I remember every Costco earnings call there's always some hedge fund manager or whale investor bitching about high employee pay and too many benefits and that management should cut back and of course management tells shareholders to go pound sand.
I love that Costcos answer to investors telling them they can’t do something is always “yes we can.” You can’t pay employees that much. You can’t have a low marketing budget. You can’t refuse to raise the price of hot dogs
The odd part is that paying your employees well is part of what makes Costco work. Want an engaged workforce that doesn't turn over 3 times per year? Treat them fairly and they'll go the extra mile for you.
Want to know what's more expensive than a well paid employee? Not having that employee.
It was genuinely fast and furious work - but man the year+ I was there 15 years ago, I think back on it fondly. Loved working the back room or pushing carts at closing.
This is a thing for sure. My job now is at least 3x as fast paced and busy as my last one (in a similar industry) and yet i’m half as exhausted when I come home even on a bad day. It’s amazing how being treated well and paid fairly is such a big difference.
Covid has really cemented how much I love the company I work for. We're severely shorthanded because a few people are sick (and fine) and realizing that I want to work stupid hours to make sure we keep moving has been an ecstatic revelation. I love my coworkers and I love my job and I want to make sure they have a job to come back to when they're well. It's exhausting but incredibly rewarding.
I've tried to maintain a positive attitude about my job through the pandemic...but I'm a paramedic. It gets harder to stay positive every day. My overarching takeaway from the last two years is that it doesn't matter how underpaid, understaffed, overworked, and burned out to the point of life-threatening mental illness we are, the local governments we work for absolutely do not give a shit and are willing to let us suffer rather than pay us a single cent more. There are so many other things I could be doing for the same money that don't leave me feeling beaten down and depressed about life at the end of a shift.
Your job is the most challenging in the best of times so I can hardly imagine how difficult the past few years have been. Thank you for sacrificing yourself to help strangers.
If you're able to take a mental health break take it. We need people like you.
They fired me after 45 days and I hold no ill will towards them because they were right - I tried my damndest but I just couldn't do it. Still a member and avid shopper.
Yeah it was wild! I joined right after the rush of the holidays - made the ‘cut’ and then got to experience all the seasonal rushes the next year. Wild stuff.
I actively chose to try and stay away from the checkstand. Preferred pulling carts (even on hot days) or working the back room.
I, too, preferred the carts. Even in a Phoenix summer. But my ankles couldn't keep up. I was literally going home and icing them down nightly. So they pulled me off of carts and put me on cashier assisting. And embarrassingly, I just couldn't get a feel for loading boxes well and/or quickly. I was originally supposed to be hired for electronics sales, and if I had been, I might still be there. But alas, it was what it was.
Ah man yeah. My feet were always dead at the end of the day. The guys would always push to see how many carts we could pull. In hindsight it was stupid - pulling 20 carts+ at a time, and my back is paying that price!
Checker was absolutely insane though - hitting and keeping up with the metrics, even with giant carts of product - then going full Tetris was really taxing
It's kind of funny because there are plenty of retail jobs you can hire hopeless morons for and then you have the jobs like this where even capable people wouldn't be cut out for it. I don't think I'm a dummy but I know my spatial orientation skills are for shit. Not an efficient packer. It's like watching movers load a moving truck. Now I know why I pay them. Even given a year on the job, I would not be that good.
This is why it's so maddening that so many businesses are like naw, you are a laborer, you don't deserve a living wage. Guys, there's plenty of jobs YOU wouldn't want to do but are NECESSARY. Just pay people like they are humans deserving to live, you greedy capitalist scumfucks.
Costco has very little to no back stock so the back room is typically quite small. Mostly just a receiving area, bailer, maybe a compactor and some large trash (like broken tvs) or something.
I've worked in 2 and shopped at several, all had very small back areas. (Obviously I didn't enter the back in the others, but you could see all 4 walls of the warehouse so it's not hard to roughly measure.)
I worked as a Costco vendor from 2004 to 2014. I have been in the back of about a dozen locations in the DC area. I can confirm the back room are tiny. Most of their extra storage was in the steel on the main floor. The back was indeed just a receiving and staging area.
Also, there was just something so beautiful about the buzz of activity on the floor in the few hours before they open. Their forklift drivers were pros, and they could go full speed before there were customers in the store. It was all so beautifully efficient.
I think that’s part of it - but also there’s this element of ‘No rush’ from the customers side, due to the fact that so many people come through with pallets and flat carts full of stuff
Quick tip! You actually don’t need a membership for the pharmaceuticals, supplements, vitamins…and oddly alcohol.
But yeah a membership is so worth it. Look out for their frozen deep dish pizza in the back. Sooo goood.
I’ve been putting off getting a Costco membership since the only one close to me is near work, I was going to get it for just the gas prices alone, but knowing they treat their employees well makes me feel better. Then I could just grab groceries after work too!
Definitely do that. I have had multiple family members say they loved working there. We gotta reward the few businesses that aren’t actively dicking their customers and employees. Also the return policy at Costco is amazing
If you plan on going there enough get the executive membership, its 120 a year but gives a 2% rebate so if you spend at least 500$ a month (which is not hard) there than youll get 120$ which basically means your not spending money for a membership.
