Corporate Brainwashing - Target Style

They know how to play all the angles and they have exec brains dealing smoothly with all the town folks. It's just how some of the big companies massage the opinions of hardened affiliates and small program owners here, it's not very hard.

I was just reading from on of my FB groups that Walmart, target, and some other "big box" stores were going to be opening up in Panama. Some people, namely Panamanians, were happy about this. Other, expatriats living in Panama were boohooing about it. They were talking about how terrible this globalization thing was, and that they hated the diluting of panamanian business and products from the global market, etc....

I pointed out that perhaps it would be better to go back to a time when you could only find local products in the local shops all over the world, when there was no access to goods from other countries.....However, that was only great if you were wealthy enough to travel from place to place, and enjoy the charm and interest of exploring the local shops and products in each place you visited.

However, it sucked if you were a poor local and could not afford to travel to different countries and browse their local bazaars. If you couldnt afford to travel you were therefore locked out of access to any goods but the local ones.

People seem quite quick to deny others the access to global markets that they themselves already enjoy, simply because it offends their esthetic sensibilities.





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Also,

I've opened and run call centers where we paid a very good wage....and I still had to train, and retrain, and remind, and remind again, our employees about good customer service.




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Most people have no real awareness of how/why big stores took over and crushed small stores. How many of you here remember all the bullshit fax meme crap all over any small business? Any garage, parts store, hardware store or whatever... most of those same businesses which were crushed by large chains...

The basic general attitude in a small town was "fuck you" to the customers. Obviously not in every case, but that was the general attitude. Improving customer service, listening to customers, giving people what they want etc etc etc for the most part, is a newer thing.

This sounds absurd... but think back. Remember these kinds of signs all over? Behind counters? Taped to cash registers? You could walk into any small business practically and there was a general feeling of "you need us", not "we need you".

I guess I don't get it.

I use stores and services where I appreciate the service. If a store doesn't have good service, I just buy online.

I shop at Target and typically their service is pretty decent.

So they replaced on old store that was dirty with high prices and grumpy employees with a brand new store that is clean with low prices and happy employees and not only employe more people, but also have increased our the tax revenue for our little city while supporting our local community in a way that the old store never could.

I can't seem to see a downside here. I'm looking for one, I wasn't happy when Wal Mart was going to be parking itself directly in the center of our little town, but I can't find the downside yet.