Dockworkers strike

frequentflier

frequentflier

happy to be living
TPD said:
And if you are buying on amazon or chewy, how do you get suggestions? We are always giving suggestions to our customers based on our own experiences and those of other customers. What is that suggestion worth to you? $1, $5, $10?

True story about Chewy - 15 years ago or more, a dog food salesman/owner came into our store with a new line of pet food made in Delaware. We took a chance with him and said yeah, we will sell your product. #1 because it was somewhat local, #2 because he wasn't selling it to the big box stores. Fast forward about 10 years, after we built up our business selling his product, his kids take over the business and start dealing with Chewy, who his selling the same bags of dog food for $2-$5 cheaper than us. Guess what happened - the kids stopped returning our calls for orders, our inventory shrunk, our customers started going to Chewy. Our customers mainly went to Chewy to save $3 on a $50 bag of dog food, but as the company wasn't delivering product to us in a timely fashion, our customers were then forced to buy from Chewy since we didn't always have what they wanted, though we were trying our best. After 2 or 3 years on Chewy, something happened with this product. Not sure if Chewy kicked them to the curb or if they got overwhelmed trying to keep up with demand, but you couldn't buy from Chewy, so our customers started coming back to us. Unfortunately, we still don't always have the product in stock because our sales went down so the company doesn't deliver to us in a timely fashion because of our location and the amount of product we are purchasing relative to their other dealers. If their father, who has since passed, knew what his kids were doing with the company, he would give them a swift kick in the ass. It was stores like mine who took a chance with the company and helped them build their business. We have been almost 2 months with this company trying to get our latest delivery. I would really like to tell this company to F*ck off, but the dogs really like their product and we have had some customers that have stuck with us through all of the trials and tribulations with them. But the vicious cycle of these large internet stores are the detriment to small communities all over the country, as vrai has been trying to explain.

Concerning your farmer's market experiences - you apparently are not going to the right ones. The markets sponsored by the county state that what you sell there has to be grown locally. Beware of the Amish - they are business folks like everyone else and what they sell or say is not what it always seems. I've dealt with them for almost 40 years so I know what I'm talking about when I say this.


I know exactly the point you are making. I have tried explaining in the past as well, but you are more articulate than myself. I'm not in the hardware business to get rich. When I opened this store 20+ years ago, it was with the community in mind. We do so much for the community that Amazon and Chewy and the Government don't provide. And I treat my employees fairly. Unlike big box stores who will send their employees home on slow days, my employees work their scheduled hours - I have never sent an employee home because it's slow, except for maybe the last hour on Christmas Eve, where I will stay behind to close but still pay the employee for the full day! There are many days we lose money because my labor expense is more than my GPM, but I need my employees. We need this store here in Ridge! It irks the sh!t out of me when I hear friends or part-time customers order a 4pk of lightbulbs from Amazon, the same 4pk we sell on aisle 7! C'mon man - I can see going to the internet for things you can't find locally, but lightbulbs and toilet paper?!? And guess what, it will be those same friends and part-time customers that will be blowing my phone up during a natural disaster looking for generators or chainsaws because a tree fell on their house, expecting me to give them priority. How do you think the flags get placed on the poles every year? How do you think the rescue squad is able to do their quarter auction? How do you think the fire department carnival is able to give away bikes to the kids every year? How do you think the American Legion can have a turkey shoot every Sunday? Have you seen our storage room today - filled with donations from the community for the hurricane victims because we are the only ones in the community with business hours that people can drop in any time to drop off these items rather than wait for the non-profits or volunteers to open a place later today. Wake up people! Communities need small businesses who employee actual human beings to keep the community alive and functioning, especially during natural disasters.

End of rant!
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I know exactly who you are talking about! And there are many other brands and companies that my small store(s) sold and promoted products for with the promise that they would never sell out to big box... and every single one of them eventually did. And as my small business no longer mattered to them, it was difficult to get good deals or specials. Several of them tried to lure my customers into buying directly from them and not from me.
In the early days, I loved going to trade/buying shows and meeting reps and sometimes owners of the manufacturing businesses; learning about new products and getting freebies to give away.
In the later days, I was glad when my lease was up and I could get out of the pet business. Chewy and Amazon helped make the decision. Despite having some loyal customers, I lost a lot during covid and I just couldn't compete or keep up with paying the bills. I couldn't compete with Chewy sending people a dozen roses when their pet passed, their pricing and the convenience of it being deliver to their doorstep.
My chiropractor is in Leonardtown and I shop at Earthwise Pet for my pet's needs. They are a small, struggling business but offer great customer service and try to keep what I buy regularly in stock (and will order it if it is not)
TPD, I was in your store recently and bought some light bulbs and a few other things. I know how much you do for the community and appreciate it even if I don't live near by. My friend said the light bulbs would be cheaper at WalMart and I said I would rather support your small business :)
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
TPD said:
And if you are buying on amazon or chewy, how do you get suggestions?
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Since you asked about CHEWY - I don't do suggestions. My cats will eat blankety blank cat food and will die rather than eat something else. It's amazing, but those damned animals have gone days without eating, because the food isn't the one they like. If they get ravenous, they will burrow into the trash, the pantry or swallow a taste of the food they don't want and then slowly get thin. Or barf.

If it were up to me, I'd get rid of them entirely, but - the family wants them. During the pandemic, I learned most wet cat food is actually made in Thailand of all places. The stores didn't have it. Like, at all.

