Role-Play Debate for course EngC 1015

Seriously, I'm sure all of you have had horrific experiences at Wal*Mart.. I mean it is Wal*Mart. Yuck...Wal*Mart is by far more evil then Target. From my experiences at Wal*Mart, nothing ever goes right. First of all, if you're going to Wal*Mart make sure you at least give yourself 30 spare minutes since it takes forever to check-out. Granted they have 25 check out lanes but usually no more than 5 are ever open. Secondly, Wal*Mart employees are not smart. I'm not trying to be mean, but when it takes five employees to find something in the store- it's kind of ridiculous. Third, their produce is disgusting and moldy!! Be careful if you buy food there that isn't in a box... chances are it's expired. Fourth, looking around at the environment you will see all sorts of people. The younger kids goofing around in the toys, older people at the Pharmacy, parents yelling at their kids to stop begging for food.... etc. It seems like Wal*Mart attracts a much different type of "crowd" than Target does. This is a very interesting conversation and can relate to our lives, and who doesn't love to rag on Wal*Mart!? There are a million things that we can say for both sides so I highly suggest we talk about this one!!

I agree with Kayla on basically every point...haven't experienced the moldy food though yet. Why is it opened 24 hours anyways? I never understood why stores are open 24 hours...who honestly needs something at 2 a.m. that they couldn't just wait until 9 a.m. or something when it opens?? The grocery store I worked at back home was open 24 hours and not only is it a pain to sometimes have to work so late but the people that come in are shady during those hours! Is it really that important to have your gummy worms right at 3 a.m.?!

wow, kayla, not to be a jerk, but i don't think your shopping experience (or anyone's) is the point of the debate. I mean " Secondly, Wal*Mart employees are not smart. I'm not trying to be mean, but when it takes five employees to find something in the store- it's kind of ridiculous. " is just a ridiculous statement. It's because most of the time wal mart employees are poor, exploited people who never had the oppurtunities of a good education, abused by wal-mart and other "but-we-give-jobs-to-people-so-we're-ok" companies, and also who probably don't really care if you can find this or that in a store because they're human beings with their own lives. The issue on walmart wouldn't be "it sucks to shop here more", it'd be about the exploitation, the enormous abuse of corporate power, disenfranchisement, destruction of small businesses, environmental effects, if they can put an entire canal through guatemala simply to save money, which would pretty much destroy the culture and everything in it, take precious land away from powerless people, and set a precidence for what corporations can get away with, turning guatemala into an ever poorer nation.
So if we want to argue the big issues, I'm all for that, but if we want to argue "where's it more convienent to shop?" then i don't even know how to express my feelings on that.

OK, if this isn't a debate topic then we aren't reading the blogs. John and Kayla just had a serious debate on whether Wal-Mart is more evil AND why. If we want to really get engaged in this debate blog part of class, then maybe we should include this topic as one of them. Two massive companies expanding throughout the world....someone has to be doing a little more of the shoving than the other one.

While I wouldn't go as far to say all of us have had "horrific" experiences at Wal-Mart, we've all probably had unpleasant ones. I think this would be a great topic to debate for many reasons. One is this is a globalization class, and Wal-Mart is a great example of a company that's definitely globalizing. Also, Target is headquartered in Minneapolis so it has that local tie-in too.