Hi Guest. I was offended as well. And since I happened to be on the site and have moderator status, I removed the comment you just mentioned. Not everyone is on the site today since it's the weekend.
For future reference however, you can always use the "report this page" feature and someone should get to it asap. I'll give Andrea a heads up in the bloggers' forum, so she's aware. Thank you for your concern, and for stopping by.
While I certainly agree that casual labor and the outsourcing of freelance work to foreign countires for pennies has brought down the working wage of freelance designers, writers, photographers, etc.. that doesn't automatically make "casual" opportunity unethical or impossible.
Most full-time freelancers had to start somewhere. Many of them "dabbled" in the art of their choice after finding their hours cut, or when they generally became dissatisfied with their 9-5 job. It was after they were able to test the new field, get some experience, and build a client list that they were able to become full-time "professionals."
Usually nothing separates the "casual" from the "professional" other than the time dedicated to the trade. Professionalism and quality will always be an issue, and it generally has nothing to do with how many hours you put in a week. Some of the busiest full-time "professionals" (with years in the business) stink at what they do. Likewise, my most pleasant dealings have come from the moonlighter who takes what they do very seriously -- they don't always charge the cheapest rate, either.
I don't agree that being a web designer as casual labor is good idea.
First the casual web design, ruined the professional business, second there is a lot of competition around the world from people working for almost nothing.
I am a professional and I am thinking about starting a new carer :(
Too bad wisebread has not evolved its commentary system to the likes of larger sites/blogs so that I can downvote the very racist comment #12, or at least flag it for being inappropriate.
I can't believe that on top of this horrible tragedy someone has the audacity to claim that 'normal suburban environments' are above this type of thing.
I hope the 'Post new comment' disclaimer is upheld here... I, for one, am very offended...
just thinking about that poor man and what his final thoughts must have been. His family, his friends, his life's dreams and ambitions. For what? Cheap Chinese goods sold even cheaper that will someday most likely be recalled. What is the price? Not one I'll feed any longer. From this moment on, the only time I'll step foot in Wal-Mart will be for my 2 prescriptions until I find a comparable place to get them. Wal-Mart, the corporate world, and all their ilk has lost a very good customer.
This has really changed my thinking about things. Prioritize your life while you can, treasure your family and friends. Remember the reason for the season.
I know, it's sickening. There's nothing else I can say.
I would be interested to hear from my fellow humans who actually did the trampling. Maybe we could gain a glimpse into their mentality and have some hope of rationalizing their behavior. Oh wait- no.
I blame the people in the crowd and Wal Mart specifically. There are other retailers (Best Buy, for example) that have a very orderly system of setting up lines, security, and letting people into the stores. Please help me understand why after all these years, the world's largest retailer hasn't figured that out?
I actually put a large part of the blame on the retailers. They spend the weeks following up to this sale season whipping up the typical buyers into such a frenzy that there WILL be crowds, there WILL be people lined up for blocks outside the shop.. and there likely WILL be some death or serious injury in the process.
Retailers don't really care what happens so long as they get their customer quota.
Who is Damour--did he have a family, kids, are his parents alive, how old is he? American consumer rage, stampede a man to death it really does not get much lower than this...I am writing Walmart a letter, this was not an accident...they got what they promoted, its not their fault but it is certainly there responsibility. The people in Long Island should be ashamed but so should all of America. Ashamed enough, to take a long hard look at our values, and who we have become and more important what we are passing on to our countries children.
Some good ideas here. A couple of points that might be worth considering:
- read and think carefully before signing any contract that binds you to a job-finding agency. I don't mean career-type headhunters; I mean the places that provide daily staffing. You almost certainly will have to attest that you will not cut them out of the loop (i.e., their share of commission) by you agreeing to work directly for the on-site employer or a placement competitor.
