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Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game?

07-18-2014 , 01:58 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tapirboy
Since I am good at navigating the forums, here's the Colman post: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2552
Thank you.

Interesting post. He wrote,
Quote:
I capitalize off this game that targets peoples weaknesses. I do enjoy it, I love the strategy part of it, but I do see it as a very dark game.
Doesn't good strategy in all contests involving beating an opponent target the opponent's weaknesses? I don't see anything wrong with that. (When I enter a strategic contest I more or less expect my opponent to try to exploit my weakness, if he/she can find it).

I enjoy the game of poker and love the strategy part too it too. I cannot explain why. I think I may simply enjoy competing. I even enjoy competing at games at which I'm not good. Golf, for example. I don't play golf anymore because it got so that after every round of golf I needed a shot of cortisone in my shoulder to be able to lift my arm without intense pain... and I hate needles stuck in me.

When I did play golf, I was no damned good at it although I took lessons and practiced. I did not really enjoy playing alone - but I loved playing in a group. I liked it more with gambling, but I also liked it without gambling. How could I enjoy a game where I consistently lost? I cannot explain it to myself, let alone others. The most reasonable explanation I've come up with is simply that I love to compete. I love the contest itself, win or lose.

And so it is with poker. I try to win, and (unlike golf) I think I'm good at card games. I like it better when I win, but I also have a good time when I lose. Winning money pleases me, but losing money does not displease me. When I lose at poker, I'm happy that someone else has been successful.

If I lost too much money, I suppose I would be upset... but that's easy to control, by simply not playing for more money than I can easily afford to lose.

Winning more money from someone than he can afford to lose and thus hurting someone would not please me. If that happened, I'd simply give the loser back the excess he had lost. (And I have done that).

I think maybe the author of that article (Colman) should not play poker. I don't see poker as any more of a "very dark game" than golf... but he evidently does.

Thanks again for the link, Tapirboy. (How the Hell did you pick that name?)

Buzz
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-18-2014 , 04:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2J4U
I don't mind killing my own action in the interest of sport, but would feel uncomfortable doing it to others.
So you would not steal from a player under false pretenses, but uncomfortable with doing anything that would prevent regs from stealing from the player?

If you think it's right to tell the player what game he's playing when HU, it's always right to tell him. You aren't obligated to collude with regs to help them pick the pockets of newbs.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-18-2014 , 04:33 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tentacle
Thanks for the reply Buzz. You're clearly a smart guy and I appreciate it. In most of the points you didn't understand, I was being facetious to try and make a point. Supermarkets are often huge, multinational corporations that a lot of people would cringe at being associated at if they knew some cold facts.
Supermarkets feed the first world. You can question the morals of any activity in the preparation/sale/delivery of food. But not having food is worse than alternatives.

Walmart is merely the most efficient retailer in the space, and I regard that as extremely ethical. Every dollar they didn't pay a worker improves the living standards of the mostly poor people who shop there. When someone explains the virtue of having poor people pay more for groceries maybe I'll change my mind on it.

[quote]Colman is the best HU sng player in the world, is it fair for him to play a (likely) fish, who has just won a small buy-in, large field online tournament for all of his score and possibly more?[\quote]

If someone wants to gamble against Colman, I don't think it would be ethical for him to deny them. He's not their parent, or accountant, in a free society he has to allow them the right to decide if said gamble should occur.

Quote:
Your ethics are interesting and admirable, I agree with your point about taking the safer side regarding crossing the line. Particularly interesting is my hypothetical example with the degenerate fish. Do you just check behind on the river because you feel bad for him? Isn't someone else going to take his money anyway? Does the same go for someone stupid enough to register to a lowball sng? An ever shifting line. People can agree or disagree but ultimately:

I am involved with poker to make money.

But I think the point of life is to be happy. If being unethical (from playing poker to shopping at ASDA [(Walmart]) to the point where it makes me unhappy occurs, I will make my moral code stricter.
You don't need a textbook to learn Moral/Ethical rules, you don't need society to decide them for you. Simply treat others as you would prefer to be treated.

