Just gave up Chik-Fil-A forever

Should have done it a while ago. I always knew the owner was a right-wing, religious-zealot asshole but after hearing about the company giving money to organizations like Family Research Council (and then hearing him basically try to lie about it) there is no way I'm going to continue buying their food, as awesome as it is.

Really gonna miss that spicy chicken sandwich :(

First time I've taken a stance like this and hope to do more of it. Anyone else done some permanent boycotts?

But I also personally boycott K-Mart because of the lousy way they treated me back in 1977.

I was a little concerned when Sears bought K-Mart, but nothing bad seems to have happened. On the plus side, you can get Craftsman tools at K-Mart now and a lot of those are still US made.

$40K is a really decent salary for comparatively inexperienced retail clerks--and Costco has been criticized on Wall Street for paying their workers too much.

If a supplier of a certain product does bad things against unions or workers, Costco will stop carrying their products! They re-up the supply once good sense is restored:D

and don't mind paying $50 a year for the privilege of shopping in a store.

nearby, and so we shop there.

We save much more than we pay for our membership every year.

There are also purchases that we don't make at Costco, because they don't make sense. But the ones that do make it worth it to shop there.

Underwear, socks, basic clothing. Milk and eggs. Good eggs are a fortune at the supermarket. Lemons! Those huge lemons are now 50 cents apiece at the supermarket! And cheese is a good purchase to make at, too, although you don't have a huge selection. Fresh mozzarella is half what it is in the supermarket, and we have no problem with the quantity.

And the drug store stuff -- vitamins and supplements, for instance, don't take much room and are much cheaper. And OTC meds like acetaminophen and ibuprofen, cold pills -- big bottles for less money is a good thing. CVS is our local pharmacy, and they are a dreadful company. And they sell their "generic" store brand for just a few dimes less than the name brand. They are very greedy and very red. I'd much rather give my money to Costco.

We love Costco.

edited

Or do they just do bidets or something?

...but I lived with a couple of Japanese guys in England and they had with them what to me were slender watering cans. Not 100% on the process there.

going to provide Medicare, food stamps and assistance to people that work at Wal-Mart and STILL can't make ends meet. Wal-mart encourages employees to go on Medicare, and you get to pay the tab. Why not just pay people a damn decent wage to begin with.

You must mean medicaid.

Just don't buy the jumbo pack of 32 cans of vienna sausages. They sell some things that vendors and small store owners need.

If you can't store 32 rolls of toilet paper (you will use 32 rolls of toilet paper you know), then split it three ways with people.

Saving money and helping left wing entities is a good thing.

Sure, they have some things like that, but they also have hearing aid services which my mother bought for less than half the price she would have elsewhere. Tires are cheaper (no bulk buying), gas is cheaper, and most food things you can buy are not in overwhelming sizes - cereals are double sized, so not that big of a deal.

I moved too far away from my local Costco, so I let my membership lapse but the place is great.

of Kmart now. They went bankrupt several years ago and aren't the same company anymore.

It was, admittedly, years ago, but I've never forgotten how shabbily they treated me for writing an $8.50 check on a $3.50 purchase. K-Mart can do as it pleases, and I do not discourage anyone else from shopping there, but this one is personal to me.

...I mean really it's been 34 years, pretty much anyone that worked there then is gone now, that includes store managers ot board of directors. Not to remention since the bankruptcy it's an entirely new company.

It was that shabby.

which makes you appear non-sensical.

If they changed the sign outside to Sears would you go in then?

But once the face goes away, cutting of the nose of someone else's face is just dumb.

But the only "vote" I have in FreeMarketWorld is my dollar, and none of my dollars go to K-Mart and never will again. As I say, this is a totally personal boycott, I don't ask anyone else to observe it, and I'm not looking for K-Mart to change its ways. It may appear nonsensical to someone else, but since my feelings are my own, I don't need someone else's validation for them.

leave and go elsewhere to talk to a manager and continually raise my voice. Even though I live in a small town, I don't care who knows I will demand customer service. My brother-in-law once took a small tv into a retailer (now defunct) and when they wouldn't make good on the purchase, he walked around the store dragging the tv by the cord!! After a short time, they were happy to work with him on a resolution! Too bad we now have to DEMAND good service because I believe it should be a part of the retailer's product!