- wedding photography (and photography of other "one-time" events) is a minefield. You may find your customer is the infamous "bridezilla". Other times you may have a camera die on you mid-session -- no do-overs here (there's a reason the pros have at least two cameras ready to shoot). If you're taking commercial photographs (for annual reports, ads, etc.), you may not be able to assemble that shot again if it comes out poorly. You can make some money on the side with photography, but don't think it comes by just showing up and snapping pics.
I tried this a while back (Time-Warner). They were more than happy to disconnect my service without offering a damn thing. You never know when you're going to get an operator who just doesn't care.
Really? So then I could just put the dried peel in the blender or whatever to break it down? I have a few left I was going to squeeze for sweet and sour kielbasa tonight, so I'll try that. Thanks for the follow up, Linsey.
Also, one thing I do if I have quite a bit is to just run the oranges up and down a box grater. It's way faster than using a zester on 5 or 6 oranges. And it comes out fine. More of a "grated peel" than zest, but really I've always had it be fine for sweet breads and such. Now, if you were making something where you visually didn't want the peel to show but wanted the full flavor of the citrus, then you would probably need to start zesting with gusto.
Like many of the people here, I'm faced with a choice between chasing my dreams and choosing the safe option. With all the uncertainty in the world today I don't know if I can afford to choose the former considering I'm relying on my parents to finance my education.
Just when I thought it was safe to turn off the news. This is terrible news, Andrea. I can't even wrap my brain around it. You are right about the religious pilgrimages, though. We were in Jerusalem for holy week, and . . . holy cow! I nearly got trampled a few times. People really do go crazy. And the folks who were mentioning the mass and weight behind the front folks . . . I can attest to that. It's pretty hard to avoid. On our around the world boondoggle we went to several sacred places. I noticed similar behavior at each of them, including the major places in Peru.
You're right, though. This story didn't happen because people were out of bread. They just wanted a deal on a flat screen TV. It's sickening, really.
I love this. I saw this post at momliving. What is game frog? Is that like playing leap frog? We did an Indiana Jones Party and did a scavenger hunt around our neighborhood. My husband dressed up as Indiana Jones - the kids had a blast and I got all of the treasure and costumes from Oriental Trading Company for about 100 bucks.
I think what happened pretty much sums up the US mentality of the early 21st century.
From the low income shoppers stampeding for crap to the Wall ST executives stampeding for returns to the lobbyists stampeding for their interests - the US is full of the "I don't give a **** about anyone and anything except myself" attitude.
Yes, people in the front were probably pushed from the back BUT there's no mention of the two most disgusting parts of this story - how the shoppers were incensed that Wal-Mart had to close because of the employee's murder and the fact that the stampede occurred because the crowd grew impatient with waiting for the store to open.
Should retail employees who are vegetarian and vegan on moral grounds be permitted to refuse to ring up meat and dairy items? Why is it only the noisy wingnuts who pick and choose which services they will and won't provide to individual customers? And what of the rights of the customers to obtain the products they need? This corporate policy of allowing employees to make this decision is ridiculous. If these employees aren't able to do all of the work that their job entails, they need to quit and find something else to do.
There is so much blame to go around. First, to the people who physically caused the death. (Security tapes are being reviewed, and criminal charges may be brought.) Second, to Walmart and the individual managers who did not have adequate security or crowd control to prevent this from happening. Third, to the media for playing up the frenzy of Black Friday shopping and encouraging stores to try to get publicity by having crazed crowds videotaped for the news. Fourth, to the immoral people who caused the current financial crisis--driving low-income people to desperation to not disappoint their kids this holiday season.
The shoppers at this particular mall are mainly very low income people. Think about the struggles that middle class people are going through at this time, and it's easy to see how those with the least resources are being pushed to the brink of desperation.
Additionally, it is hard to correctly identify exactly who caused the death, because the people in front (who may have actually stepped on the man) were probably being shoved by the people in back of them and may have had little to no control over their physical actions at that time. The NY Times article is very good--it has reference to studies of what happens in a crowd stampede.
