New Year's Resolution
I read the following today on someone's new year's resolution.......
"I spent an hour at Best Buy this morning and walked out without buying the item I came to purchase. My son needs a laptop, they had the model I wanted in stock, unfortunately they only had one sales associate for the ten people milling around the computer department. I was number two in line, but the guy in front of me had three million questions and didn’t seem to give a shit that others were patiently waiting for attention. The manager I hunted down didn’t seem to give a shit either. I bought the thing from the company direct online after I got home. Free shipping, too.
Lowes didn’t schedule anyone to staff the paint department at ten in the morning last Tuesday. After a futile, thirty minute wait for the manager to find someone to mix up a can of white, I headed over to the ceiling fan section and discovered nobody on staff there either. The small Benjamin Moore store got my paint business and a local lighting company snagged two hundred bucks in a quick exchange.
Macy’s shoe department gave me a migraine. Two harried girls trying to wait on fifty women does not make for a pleasant shopping experience. At Marni’s, a little jewel box of a local shop, the charming owner waited on me and had three less pairs of shoes in stock when I walked out the door thirty minutes later.
The checkers at Target and Walmart appear to be drugged on Thorazine, deciphering the balkanized Spanglish or Ebonics at fast food drive-thru’s is an endemic pastime and suffering the illiterate thugs working the return desk at any big box store is a brutal nightmare.
I am tired of being treated like rabble, a cockroach annoyance that must be endured by the hired help when I choose to take my time and money to shop at these anonymous places of business. Yes, I’ll spend a little more out-of-pocket going local and small, but at least I won’t feel enraged, disgusted or abused when I walk out the door. I might even feel quite satisfied after spending my money."
How's that for putting it out there?
I feel the same way......oh I do......and do a pretty darned good job of what I like to call "local shopping".
I spend the vast majority of my grocery dollars at the Corner Market owned by my friend Forest Roberts. I spend pretty much all of my fine dining money at my friend Robert St John's, Purple Parrot restaurant.
I spend 80% of my fast food dollars at Wards instead of McDonalds.
And I could go on and on - but the truth is, I could do better.
I HAVE to go to Sam's. I can't help it - they have what I want and need for my cooking mania. I slip into Wal-Mart once a month for the "essentials" for the bathroom and find myself stocking up on staple items because it's so much cheaper.
But each time I do that, I swear I find myself feeling sick about it.
I shop on the internet because I can find exactly what I want and always get it cheaper than if I got it in a store.
And truthfully, since so many home-owned businesses have been pushed out by the big boys, there are lots of things that I just can't find locally anymore.
But, with all that said, I am still going to make a push this year to work even harder at supporting my local establishments.
It's better for me, it's better for my community and it's certainly better for the economy as a whole.
How about you??
Peace
"I spent an hour at Best Buy this morning and walked out without buying the item I came to purchase. My son needs a laptop, they had the model I wanted in stock, unfortunately they only had one sales associate for the ten people milling around the computer department. I was number two in line, but the guy in front of me had three million questions and didn’t seem to give a shit that others were patiently waiting for attention. The manager I hunted down didn’t seem to give a shit either. I bought the thing from the company direct online after I got home. Free shipping, too.
Lowes didn’t schedule anyone to staff the paint department at ten in the morning last Tuesday. After a futile, thirty minute wait for the manager to find someone to mix up a can of white, I headed over to the ceiling fan section and discovered nobody on staff there either. The small Benjamin Moore store got my paint business and a local lighting company snagged two hundred bucks in a quick exchange.
Macy’s shoe department gave me a migraine. Two harried girls trying to wait on fifty women does not make for a pleasant shopping experience. At Marni’s, a little jewel box of a local shop, the charming owner waited on me and had three less pairs of shoes in stock when I walked out the door thirty minutes later.
The checkers at Target and Walmart appear to be drugged on Thorazine, deciphering the balkanized Spanglish or Ebonics at fast food drive-thru’s is an endemic pastime and suffering the illiterate thugs working the return desk at any big box store is a brutal nightmare.
I am tired of being treated like rabble, a cockroach annoyance that must be endured by the hired help when I choose to take my time and money to shop at these anonymous places of business. Yes, I’ll spend a little more out-of-pocket going local and small, but at least I won’t feel enraged, disgusted or abused when I walk out the door. I might even feel quite satisfied after spending my money."
How's that for putting it out there?
I feel the same way......oh I do......and do a pretty darned good job of what I like to call "local shopping".
I spend the vast majority of my grocery dollars at the Corner Market owned by my friend Forest Roberts. I spend pretty much all of my fine dining money at my friend Robert St John's, Purple Parrot restaurant.
I spend 80% of my fast food dollars at Wards instead of McDonalds.
And I could go on and on - but the truth is, I could do better.
I HAVE to go to Sam's. I can't help it - they have what I want and need for my cooking mania. I slip into Wal-Mart once a month for the "essentials" for the bathroom and find myself stocking up on staple items because it's so much cheaper.
But each time I do that, I swear I find myself feeling sick about it.
I shop on the internet because I can find exactly what I want and always get it cheaper than if I got it in a store.
And truthfully, since so many home-owned businesses have been pushed out by the big boys, there are lots of things that I just can't find locally anymore.
But, with all that said, I am still going to make a push this year to work even harder at supporting my local establishments.
It's better for me, it's better for my community and it's certainly better for the economy as a whole.
How about you??
Peace
posted by KK at 3:06 PM
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