I did two interesting things today, one that felt really bad, and one that felt really good.
The first was the bad thing. Remember a while back when there was reports about how Walmart was screening videos decrying how, if Obama was elected, the fair pay act would allow unions to run rampant, and this would destroy not only poor little defenseless Wal-Mart, but America? Well, see, I work for "The Other Guy," and today I had to watch a video that was basically the same thing. Following in the standard, "the same as Wal-Mart, but classier" approach, it was just a incredibly distorted video about how unions are bad, and are evil businesses (Yes, businesses!) that ruin life for workers. The only reference to recent events was about "coming changes in our labor laws." So no direct references to the campaign or the candidates, just some anti-union propaganda before the election.
If I understood the the basic argument of the video, it was that unions are not able to make them pay you more, and joining them will break up the big happy corporate family that you belong to that pays you minimum wage. The guy across from me snortled and chuckled throughout at the videos epic failure, and at one point, to afraid to do anything overt, I just looked over, and we shared a look: the kind that says, "yeah, this is bullshit." Another guy and I shared a good laugh afterwards, as well. (Op! Just wanted to make sure there was none of those evil unions around the corner!" he said) My heart goes out to you both.
It made me feel bad. I like the work atmosphere there, but now I am going to trust the managers's there a little less.
The other thing was, after coming home and perusing the blogs to the wave of bullshit that has been rising since the Republinca Convention (and will hopefully soon crest), and just being disgusted and feeling helpless about the whole thing, I got a call out of the blue from the Local Obama campaign, asking if I wanted to volunteer. So I did. I spent two and a half hours today calling phone numbers of college students who didn't answer and talking vaguely about politics with the interns. In a way, it was an edifying esperiance, except I think all I managed to was to knock out some pages of people they would not need to call again.
A couple anecdotes, though, that I bring back to the blog world (Sir Charles, ari, are you reading this?): the PUMAs are very real, and Sarah Palin means something to them. All the interns seemed to have had encounters with women, even pro-choice women, who were voting for McCain-Palin, because they wanted a woman in office. One person was even told that "a vote for McCain is really a vote for Hillary." This was not funny to them. One person spent much time talking with pro-choice women, and trying to discuss things with a McCain supporter. Apparently, they don't like to bring up abortion over the phone (I asked, and then was forced to admit it was all outside my area of expertise), so they focus on McCain not supporting the Fair Pay Act. Many of us noted that we had encounter with enthusiastic 80-year-old Obama fans, of both sexes, and I wondered why it seemed to be more the 60 or 70 age group that was so pro-McCain. One woman opined that it's because that age group wasn't tuaght to be "rebellious" like the slightly younger ones were (read those quote-marks as signifying contempt).
But yeah, Pumas: a very real, and annoying phenomenon, people. The grunts have to deal with it day in and day out.
2 comments:
Corvus,
If you have any issues at the work site let me know. We will not tolerate the man pushing you around.
I tend to think the PUMA phenomenon although real, is highly limited.
I think Obama's weakness with older people really comes down to racism pure and simple.
Aww, thanks chuck. That's nice to hear. Although I don't there is anything to be done, or that can be done. Such stuff is basically standard operating procedure in retail, I guess. It's just that Wal-Mart isn't the only place that's up to it, you know? We tend to concentrate on them, because they're the biggest and tend to "set" policy, but really, their policies are basically industry-wide. Really, it's retail that's the problem.
While I think that the PUMA organization itself is probably a ratfuck operation, I think it is a real phenomenon; I just don't know the extent to the issue. It's possible everyone there was just coasting on one or two anecdotes that played into confirmation bias, but it's also possible that it's a more widespread issue. of course it's hard to fix some kind of percentage to it, but I think it is a pretty widespread phenomenon, even if it isn't a popular one.
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