:)

I can not believe they STILL use styrofoam cups.

..I won't eat Idaho potatoes either...

Other than the food being awful. Haven't been to one of those in a decade. Can't even believe it still exists.

Yum!

don't know where it is right now,. but you can probably get it online

I get Wal-Mart

Kick fascists below the belt - that's where they keep their wallets.

i loved their food - but their politics are at odds with everything i stand for. i refuse to eat there.

so I can boycott them.

Michael Dell has given tons of money to the right wing loons.

I work in I.T. for a Fortune 200 and we are now getting all of our new computers from Dell. For now it's just corporate and our North America businesses but it may turn out to be a global deal.

Funnily enough, my entire team switched to the new Dell but I refused and stuck with my Lenovo. Maybe, subconsciously, I knew. :)

Dell has their hands in so many computers now, you really don't have much choice.

Worst customer service I've ever had to deal with. They actually charge you *extra* if you want to talk to someone in north america. Anybody who doesn't pay has to deal with call centers in India.

I've managed several lines of customer support for Dell

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=4b4e9dec-d81d-4ff9-b83e-c7aeb7041b9e

Computer-maker Dell Inc. is splitting its tech support into two tiers, with customers who pay an extra fee guaranteed to reach North American tech support staff instead of their Indian counterparts.

The "premium support" service plan, as Dell calls it, will be offered to new customers in the coming weeks.

The announcement comes the same week the company announced it would close its Ottawa call-centre operations and cut 1,100 jobs.

If a customer opts for the service, for which a price has not yet been set, he or she will receive the support for one year -- just long enough to cover the product's warranty period.

as "charge you *extra* if you want to talk to someone in north america. Anybody who doesn't pay has to deal with call centers in India."

I've managed Dell centers in Salt Lake City and in Tampa. I can assure you that there are levels of support in North America that are Premium, and which standard.

Standard support contracts CAN end up in India, or the Phillipines, or in the US. Premium support is guaranteed to go to US.

Also, Dell is running an average 92% customer satisfaction based on responses from independently managed surveys.

You may not like Dell, and that's fine. I don't like them either, thats why I don't work there anymore, but the truth is the truth.

I'm not a fan boy.

:fistbump: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I like it when a DU'er deflates an argument from a position of actually knowing what they are talking about.

Well done.

No fan of Dell either, BTW, but then again, I don't give a fuck about them. A computer is a computer, like a car is a car. Most of the time, you get what you pay for.

Get something designed for future expansion with good value components, and you're looking at 2k for someone else to build, or you could save about 750$ and build it yourself. And they're EASY to build.

to go by? I'd like to do this.

All about building a comp.
http://arstechnica.com/ask-ars/2011/04/how-to-build-your-own-computer-ask-ars-diy-series-part-i.ars
http://arstechnica.com/software/guides/2011/04/ask-ars-computer-building-diy-series-part-ii-software.ars
http://arstechnica.com/software/guides/2011/04/ask-ars-computer-building-diy-series-part-ii-software.ars

And the most recent system guide (Mar'11) with three separate price points (Don't go for the God Box, even if you're a millionaire it's probably not worth it).
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars

I read the first one and look forward to the others.


Cher

Guaranteed North American Tech Support For a Fee Is NOT the same
as "charge you *extra* if you want to talk to someone in north america.

Yes. It. Is.

:rofl:

We had the worst experience ever with Dell when we received a faulty laptop that was never properly repaired. We were forced to make weekly, even daily phone calls, send repeated emails, mail various parts of the laptop for "repairs," all to little avail. It was a dismal experience. We were consistently lied to and hurried off the phone. We were told to email so-and-so who would "definitely fix" our situation and then we would hear nothing from the person. This went on for months. Nearly all of the customer service calls were handled by centers in India -- and this frequently resulted in communication problems and disconnected calls.

I will never. ever. never. ever. buy a Dell computer again.

