The Duality Of Wal-Mart

I would like to open my story with a quote from Stanley Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket'

COLONEL: Marine, what is that button on your body armor?
JOKER: A peace symbol, sir.
COLONEL: Where'd you get it?
JOKER:I don't remember, sir.
COLONEL:What is that you've got written on your helmet?
JOKER: "Born to Kill," sir.
COLONEL:You write "Born to Kill" on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?!
JOKER: No, sir.
COLONEL:You'd better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you!
JOKER:Yes, sir.
COLONEL: Now answer my question or you'll be standing tall before the man.
JOKER:I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
COLONEL:The what?
JOKER:The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.

The 'duality of man' - that is why I wanted to talk about every one's favourite company to love and hate - Wal Mart Corporation.

Well, I know that they are portrayed as a big evil corporate giant. Hell, a guy named Robert Greenwald even made a film about how nasty they are - 'High Cost Of The Low Price' - I saw it, it made them look like Satan and his Glitterati of demons. I am not going to make all kinds of quotes about Wal Mart and how nasty and evil they are, as I myself shop there. ( ducking the eggs!)

However, they do have human beings , even caring ones that are part of the management team - I have proof:

My son's school Principal and I had an idea about starting an after school program - of course, you had to know it: money was involved. Not a huge amount, we wanted to buy a couple of Lego Mindstorms kits.

( for those of you that do not know, this is a robotics development kit that Lego sells - really slick).

So, as the story goes, these things retail for $249.00 apiece - he and I convinced the PTG to buy one if the school budget would jag in for the other.

I had another bright idea - I would go out to the community and see if I could drum up some funds to offset these.

The first company I approached was Wal Mart - I see their ads all the time for "..we give back to the community.." and "..we care about..." . Being the huge cynic that I am , I figured that it would get me nowhere , but I thought, it is only going to cost me a few minutes on the phone , pretending to like the person that I am talking to.

So, I called the local Wal Mart here in Manchester NH - I got a nice gal by the name of Veronica on the phone. I started giving her my pitch about how I was looking for money from the community , yada, yada, yada..

Well, much to my surprise, Wal Mart , at the store level can give out up to $75.00 for things like this, at the discretion of the manager. Hey, all I had to do was draft a letter on my son's school's letter head and get it over to this nice woman. Easy enough.

In about 7 or 8 days, my phone rang and it was Veronica from Wal Mart calling me back - "...hello, Glen, I have a $50.00 Wal Mart gift card here for you - you can pick it up, just bring some ID.."

Shyeah!!

Needless to say, I bought the Mindstorms kits from Wal Mart using their site-to-store service. Cost my son's school $50.00 less :)

I guess people and/or corporations aren't pure evil. This is the sort of stuff that you never see on the evening news.

Peace everyone.

Glen