That doesn't mean check the river when you have the nuts, it mean treat them like adults with same rights to gamble as you have. And gamble with
them.

The reason we tell players they are playing the wrong game is we are using false pretenses to take their money. None of is would like finding out we've been playing wrong game, why be silent when someone else is? Our objective should be to play better than them, not cheat them.

Online you can take advantage and the fact this player may never play mix again because of it shouldn't affect out bottom line. Losing a potential new player in live games could hurt a live mix player. But the relative EV in either case doesn't change the ethics, it's clearly wrong to take advantage.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-18-2014 , 09:27 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzz
Doesn't good strategy in all contests involving beating an opponent target the opponent's weaknesses?
I see a difference between targeting an opponent's skill weaknesses and targeting their psychological weaknesses, and that seems to be what Colman is talking about. There will inevitably be a certain percentage of opponents whose personal and psychological health is degraded by playing with us. That's not typically true of golf, and I see it as a reasonable worry to have.

I think Colman and others are looking at it too narrowly, though - while poker offers dramatic things like gambling addiction and lack of tilt control, it's hardly unique in being psychologically dangerous to the customers. Are we actually doing more damage than a bad teacher, or an entitled cop, or even the grumpy-ass clerks at the post office? What about those of us who've used poker to become more psychologically healthy, able to "let the last hand go" in the rest of our lives?

For that matter, being anxious about ethics often seems to me to be a psychological weakness pretty close to the order of the larger gambling-related ones. It can be a rabbit hole that prevents people from getting anything done. There are many situations where it's better to maintain a mildly wrong ethical position than to spend the effort optimizing.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-18-2014 , 07:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tentacle
Colman is the best HU sng player in the world, is it fair for him to play a (likely) fish, who has just won a small buy-in, large field online tournament for all of his score and possibly more?
Yes (in my humble opinion).

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Your ethics are interesting and admirable,
Thank you.

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I agree with your point about taking the safer side regarding crossing the line. Particularly interesting is my hypothetical example with the degenerate fish. Do you just check behind on the river because you feel bad for him? Isn't someone else going to take his money anyway?
Interesting point. And that presents an obvious dilemma: What do we do about people who take unfair advantage of others?

I don't have the answer.

Only as a voting citizen do I have a responsibility for the behavior of anyone else. (It was not always so... when I was helping raise my children, I felt responsibility for their behavior... when I was a department chair and then a dean I felt responsibility for the quality of instruction in my areas of supervision... but I no longer have authority in those areas).

Someone else behaving poorly doesn't make it right for me to behave poorly.

I may not like the way someone else behaves and I may try to influence how someone else behaves but I'm not directly responsible for how someone else behaves. If I were in charge of someone, then I would feel a responsibility for how he/she behaved. But my own children are all adults now and free to do as they choose. And since I'm no longer a supervisor of instruction I don't feel a responsibility for the quality of instruction at my former place of employment. Thus I'm only responsible for myself.

I'd rather see people be kind to others. I'd rather see everybody follow the golden rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"). But I believe that as much as possible people need to be free to make their own choices. (I see the alternative as a totalitarian state).

Quote:
Does the same go for someone stupid enough to register to a lowball sng? An ever shifting line. People can agree or disagree but ultimately:

I am involved with poker to make money.
OK. Making money is not my reason for playing poker, but I think you should have the freedom to try to do that, so long as you obey the law.

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But I think the point of life is to be happy.
I don't honestly know what the point of life is. Does there have to be a point?

"the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
Matthew Arnold (Dover Beach)

Quote:
If being unethical (from playing poker to shopping at ASDA [(Walmart]) to the point where it makes me unhappy occurs, I will make my moral code stricter.
I don't shop at Walmart because of Walmart's infamous employment practices. I do like it that Walmart has lower food prices. (Better for the poor and also might tend to hold down the prices at the supermarkets where I do shop for food).

Although I can see places where I could have done better, I'm generally satisfied with my life. Perhaps that's partly because I have worked hard, partly because I am well educated, and partly because I have been mostly lucky in life and love.