It's very frustrating trying to get a problem solved when you can't understand them and they can't understand you. I'm sure they're very qualified at what they do, but having to ask them to please repeat what they've just said 4 or 5 times every single time they talk can really start to get tiresome.

by buying from Dell Small Business. That's what I usually try to do and recommend to others buying from Dell.

I post more on this below.

Sweet machine.

are none on the east coast.

Chick-fil-a was in the food courts at malls in New Jersey and New York 20 years ago. I know because I lived in New Jersey and ate at them. I now live in Maryland and there are several Chick-fil-a stores and mall locations within 10 miles of my house. And NY, NJ and MD are definitely east coast states. I know that I should not give the religious whack-job that owns Chick-fil-a my money, but sometimes a McD's chicken sandwich just doesn't cut it. I have however cut back on going to Chick-fil-a so they aren't getting as much of my money as they used to.

They don't exploit their workers, give decent benefits.

Truett Cathy is very, very old. I suppose his son Don runs Chick Fil A,

I'm part of the GLBT community but I won't boycott Chik Fil A since there are some good things about them too including the scholarships they give (and have always given) to kids at risk.

:cry:

not only not boycott them, but to use social media to promote chicfila as a supporter of marriage equality. And even go so far as to what we did to the local denny's when I was younger and that was we'd have regular "family" gatherings there and basically take over the place.
They clearly aren't going to be harmed by the lack of your business or your postings on DU.
But imagine the look on their face if they started becoming known for having a reputation that was supportive of gay marriage.

Edit: By the way, last I checked nobody was interested. Seems people think that a religious zealot is motivated more by money than by his ideals. And he isn't. If he was there'd be a chickfila everywhere you look. Boycotts will do no good in this case.

to make sure I'm not buying ANYTHING made by the evil Georgia-Pacific.

As far as Red Lobster, I ate there once about 20 years ago, and that was one time too many. Nasty stuff.

employees. That has to cost them a bunch as the fixed costs are spread over 6 days rather than 7.

But of course it's about religion in this case. Which is a bullshit reason in my opinion.

school I worked at a KFC as a shift manager. 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. I would have liked a day off every week. If the reason was the owner's religion I would not have cared.

they are an LDS based company.

Time for church and young women's society and the like....nothing to do with caring about their employees.

Cathy is a Baptist...

sP

I stand corrected.....LDS/Baptist...still spend alot of time in church on Sundays

I am confused...but this is nothing new. I THINK you are saying that LDS are equal to Baptists...and if you're not a big fan of religion then I can see where that would apply (and I have no problem with it) but those two are COMPLETELY different religions.

sP

but both religions, LDS and Baptists, spend alot of time at church on Sundays

we were out by noon...but that was so we could beat the crowds at the local restaurants ;-)

sP

nt

and the NFL didn't start 'til 1PM usually (east coaster!) so we were good on that!

sP

Is it bad that I drive by churches on Sunday, on my way to a sports bar, and think "those poor guys are stuck in there"?

:-)

I enjoy worship and learning time...but to be honest...Sunday is also a day of rest to me. I work all week; bust my hump Friday afternoon and Saturday to get the 'home-work' done (working in the yard today in the 95F heat is going to suck) and I want some of my Sunday for R&R...

sP

school I worked at a KFC as a shift manager. 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. I would have liked a day off every week. If the reason was the owner's religion I would not have cared.

for keeping a "B" average while never calling off "sick" during his employ with the company. I don't eat there often, because my son doesn't like the food, but I wouldn't boycott them.

After they entered into an an agreement with HUD back in 2000...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson#Agreement_of_2000

Fortunately... the boycott was a great success, and even though the agreement is still technically binding, it hasn't been adhered to in ages.

Haven't bought any since the WI situation started and I wrote both to tell them (not that they care).

Wisconsin. Gave up Perri products too until I can figure out whether I can use their Italian sausage.

Owner is a RW Fundie Catholic tool. Plus, their pizza sucks ass.

But now I won't ever eat it. And not hard to give up. Food is gross. Only appeal was them being open late and being one of a few places that delivers to my house.

to Mittens I think

They are screwing us. Turn about is fair play. Screw them. Screw the hell out of them.

refusing to hire gays.
There was a rather successful boycott of them on the Gulf Coast back in early 90's for that reason.

