Attaboy

My fellow LI’er Michele unintentionally (or not…) opened a can of worms on her site when she made the comparison between Wal-Mart and Target. In spite of being extremely funny and mostly true, she’s apparently hit a nerve with a few of her readers who believed she was being “elitist” for picking on the ‘necks who shop at Wal-Mart.

Well, I go out of my way not to be elitist about anything, although I could be. For example, I have a great job and very likely make more money than a lot of people who shop at Wal-Mart. My kid is better looking then a lot of their fat, pimpled, video-game addicted tykes. I drive a nicer car, which, where I live, means the paint on the roof hasn’t been sun fried into a combination of rust and diseased-looking blotches. The Chevy also doesn’t have that fake, self-installed window tinting that bubbles up and peels at the edges three days after you slap it on. Oh, yeah, it has all it’s bumpers, too. I have inched closer to ‘Neck-dom by recently purchasing a pickup truck. But the truck, a ’94 Toyota, is in better visual and mechanical condition than most of the newer trucks I see in the W-M parking lot, since I actually wash it after I’m done dragging stuff around in it.

In all seriousness, I have to agree with nearly everything Michele says in her contrast between the two discounters. And, to emphasize what she said, this isn’t about Tiffanys vs. Big Lots. This is the difference between two discount chains. This is a distinction that many of Michele’s angry respondents failed to grasp.

I can walk out of my neighborhood, turn right, walk another quarter-mile and visit both a Wal-Mart SuperCenter (which includes a full-sized grocery store) and a brand new Target, right across the highway from one another. I see a big difference between the kind of people that shop at the Target and the Wal-Mart. Listen, all I have to do is drive a few miles south to hit territory where the nice plush homes and panoramic views of the river give way to mobile homes propped up on bricks and residents who’s family trees probably don’t branch. This isn’t elitist, it’s fact: the people who live in my neighborhood and the communities around me shop in Target and Publix. The Wal-Mart crowd is the redneck contingent from the local sticks. You can see it just by strolling through the parking lot. Most of the local Wal-Mart’s customers drive in from the outer reaches of the county, where the cable, and in some cases, the water and electricity doesn’t go.

Now, the defense of the Wal-Mart ethic comes from no less than Doc Searles, who paints an interesting comparison between the snooty eliticism of the northeastern press (and their attitudes about Wal-Mart), and the people who actually run companies like Wal-Mart. He relates the time he had lunch with Lee Scott, Wal-mart’s CEO, and discovered what was behind the long-entrenched attitude behind the chain’s success:

(Scott) was a very down-to-earth guy, honest and likeable. Among other things, he told me what I had said in my speech about companies having souls was absolutely true. Wal-Mart had a soul. It was, in its heart, still a five-and-dime from Bentonville, and old Sam Walton’s spirit was still running the company. For better and worse, Wal-Mar still expressed what Sam was all about. Country sensibility, friendliness, low prices. Fine architecture and a taste for The Better Things were low priority at best. High priorities included giving jobs as greeters to old people, and leading employees in the company cheer.

So perhaps there’s some reality in the sick humor I’ve expressed here regarding the typical Wal-mart shopper. There’s no need for you to get offended, except perhaps at the snotty attitude of the new York Times and their fellow wine-sippers. Wal-Mart is not only trying to attract you as a customer. They thrive on it.