I don't know where my personal code of ethics originated... probably some combination of parental guidance, education, beliefs, and experience.

In a beginningless and endless sea of time, perhaps each moment lives forever.

Buzz
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-18-2014 , 07:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertCat
Walmart is merely the most efficient retailer in the space, and I regard that as extremely ethical. Every dollar they didn't pay a worker improves the living standards of the mostly poor people who shop there.
The goal of Walmart management is to make the owners richer and more powerful. And they're doing that not only at the expense of Walmart employees, but at the expense of employees who work for competing supermarkets that are driven out of business by the expansion of Walmart. Ultimately the effect will be to make a larger proportion of the population poor.

(That's how I understand it).

Quote:
When someone explains the virtue of having poor people pay more for groceries maybe I'll change my mind on it.
I see no virtue in that. However, I do see virtue in not reducing current middle income supermarket employees to the poverty level, which seems like it will be the ultimate effect of Walmart's expansion.

For me it's a very complex dilemma. I'm currently not trading at Walmart, but if Walmart drives other supermarkets out of business, we all may be forced to buy from Walmart.

I don't know what the solution is.

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You don't need a textbook to learn Moral/Ethical rules, you don't need society to decide them for you. Simply treat others as you would prefer to be treated.
+ (That's basically my code).

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Our objective should be to play better than them, not cheat them.
+

Buzz
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 02:04 AM
DesertCat, I think you misconstrued the sentiments of my post. Or maybe you construed it correctly and then ignored it.

You write in a manner that implies what you say is empirical, whereas I made sure to stress that what I wrote was only my opinion and that I respect the rights of others to have their opinions. One may have suspected the opposite from looking at our respective post counts.

You can write how you wish of course, I played devil's advocate with the supermarket etc. comparisons to labour the point that their is a line in poker ethics that will be drawn differently for different people. This is what OP asked about and he got an array of interpretations of ethics in poker.

I made the points about people formulating their own ethics because I thought it was relevant. "Simply treat others as you would prefer to be treated" is all well and good and I completely agree with it but speaking from a game theory perspective, we don't live in a world where people treat us how we like to be treated. If I disconnect, very few people wait for me to reconnect, so I mash the raise button when unknown villain disconnects to avoid myself being freerolled in those situations. I have no idea whether the person that sits in my game is ethical and would treat me how I'd like to be treated. If it was likely he would do the same if the situation was reversed, where he was the lowball grinder and me the new guy, perhaps I would inform him of the rules. I accept poker to be an unethical enterprise, therefore I make few distinctions between anything technically legal. My ethics are naturally policed to some degree by the fact that acting like a total scumbag would harm my reputation and likely my bottom line. Others may think I am disgusting for admitting to this and I respect their right to have an opinion.

I have a problem with you implying that not telling a player that they're playing the wrong game is cheating. It is my belief that it simply isn't. If I register to play a match of 2-7 for an agreed sum, I am going to do my best to win that match. That's what I do. Call it unethical if you wish but I disagree that it's cheating.

Is it cheating to take an opponent's money when he calls an all in with the nut straight and screams with agony a second later that he didn't see the flush? Is it cheating when an experienced mix player completes with a Q into four wheel cards in razz, just after the game changed? Do you let him take the money back? I'm playing devil's advocate again of course, that didn't go too well last time, don't feel as though you need to give a response to each rhetorical question.

If you can say that you've made a completely honest (to the point where you've never negatively affected anyone else either directly or indirectly) living the whole of your life, then fair play to you and I respect your decision (I respect your right to have an opinion anyway) to essentially call me and I expect many others in this forum, cheats.

The world is so full of dodgy ethics, it's near on impossible to successfully navigate it without being unethical in some way. Is the government you fund by paying taxes to ethical?