Georgia Pacific products=Koch brothers. Problem is, Georgia Pacific hires a lOT of people in our area,
for the local mills, but has also been buying up a LOT of local mills which had to close because of the economy, so GP got them at fire sale prices, made everyone take early retirement, then hired other people at much lower wages and benefits.
Booooooooooooo....

And with this info it'll stay that way. Thanks!

"Welcome to Cracker Barrel, would you like some grits with your homophobia?"

... (never forgave them for evading responsibility for Valdez) Dominos (ketchup on a cracker though I hear their pizza has improved the dipshit owner has not), Shell (treated like crap at their stations multiple times, won't buy anything there any more).

I used to thing Lowe's was better than Home Depot (and I spent literally thousands there last year) but at a bar recently saw a big old Lowe's logo behind the talking head-cases on Fox so now I'm torn.

Already mostly boycott Chick-Fil-A, have eaten there about twice in the last decade.

shell gas since 1984 - exxon - bp - marriott hotel - oreck - applebees - anyone who ever advertised on limpbag's program - charles schwab since we found out that they were big bush backers - UMB - Bank of America - Wells Fargo .... the list has grown exponentially over the years, but now it's rather fun to just add another to it

welcome to boycotting!

we vote with our dollars

- it is the little guy on the totem pole - the workers - and they end up getting hours cut or laid off. I'd prefer not to have a hand in someone losing their job especially since they're not easy to replace these day.

As far as everyones favorite target Wal-Mart, I worked at Wal-Mart, K=Mart and Target
Wal Mart was by far and away better on its treatment of employees

unless I'm traveling), products with HFCS in it, and BP stations.

During the Vietnam War, when I learned that Dow Chemical was responsible for napalm, I vowed never to purchase their products. I've kept that vow to the best of my ability (given that they may have subsidiary companies I don't know about). And that's been a long time!

I know people who crave those sandwiches, and the first time I had one I really wasn't all that impressed with it ( even found it odd that there was a pickle with this soggy chicken sandwich )

And I've been through the South.

They've bought up so damn many companies.

But they are so evil it's breathtaking...

My original gripe (and apparently it's still going on, damn them) is over their practice of sending women dressed as nurses into hospitals to pitch how great their formula is for newborns. It's expensive and of course nowhere near as good as mother's milk. By the time the new moms figure out how awful and expensive it is, their own milk has dried up. So the moms dilute the stuff so they can afford it.

Wretched behavior on Nestle's part. Plus they do whatever they can to buy up various water sources, including lying to the voters and etc.

Scummy bastards, and they are buying up companies all the time.

The sponsored Rush Limbaugh in the early days for a long time there. I didn't want to support THAT.

The more people who stop buying crap masquerading as food, the sooner real taste comes back to food.

When they refused to support a ban on 'concealed-carry' in their stores, I gave them up for good. What the hell good is all their reputed charity work and Third-World benefit donations if some bad-tempered asshole can just unlimber his piece and pop off on a bunch of other customers if he feels the line is moving too slowly?

I started going to a locally-owned & run coffee shop where the coffee is just as good, if not better, the barista on duty during the time I usually show up in the morning is much hotter, and the money stays in the neighborhood and supports a small business.

:hangover:

Not only is the coffee fresher, it's not burned. Not that there is anything wrong with liking French Roast, but when every roast you have is over roasted you lose a lot of the subtle flavors. Thanks for supporting locals, it provides a job for people like me:)

I'm boycotting them as well

.....due to the RW fundie, anti-gay marriage connection. I will not support a company that participates in the denial of equal rights for everyone.

I'm boycotting the NFL until Vick is relieved from the league. There are a few others (Wal-Mart, etc.), but not watching football has turned out to be a really serious drag.

but I'm over it now.

PS - I hope Jack In The Box doesn't fund RW 'family values' (and I use the term VERY lightly) organizations because I am in love with their 2/$0.99 tacos.