Personally, I believe that Walmart and the managers are mainly responsible for allowing this situation to evolve. Before the incident happened, it would have been obvious from the number of people waiting (about 2,000) and the atmosphere, that things were about to go out of control. I haven't heard any comments from Walmart saying they are going to change anything to prevent further incidents, so I am hoping that some lawsuit will make them take this seriously--and not allow a human death to be just another business cost.
Of course I agree with all you said, and I would rather slit my wrists the long way than go out on Black Friday.
And -- I feel confident that no one in that crowd made a conscious decision to choose a man's life over a TV. People in the front were no doubt being pushed by people in the back. It only takes a little for a crowd to become physcially very dangerous, not because any one person decides to do something harmful, but because the sheer mass and weight.
There is also a weird mentality in a crowd. I have been to enough Mardi Gras parades where people are competing for crappy trinkets; you are trying to catch junk, everyone else is trying to catch junk and you get caught up in the moment. It's only later that you look at the junk and say "WTF? I wanted this crap?"
I don't say any of this to excuse the behavior of this (literally) murderous mob; my heart goes out to the family for this horrible death. I just think it is good to understand what goes on in a crowd to try to prevent this type of death again. Maybe a lottery for numbers, with an assigned entry time into the store?
By sheer coincidence, I was waxing nostalgic about layaways in my recent Patient Needed - Now! blog post.
I believe that there was something special about the deferred gratification that layaways offered us when we were young that kids today have no counterpart for. With the immediacy of "buy now, pay later" credit, ultra-speedy overnight shipping, and 4 a.m. Amazon.com shopping that we've lost the joy of anticipation.
Hi Guest. I was offended as well. And since I happened to be on the site and have moderator status, I removed the comment you just mentioned. Not everyone is on the site today since it's the weekend.
For future reference however, you can always use the "report this page" feature and someone should get to it asap. I'll give Andrea a heads up in the bloggers' forum, so she's aware. Thank you for your concern, and for stopping by.
While I certainly agree that casual labor and the outsourcing of freelance work to foreign countires for pennies has brought down the working wage of freelance designers, writers, photographers, etc.. that doesn't automatically make "casual" opportunity unethical or impossible.
Most full-time freelancers had to start somewhere. Many of them "dabbled" in the art of their choice after finding their hours cut, or when they generally became dissatisfied with their 9-5 job. It was after they were able to test the new field, get some experience, and build a client list that they were able to become full-time "professionals."
Usually nothing separates the "casual" from the "professional" other than the time dedicated to the trade. Professionalism and quality will always be an issue, and it generally has nothing to do with how many hours you put in a week. Some of the busiest full-time "professionals" (with years in the business) stink at what they do. Likewise, my most pleasant dealings have come from the moonlighter who takes what they do very seriously -- they don't always charge the cheapest rate, either.
Linsey Knerl
I don't agree that being a web designer as casual labor is good idea.
First the casual web design, ruined the professional business, second there is a lot of competition around the world from people working for almost nothing.
I am a professional and I am thinking about starting a new carer :(
Too bad wisebread has not evolved its commentary system to the likes of larger sites/blogs so that I can downvote the very racist comment #12, or at least flag it for being inappropriate.
I can't believe that on top of this horrible tragedy someone has the audacity to claim that 'normal suburban environments' are above this type of thing.
I hope the 'Post new comment' disclaimer is upheld here... I, for one, am very offended...
just thinking about that poor man and what his final thoughts must have been. His family, his friends, his life's dreams and ambitions. For what? Cheap Chinese goods sold even cheaper that will someday most likely be recalled. What is the price? Not one I'll feed any longer. From this moment on, the only time I'll step foot in Wal-Mart will be for my 2 prescriptions until I find a comparable place to get them. Wal-Mart, the corporate world, and all their ilk has lost a very good customer.
This has really changed my thinking about things. Prioritize your life while you can, treasure your family and friends. Remember the reason for the season.