I guess my point is that I am happy with my own ethics and have reasoned with them to come to where I am now with them. My other point is that bringing up the debate of ethics within poker is flawed and probably hypocritical, as poker is an unethical enterprise in itself. Extrapolating this to ethics within life, we are faced with situations every day where our decisions can have different ethical impacts. Instead of shopping at Walmart tomorrow, pick some apples from a tree, some mighty fine ethics EV gain there. So should you really judge me for keeping silent when villain shows down trip kings? It seems that the most ethical way for me to continue is to consistently get myself chatbanned (not difficult for me), so that I at least don't have the option of doing the ethical thing.

No doubt you'll have another omniscient reply for this that does little to address my points and instead just attacks my facetious analogies at face value and seems to implicate me as an idiot. Unethical does not equal cheating. I believe you may be sitting on the high horse that I alluded to in my previous long post. I'm sorry if the brash style in my reply is offensive or misplaced, I wanted to be direct.

"Every dollar they didn't pay a worker improves the living standards of the mostly poor people who shop there." The reason my reply took this long is that I've been on permatilt since reading this. Buzz was kind enough to give it a reply and that is a great credit to Buzz's character.

Last edited by Tentacle; 07-19-2014 at 02:07 AM. Reason: Grammar
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 07:19 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertCat
So you would not steal from a player under false pretenses, but uncomfortable with doing anything that would prevent regs from stealing from the player?

If you think it's right to tell the player what game he's playing when HU, it's always right to tell him. You aren't obligated to collude with regs to help them pick the pockets of newbs.
I didn't say I think it's right. I think it's nice.

Using a player's lack of knowledge against him to win his money isn't stealing. If it were, you'd have to size your bets to make sure you're giving him proper odds to call with his gutshot.

When a man sits in a game, he plays on the same field as the rest of the table. If he didn't think to learn the rules before he sat, that's his problem. As I see it, from a morality standpoint, telling him his A is high in 2-7 is the same as talking strat at the table- you're giving him information that he didn't have due to his own ignorance, and thereby bettering his play, to the detriment of everyone who plays with him.

There is certainly something to be said for telling him if he's just a terrible player period and it would be good for the game to keep him comfortable and make him feel like you want to help, to the end of keeping him splashing at your table. But I'd still be uncomfortable being the one to do it.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 01:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2J4U
I didn't say I think it's right. I think it's nice.

Using a player's lack of knowledge against him to win his money isn't stealing. If it were, you'd have to size your bets to make sure you're giving him proper odds to call with his gutshot.

When a man sits in a game, he plays on the same field as the rest of the table. If he didn't think to learn the rules before he sat, that's his problem. As I see it, from a morality standpoint, telling him his A is high in 2-7 is the same as talking strat at the table- you're giving him information that he didn't have due to his own ignorance, and thereby bettering his play, to the detriment of everyone who plays with him.

There is certainly something to be said for telling him if he's just a terrible player period and it would be good for the game to keep him comfortable and make him feel like you want to help, to the end of keeping him splashing at your table. But I'd still be uncomfortable being the one to do it.
Telling someone the fundamental rules of the game isn't talking strategy; it's enforcing fairness of the game. If you are uncomfortable playing someone under false pretenses HU, you shouldn't change your opinion multiway, and have no obligation to help others at table swindle him.

If you were playing live and a player tables & mucks the best hand, because he misread the tabled hands, even his own, you are morally obligated to stop the dealer from pushing the pot to his opponent. The hands wee tabled, best hand wins, and to enforce fairness of the game everyone at the table is obligated to correct dealer errors at showdown.

And if taking money under false pretenses is not stealing then it's fraud. If you need to defraud players online to win you aren't a winning player. If you are a winning player the percentage of your wins vs. players playing wrong game can only be tiny, so why not always do the right thing for long term good of your game?

Last edited by DesertCat; 07-19-2014 at 01:31 PM.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 01:48 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzz
The goal of Walmart management is to make the owners richer and more powerful. And they're doing that not only at the expense of Walmart employees, but at the expense of employees who work for competing supermarkets that are driven out of business by the expansion of Walmart. Ultimately the effect will be to make a larger proportion of the population poor.

(That's how I understand it).
But that's not true. The money consumers save shopping at Walmart isn't buried in backyards or burned in bonfires. It gets spent at other businesses, creating (almost certainly better) jobs at them. Walmart customers benefit, as do other businesses and their employees, all virtuous results.

