore, and been a waitress. I STILL dig out pennies from my purse if it will make it easier on the cashier to give me change (i.e the total is $10.28, I dig out 3 pennies to go with my $20 bill). The only thing worse than this cart idea, IMHO, is when people leave their cups/trash in a movie theater, leaving their crap behind for the workers to throw away.