I know, it's sickening. There's nothing else I can say.
I would be interested to hear from my fellow humans who actually did the trampling. Maybe we could gain a glimpse into their mentality and have some hope of rationalizing their behavior. Oh wait- no.
I blame the people in the crowd and Wal Mart specifically. There are other retailers (Best Buy, for example) that have a very orderly system of setting up lines, security, and letting people into the stores. Please help me understand why after all these years, the world's largest retailer hasn't figured that out?
Instructables (as is often the case) has a great tutorial written by canida on making your own sun dried tomatoes if anyone is interested!
I actually put a large part of the blame on the retailers. They spend the weeks following up to this sale season whipping up the typical buyers into such a frenzy that there WILL be crowds, there WILL be people lined up for blocks outside the shop.. and there likely WILL be some death or serious injury in the process.
Retailers don't really care what happens so long as they get their customer quota.
Who is Damour--did he have a family, kids, are his parents alive, how old is he? American consumer rage, stampede a man to death it really does not get much lower than this...I am writing Walmart a letter, this was not an accident...they got what they promoted, its not their fault but it is certainly there responsibility. The people in Long Island should be ashamed but so should all of America. Ashamed enough, to take a long hard look at our values, and who we have become and more important what we are passing on to our countries children.
I don't agree that being a message therapist is casual labor - it requires a license and training.
Some good ideas here. A couple of points that might be worth considering:
- read and think carefully before signing any contract that binds you to a job-finding agency. I don't mean career-type headhunters; I mean the places that provide daily staffing. You almost certainly will have to attest that you will not cut them out of the loop (i.e., their share of commission) by you agreeing to work directly for the on-site employer or a placement competitor.
- wedding photography (and photography of other "one-time" events) is a minefield. You may find your customer is the infamous "bridezilla". Other times you may have a camera die on you mid-session -- no do-overs here (there's a reason the pros have at least two cameras ready to shoot). If you're taking commercial photographs (for annual reports, ads, etc.), you may not be able to assemble that shot again if it comes out poorly. You can make some money on the side with photography, but don't think it comes by just showing up and snapping pics.
I tried this a while back (Time-Warner). They were more than happy to disconnect my service without offering a damn thing. You never know when you're going to get an operator who just doesn't care.
Really? So then I could just put the dried peel in the blender or whatever to break it down? I have a few left I was going to squeeze for sweet and sour kielbasa tonight, so I'll try that. Thanks for the follow up, Linsey.
Also, one thing I do if I have quite a bit is to just run the oranges up and down a box grater. It's way faster than using a zester on 5 or 6 oranges. And it comes out fine. More of a "grated peel" than zest, but really I've always had it be fine for sweet breads and such. Now, if you were making something where you visually didn't want the peel to show but wanted the full flavor of the citrus, then you would probably need to start zesting with gusto.
Like many of the people here, I'm faced with a choice between chasing my dreams and choosing the safe option. With all the uncertainty in the world today I don't know if I can afford to choose the former considering I'm relying on my parents to finance my education.
Just when I thought it was safe to turn off the news. This is terrible news, Andrea. I can't even wrap my brain around it. You are right about the religious pilgrimages, though. We were in Jerusalem for holy week, and . . . holy cow! I nearly got trampled a few times. People really do go crazy. And the folks who were mentioning the mass and weight behind the front folks . . . I can attest to that. It's pretty hard to avoid. On our around the world boondoggle we went to several sacred places. I noticed similar behavior at each of them, including the major places in Peru.
You're right, though. This story didn't happen because people were out of bread. They just wanted a deal on a flat screen TV. It's sickening, really.
Just another consumer casualty. It's to be expected when capitalism reaches such heights.
I love this. I saw this post at momliving. What is game frog? Is that like playing leap frog? We did an Indiana Jones Party and did a scavenger hunt around our neighborhood. My husband dressed up as Indiana Jones - the kids had a blast and I got all of the treasure and costumes from Oriental Trading Company for about 100 bucks.