This has always been true since before buggy-whip employees were getting laid off, when businesses find ways to be more efficient they put some out of business. And always their direct motivation is to benefit their shareholders/management, yet consumers also benefit as long as the markets are free and competitive. And it's never causing unemployment or hurting middle class, other macro factors are (high payroll taxes, deflationary money supply, excessive regulatory costs, etc).

The difference w/Walmart is it's effects are most severe on unionized employees, so to fight back their unions try to guilt people to boycott Walmart, primarily using misinformation. But if Walmart were to disappear, the long term effect stays the same; supermarkets will still get more efficient. There will be more self check out, more automation, etc.

Unions can't turn entry level jobs requiring little skill or training into middle class jobs, at least not for very long. There are too many people able and willing to do those jobs, and need those jobs as stepping stones to better. unions can't restrict the supply of those jobs industrywide, so there will always be more competitive non-union retailers undercutting the retailers the union has hobbled.

Last edited by DesertCat; 07-19-2014 at 01:57 PM.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 02:24 PM
The thread is taking other route but, I think a person that is playing in a real money table and don't know the basic rules:

1) Have a huge amount of buys
2) Is trying to have some fun

So why should I tell him the basic rules? I would continue playing until he get broke and leave the tables. Then he might search about the game or not, doesn't make any difference to me. The main objective of this game is to make money, not friends.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 08:31 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JFerreiraR
The main objective of this game is to make money, not friends.
Making money may well be your main objective in playing poker, but It's not mine.

Neither is making friends.

However, the friends I have made over the years playing poker, starting in high school, and continuing in college, are worth far more to me than whatever money I might have made playing poker.

To me, poker is similar to golf in that it's a way to compete. But I don't understand why I like to compete. A difference is I don't think I'm very skilled at golf but I feel fine about my skill at cards and poker.

Quote:
I would continue playing until he get broke and leave the tables.
That's fine for you if you feel OK about it. But I wouldn't feel good about it.

And although I don't know exactly how I'd handle it if I saw it someone else obviously taking advantage of another person's ignorance, I wouldn't be a party to it. After a couple of times, I'd at least remark to the poor devil something like, "You do realize we're playing low ball don't you?"

Everyone does not have the same set of scruples.

Buzz
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 09:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzz
After a couple of times, I'd at least remark to the poor devil something like, "You do realize we're playing low ball don't you?"

Everyone does not have the same set of scruples.
And to illustrate that, if the player in question was Scandinavian (or Minnesotan) he would be have no problem with JFerreira, but might punch you for being a patronizing *******. I realize that's not your goal or your perception of your choice of action, but that's exactly how we would perceive it.

I'm very culturally puzzled by the idea of someone (presumably not staggeringly drunk because that's a different thing entirely) who buys into a game, plays without knowing the rules, and appreciates being corrected. I'd really be interested in some insight into what that player is thinking.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-19-2014 , 09:58 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tapirboy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzz
Everyone does not have the same set of scruples.
And to illustrate that, if the player in question was Scandinavian (or Minnesotan) he would be have no problem with JFerreira, but might punch you for being a patronizing *******.
I had not even considered that possibility.

It's certainly something to think about.

Thank you.

Buzz
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-21-2014 , 11:00 AM
I haven't looked at the other responses yet.

I'd tell the player, for a lot of reasons. It's nicer, it's friendlier, and it's much better for the game--not just in the long run (by not making the person feel as targeted) but even in the short run (because the person will figure it out pretty soon anyway, will probably play a longer session on average if you volunteer the information, and is probably a very poor player).