But CHEWY did. For five bucks less a box than the stores. And they slash costs for subscriptions above a certain amount.

This isn't altruism - or a lack of it.

During the pandemic, no one had pool chemicals. Presumably a manufacturing plant "blew up" and we were reliant for overseas stuff. Two pool companies sold the stuff - for double the price. NO ONE ELSE HAD IT. Once stores carred the product - at about 80% increase in price - I swallowed hard and bought it anyway. I've never quite believed JUST HOW MANY industries had manufacturing plants blow up or catch on fire.

I just didn't have a choice. I have this much money, and that much price. This isn't saving a nickel on gas or a dime on milk - this is whether the g-damned pool turns into a puddle of algae - or not.

I try to buy local - or AMERICAN, which I think is MORE important - when I can. But if American products are inferrior and cost more, too damned bad. That IS the way capitalism is supposed to work. Japan used to have this whole loyalty thing in their businesses in the 80s and 90d and it killed them. They'd make these arrangements where they would always buy within their (business circle) <-- don't remember what it was called - and it choked them, because one or two failing businesses would kill them all. You can patronize local - or not - but if they're not even close cost-wise, you might as well just donate the money to them. I don't have that kind of money. People with money to burn can do that.

You make a better product at a good price.

ANYWAY ----

Back to the dockworkers - reading more and more - I have less and less sympathy. I thought they were longsuffering guys doing backbreaking work for sht wages in horrible conditions with no chance to make more. Not only not correct - but their jobs are becoming like the guys who make buggy whips and shoe horses. The rest of the world throws its hands in the air when ships come here, because it's like computers that still run on DOS - it's antiquated. And what do they want? A GUARANTEE of no automation.

Your time has come and gone. You had a good deal offered and you passed on it. Sorry. NO sympathy.
 
stgislander

stgislander

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
WMAL just reported that Ron DeSantis is calling up FL National and State Guard units to be ready to go to the ports. He's in talks with stakeholders and waiving fees and weight limits of FL highways.
 
Kyle

Kyle

Beloved Misanthrope
PREMO Member
i’m not sure what’s more disturbing, the idea of working eight hours a day for years and years taking tolls, or the revelation reading that article that they had a union.

Can’t wait for the greeters at Walmart and Costco to get together for a collective bargaining unit.
 
TPD

TPD

the poor dad
vraiblonde said:
Again, the man isn't wrong:

www.foxbusiness.com

Port strike union boss rails against EZPass, self-checkout: 'Machines got to stop'

International Longshoreman's Association President Harold Daggett is against automation, and condemned EZPass automated tolls and self-checkouts in a recent interview.
www.foxbusiness.com www.foxbusiness.com
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Ez pass - don’t get me started. Here in Maryland no more people manning toll booths. If you don’t have an ez pass you get charged double! That’s BS. Not everyone has a credit card they can link to get an ez pass. We could probably say it is racist to charge more for non ez pass drivers. And it’s no damn way it costs the state $4.50 MORE to process a non ez pass car. And for those people that say oh it’s not free to take cash and deposit it. It’s also not free to keep up with the technology for credit cards – new card readers every couple of years, the downtime, and the phone support time, and of course the 2 1/2% plus transaction fee on every credit card taken. Credit cards are not cheap! I would like to see what the cost is for those ez pass readers at bridges and toll roads to install. Not only the cost of them and the installation cost but then the maintenance and upkeep. And then the backend systems for processing everything. And then don’t give me the BS line about the theft of cash among employees and people in general. There’s just as much theft and scams with credit cards, you are just paying for it a different way. But I don’t want to derail this thread on dockworkers.
 
black dog

black dog

Free America
phreddyp said:
Bottom line is this, employers do not owe anyone a job other than ones they chose to owe a job. They pay what they need to pay to fill the position at their own discretion. If you really had any idea what the percentage of union employees that are basically worthless you would be appalled!
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I knew none in 20 plus years of working in the Union Skilled Trades. You might be thinking of the auto workers.
 
black dog

black dog

Free America
SamSpade said:
All of the shows in the 60's, especially sitcoms, were all over this - you would be replaced by a machine - except the machines were idiots and sometimes malevolent.

The REASON why they created more jobs is - more STUFF was able to be DONE by them.

I remember when they used to report the DOW nightly on the news - and the volume of trading. They don't report on that much, but suffice it to say, it has grown by several orders of magnitude. Whole industries have completely transformed, because of automation and integration of computers. It's not just easier for people - they can do more and serve more people.
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I'm 66 plus, I'm fully aware how it worked.
 
black dog

black dog

Free America
vraiblonde said:
I'm not sure if that's true because we have more poor and underemployed in this country than we've ever had (not counting, say, the Great Depression). That's just a sense, I don't have hard data to back it up. In other words, I'm talking out my ass. But I think it to be true unless someone wants to run the numbers and show me that I'm wrong. I'm willing to concede that I'm influenced by news reports and everything is peachy.
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Because it's easier to piss, moan and cry and learn to live on the 900 bucks a month they got in ssdi payments or take some bullshit job for 16 bucks an hour than get better educated and get a much better paying career. By and large Americans a ****ing lazy turds.
If we want to make folks get back to work, cut off the free benefits they get. Stop subsidizing people.
Once they get uncomfortable and hungry, they will go to work.
 
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