What is a Chik-Fil-A? :shrug:

I think. ;-) Looks like a heart attack on a plate but I guess to each his/her own. :shrug:

Apparently his stomach knows junk food too!

of the Minnesota Republican Party.

I haven't eaten there since I found that out.

The only time I ever bought anything at WalMart was when I was volunteering in Mississippi after Katrina and literally no other retail outlet was available to buy over-the-counter meds and first aid supplies to donate to the relief center.

I used to buy from the Mystery Book Club regularly, but then I found a local store (Uncle Edgar's) that has a much better selection of literary-quality and foreign mysteries, as well as employees who know everything there is to know about the mystery genre.

I still won't buy Domino's pizza either because of their former CEO's anti-abortion stance.

Mind you I'll eat the pizza if someone else bought it but if someone is buying and ask for a recommendation I'll go with some local place like Season's. I also won't eat Grotto's Pizza (a local fav here in Delaware) simply because it's crappy pizza and the fact they would have GOP campaign signs in front of all their stores.

Good on you.

It's just to self-serving and there are WAY too many characters.

to redeem the coupon for a free chicken sandwich that I get for donating platelets at the blood bank.

Never buy anything there, though.

I'd go in on a group investment: a High Pressure Deep Fryer: the secret to Chik-Fil-A

The only people you are hurting are the workers of Chik-Fil-A who are probably liberals who are lucky to have a job in this economy. If you like it, eat it. You have no idea where all the money from your chicken sandwich goes but probably very little of it actually goes to the Owner. Most of it goes to the local restaurant where you buy your food and its employees.

I believe that boycott that advocated "disinvestment" in South Africa during the 1980s in opposition to that country's apartheid regime was quite successful; as was the OPEC's oil embargo to the US in '73. Under Gandhi, the Indian peoples successfully boycotted all British trade goods; the United Farm Workers union's boycott of grapes and lettuce.

All of these invariably cost individuals not merely their jobs, but heart-ache, homes and lives in some cases also I would imagine. However, to me it appears that overall, a much greater good was accomplished in each case.

...during the civil war. They produced the gun powder that propelled the minie ball that killed him during the
Battle of the Wilderness.

...in the US that supported right wing, fascist horseshit in one way or another, I'd end up never leaving my house.

Which is how I believe Ted Kaczynski got started.

So far, I haven't really been proved wrong with this system. It's not perfect, either. Nor is it the only criteria I use.
But face it, Chik-Fil-A is SUCH an ugly name, it alone is worth boycotting for.

McDonalds
Burger King
(actually, every burger chain - we have TWO locally owned old-fashioned drive-ins with veggie burgers, one with carhops)
Wal-Mart.
Safeway.
Starbucks. (not really a boycott, I just don't drink coffee. But if I did, I wouldn't get it there.)
Burger Me - another AWFUL name. I wanted to make bumper stickers that said "Burger Me with a corn dog!"

It's not exactly a boycott, but I just don't buy much stuff. I fix stuff, make furniture, participate in a large 'pass unused stuff around for free' culture, don't do disposable, etc. How else can you live comfortably with nearly no income?

recent purchases:
audio/MIDI interface for defective laptop I fixed
pen for 'obsolete' wacom 12x12 tablet I was given
terabyte hard drive (for laptop and W2K desktop)
super glue, carpenter's glue, table saw blade
a variety of parts to repair a piano

And like I said before, all the boycotts in the world aren't going to change this.
The guy wants to be known for this stuff and a boycott only helps him.

Then any way I can to avoid using Koch Bros. products.

meals that were as good as I have made myself so I kept 10 or so on hand, then one day they changed the ingredients in these meals. The meat is pure scrap, I don't eat scrap and will never buy anything with the name Betty Crocker (General Mills) as long as I live. I contacted the Company and let them know about the scrap meat.

loaded with sodium.

And I never will after the story about them surfaced a few years ago. Seems the corporation got all the stores to put religious crap in all the kids' meals. Indoctrination with a capital 'We're fucked.'

I REALLY miss their waffle fries, but I will never eat there again because of the ownership's donations.

Where are these things, anyway? Never heard of it before, it's not in the Northeast.