FWIW if this is a professional player playing (say) 20-40ish or higher, and is not noticing the rules out of laziness, the issue is different.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-22-2014 , 01:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JFerreiraR
The thread is taking other route but, I think a person that is playing in a real money table and don't know the basic rules:

1) Have a huge amount of buys
2) Is trying to have some fun

So why should I tell him the basic rules? I would continue playing until he get broke and leave the tables. Then he might search about the game or not, doesn't make any difference to me. The main objective of this game is to make money, not friends.
Would somebody who thinks you've helped rather than somebody you could have helped slightly be more likely to

a) stay & re-buy
b) leave when he still has money to re-buy

If you're nice to people they'll probably ship you more in the long run.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote
07-24-2014 , 05:59 PM
Quote:
Walmart is merely the most efficient retailer in the space, and I regard that as extremely ethical. Every dollar they didn't pay a worker improves the living standards of the mostly poor people who shop there. When someone explains the virtue of having poor people pay more for groceries maybe I'll change my mind on it.
You think Wal Mart is ethical? boy oh boy I can't help but blast you for how naive that statement is. I've worked all throughout Wal Mart's company for nearly 10 years, from their supercenters to both their Grocery and GM Distribution centers and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that Wal Mart is the most evil company I have ever worked for. Get your reading glasses on cause I'm gonna set the record straight on this in every way possible.

First off, let's start with the stores. Standard employees are paid very close to minimum wage, and it takes around 7-8 years in most states to make even $10/hr. This is not a wage people can realistically survive off of. Every store I've ever worked in or toured was consistently running on a skeleton crew at best, opting to schedule as few people as possible in spite of consequences towards the store's functionality. Customers are always angry because they cannot get help, yet they continue to come back because my employer knows they cannot afford to shop anywhere else. Don't worry, managers have it even worse.

Salaried members of management are tasked with impossible situations and hold full accountability for the functionality of their departments, yet are not given the manpower or resources to meet their expectations. This leads to most managers working 70-80 hours a week just to keep their jobs. At an average starting gross salary of $38k/year, you're basically working two poverty-level jobs. Wal Mart requires newly promoted managers to relocate. Since most people cannot afford this, Wal Mart offers to pay for your relocation, but there's a catch. You have to sign a contract to keep your position for at least 2 years. If you are fired, step down, or quit during this period, Wal Mart can and will sue you for relocation costs plus lawyer fees. You literally become a slave. But wait! It gets worse!!

Now let's talk about Wal Mart's GM Distribution Centers, where I currently work, and the conditions both employees and the terrible merchandise available go through.
The first thing to understand about Wal Mart merchandise, which is claimed to help you "save money, so you can live better" is that you are getting TERRIBLE products that will COST you money in the long run. Particle board furniture, fragile plastic and glasswares, and televisions+other electronics that are sent specifically to Wal Mart by companies like Vizeo with their batches that do not meet minimum standards. (That's why LCD TVs from Wal Mart have shorter life spans and more defects.) As if this wasn't enough, this merchandise is either chucked onto a dangerous conveyor system by people, and then jam-packed into a trailer by another person with as much as 8 feet worth of more crap on top of it, or it is chucked onto a pallet by myself and my team, where other extremely heavy merchandise such as futons and gas grills crush it. We can have pallets where as much as 2-3 tons of merchandise are stacked on top of perishable glass jars, already fragile particle board furniture, expensive televisions and electronics, etc. Then, this pallet is literally rammed into a trailer by a powered lift that weighs 3x as much as a car, often against more products. Our merchandise is terrible, and it is treated very poorly. That is why you will often have to replace it, spending more money in the long run. Such is the price of poverty.

Now let's talk about working conditions in the GM DCs. If you think the store employees and customers have it bad, just wait.
One thing we have in common with stores is that we are often understaffed. Associates work 12+ hour shifts where they are required to lift 25-50+ lbs non-stop on a production goal that can be anywhere from 1550-3200 cases in a day for non-conveyable freight (including their drive time and breaks), and as much as 6200 for conveyable freight (including travel time and breaks). Door unloaders may have to unload as may as 10,000 cases in a day. Temperatures in the summer can reach 100 degrees in my location, with humidity in the high 90s. In spite of this, our facility has no AC whatsoever, and production demands have increased by nearly 100% in the past decade. Anyone who fails to meet their production demand will eventually be terminated. Most new people quit within a week, despite the much better pay compared to store wages. 1 day in this environment is all it takes to convince any sane human being that Wal Mart does not give a flying f*** about anybody except for the 6 members on it's executive board. But we're not finished yet!! I've saved the best for last. Grocery DC's.