I think what happened pretty much sums up the US mentality of the early 21st century.
From the low income shoppers stampeding for crap to the Wall ST executives stampeding for returns to the lobbyists stampeding for their interests - the US is full of the "I don't give a **** about anyone and anything except myself" attitude.
Yes, people in the front were probably pushed from the back BUT there's no mention of the two most disgusting parts of this story - how the shoppers were incensed that Wal-Mart had to close because of the employee's murder and the fact that the stampede occurred because the crowd grew impatient with waiting for the store to open.
Should retail employees who are vegetarian and vegan on moral grounds be permitted to refuse to ring up meat and dairy items? Why is it only the noisy wingnuts who pick and choose which services they will and won't provide to individual customers? And what of the rights of the customers to obtain the products they need? This corporate policy of allowing employees to make this decision is ridiculous. If these employees aren't able to do all of the work that their job entails, they need to quit and find something else to do.
There is so much blame to go around. First, to the people who physically caused the death. (Security tapes are being reviewed, and criminal charges may be brought.) Second, to Walmart and the individual managers who did not have adequate security or crowd control to prevent this from happening. Third, to the media for playing up the frenzy of Black Friday shopping and encouraging stores to try to get publicity by having crazed crowds videotaped for the news. Fourth, to the immoral people who caused the current financial crisis--driving low-income people to desperation to not disappoint their kids this holiday season.
The shoppers at this particular mall are mainly very low income people. Think about the struggles that middle class people are going through at this time, and it's easy to see how those with the least resources are being pushed to the brink of desperation.
Additionally, it is hard to correctly identify exactly who caused the death, because the people in front (who may have actually stepped on the man) were probably being shoved by the people in back of them and may have had little to no control over their physical actions at that time. The NY Times article is very good--it has reference to studies of what happens in a crowd stampede.
Personally, I believe that Walmart and the managers are mainly responsible for allowing this situation to evolve. Before the incident happened, it would have been obvious from the number of people waiting (about 2,000) and the atmosphere, that things were about to go out of control. I haven't heard any comments from Walmart saying they are going to change anything to prevent further incidents, so I am hoping that some lawsuit will make them take this seriously--and not allow a human death to be just another business cost.
Of course I agree with all you said, and I would rather slit my wrists the long way than go out on Black Friday.
And -- I feel confident that no one in that crowd made a conscious decision to choose a man's life over a TV. People in the front were no doubt being pushed by people in the back. It only takes a little for a crowd to become physcially very dangerous, not because any one person decides to do something harmful, but because the sheer mass and weight.
There is also a weird mentality in a crowd. I have been to enough Mardi Gras parades where people are competing for crappy trinkets; you are trying to catch junk, everyone else is trying to catch junk and you get caught up in the moment. It's only later that you look at the junk and say "WTF? I wanted this crap?"
I don't say any of this to excuse the behavior of this (literally) murderous mob; my heart goes out to the family for this horrible death. I just think it is good to understand what goes on in a crowd to try to prevent this type of death again. Maybe a lottery for numbers, with an assigned entry time into the store?
Interesting commentary on stuffwhitepeoplelike.com from a young black woman in a very white Iowan town.
I thought what she had to say was great and agree that it just reinforces racial and ethnic stereotypes.
http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2008/04/17/8...
You captured, perfectly, the thoughts I've been mulling over and the sick feelings I've been pushing down about this horrible killing.
It's sinful, just plain old greed. And there, but for the grace of God and my introverted dislike of crowds, go I.
By sheer coincidence, I was waxing nostalgic about layaways in my recent Patient Needed - Now! blog post.
I believe that there was something special about the deferred gratification that layaways offered us when we were young that kids today have no counterpart for. With the immediacy of "buy now, pay later" credit, ultra-speedy overnight shipping, and 4 a.m. Amazon.com shopping that we've lost the joy of anticipation.