Wal Mart's Grocery DC's are basically interment camps. With even stricter production goals than GM DC's, and even worse working conditions, this is the kind of place where even guys made of steel come to watch their health deteriorate. In these buildings, employees are usually subjugated to working conditions where they are required to constantly experience drastic temperature swings, as temperatures in different parts of the building can range between 100 degrees, and -30 degrees. There is a room temperature section, 4 different temps for different types of produce, a 12 degree meat room, a dairy area, and a freezer at -30. Employees are required to go in and out of these wild temperature zones all day, which wreaks havoc on the body, especially the heart. Productions goals here have also risen drastically in the past decade, often requiring people to illegally cut breaks short just to scrape by. Employees are forced to build pallets 7 1/2 feet high, sometimes with objects weighing as much as 80 lbs. I have witnessed many people get sick, often reacting with violent bouts of vomiting. One person I worked with got sick to the point of requiring hospitalization in these conditions. How did Wal Mart respond? They fired HER, and convinced workman's comp that she was "faking." Then they did a hell of a job making sure she didn't receive unemployment and somehow managed to beat her in court when she got a lawyer. In short, between the medical bills, court costs, and sudden lack of income, Wal Mart handily ruined this girl's life and health in the space of about 3 months. This alone is evidence of how "ethical" Wal Mart is.

As for the grocery merchandise itself?? Well... most of our produce is imported from China, and when it dumps onto the oily grimy floor, our managers would have us simply toss it back into the containers and ship it anyway. Ever notice how some of the containers of say... Dole strawberries seem bruised up or are either half full/super full?? That means they took a tumble onto the floor. This happens to I'd estimate about 5% of the produce that Wal Mart sells. Obviously Wal Mart does not care a bit about it's customers. Other grocery products include meat from vendors who offer terrible unhealthy selections, and basically a variety of poisons in boxes and cans. It's not a coincidence that Wal Mart shoppers are fat and grotesque. they are eating the worst possible products on the market, and my company knows it.

Last, but not least, I'd like to point out that despite being by far the top-grossing retailer of all time, always ranking #1 year after year, Wal Mart's profit sharing is nonexistent. In stores, full bonus, which is maybe 1-5% of profits even if every store maxed out, is hardly ever achieved. Most buildings have never made a full bonus. In DCs, the same is often the case, but the story is even worse. Production goals for full incentive have been placed at a higher mark than any DC in history has ever actually reached. This means our "bonus" is not possible, and is nothing but a fantasy. I recall a warehouse-wide meeting in my own building recently where we were chastised as a group for not meeting this impossible goal, then given the news that our profit sharing reward would be a measly 10 cents per hour worked, which came out to about $40 maybe. Immediately afterwards, our management staff proudly broke the news to us that our building had saved over $10 million dollars that same quarter by maximizing trailer efficiency. Does anyone see what's wrong with this picture? Especially considering that this is the most profitable retailer on the planet?

I'm not even gonna go into what Wal Mart does in other countries, such as China, where armed guards roam Distribution facilities and employees work 16 hour shifts and are forced to house on the premises. Wal Mart is an absolutely evil evil company. I would level every single building it owns if I had the power and lock up their executive board for life. They are the exact opposite of the word "Ethical."

Even the worst aspects of poker pale in comparison to the piece of sh*t company I work for, and I hate myself every day that I remain employed by them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertCat
Supermarkets feed the first world. You can question the morals of any activity in the preparation/sale/delivery of food. But not having food is worse than alternatives.
Farmer's markets can easily do the same. My wife and I get all our food exclusively local. It's cheaper, and far better quality. None of it has been on a floor covered in oil. Why would anyone pay more at Wal Mart for far worse quality? I think most people are unaware that there is a better alternative.
Do you tell a player who's giving his money away he doesn't know the rules to the game? Quote

      
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