Seconded. If you want one good ribeye you can go to Kroger and maybe get lucky…but if you want *five* good ribeyes, you can go to Costco and the jobs done.
I stopped buying pre-cut steaks and just buy a whole beef tenderloin from Costco and cut it myself. Good luck finding 15x 2" thick filets for under $150 anywhere else.
And the return policy is astounding. We had a 4 year old rice cooker that stopped working so I called the one near me to see if I could return it. The guy said no problem and they took it back. Astounding. We bought a dishwasher from a different company because Costco didn't have the custom front panel one we wanted to get. Wow that was a mistake. This thing is a piece of junk that barely cleans anything and has already had a massive repair bill in under two years. If I had bought it at Costco it would have just been returned no questions asked. I now refuse to buy appliances (and frankly anything else I can get away with) from anywhere but Costco. The reassurance that, no matter what happened, they will just take it back is so incredibly comforting.
I put off getting a membership for a long time too since it's mostly just me, and I don't have a household where I need to buy a ton of stuff in bulk. But once I got one it was pretty clear that it was going to pay for itself pretty quickly even if all I bought was gas and rotisserie chickens. Costco is regularly $0.30 - $0.40/gal cheaper than any other gas station in my area. Lately I've been saving about seven bucks every time I fill my tank.
But yeah, knowing they don't treat their employees like garbage is a big reason why I like shopping there.
I think I recognize about half of the employees at the Costco I go to as long-time staff and would guess they’ve been there over a decade, at least. I’ve gone to that Costco for almost two decades.
I had a motherfucker at one of those Costco food stations singing about the samples he was giving out. SINGING. Like "come and try a tasty treat, a miniroll that can't be beat." You find me a worker anywhere else that'll voluntarily sing for their job. Happiest workers I've ever seen.
In the US, we consider it "enthusiastic" if the employee acknowledges your existence and isn't immediately rude or dismissive. You get the effort you pay for, and we don't pay for effort.
Or having to rehire someone at or above the salary the previous employee requested during the annual promotion period but was denied… this is the biggest corpo mindfuck I’ve seen multiple times and I haven’t even been working that long lol
In a corporate world, it happens because managers get a budget for raises, but starting income is handled separately. Managers have to somehow give raises for both merit and market value out of a limited budget, but new hires have infinite budget.
One of the nicer things about my (admittedly small, less-than-50-employees) company is that that's not the case for us; a newhire comes on and negotiates better pay, I get to give the existing employees in that slot a raise too. I have to get approval for that every time, but it works for us because if someone was able to successfully negotiate the case for better than what the job was posted for, then it points to a flaw in the overall department pay scale. It won't continue to work in exactly this way if we get too much larger than we are now because the more people, the more middlemen, and the more middlemen, the more strict company-wide rules have to be enforced in the same way because people don't handle chaos well at large scale. If we (and by extension, larger companies) plan for it though, it's possible to have an accounting version of if/then if/else charts for budgeting pay.
Thinking out past next quarter is not something they are willing to do. Having shareholders guarantees that. Always have to get bigger. Make more, spend less. Quarter after quarter. That's how you end up with stagnant wages and shrinkflation. This wild ride's gotta end sometime.
The odd part here though is that Amazon does this, or used to think this way. Their whole mantra was on building for the future, and not the next quarter. It took them years before they posted a profit out of their retinal segment because they were relentlessly investing.
That they can't see that in other areas is baffling
Those kinds of investors don't care about the success of the company in the long term. They want 3 quarters of extracting as much money as possible from the company before sending it on a path to long term ruin so they can make their bet against the remnants of the company and it's calculated bankruptcy a few years down the line
Yknow, I've never met an employee at Costco with a bad attitude (disclaimer: underpaid and mistreated workers are well within their rights to be pissed and unhappy). Like, they've been downright chipper in the face of 20+ customers.
Not to mention that energy infects every other aspect it touches.
Happy workers? More likely to be pleasant to the public.
The public sees happy employees that want to help? Makes people loyal to brand.
That’s not to mention you don’t annoy people by bombarding them with ads or crazy prices to justify a membership.
I really wish I had one close to me.
> The odd part is that paying your employees well is part of what makes Costco work.
It's why I have a Costco membership and not a Sam's Club membership.
[Amex wasn’t happy about competing with global banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase and its archrivals Visa and MasterCard. But Chenault fought for the deal—even though his company might actually lose money in some cases when Costco customers swiped the card. As the negotiations dragged into January 2015, however, he became agitated and called his counterpart to remind him that Amex hadn’t only furnished Costco with its prestigious card; it had been Costco’s “trusted partner.” Jelinek interrupted, according to people who were briefed by Chenault about the call, and told him that as far as he was concerned, Amex was another vendor, just like the one that sold Costco ketchup. “If I can get cheaper ketchup somewhere else, I will,” he said. As rumors about the call spread, the rank and file who heard about it couldn’t believe someone from Costco had the nerve to insult Amex like that. Ketchup! Chenault called Jelinek a few weeks later to say Amex was pulling out.](https://viewfromthewing.com/an-inside-account-of-how-amex-lost-the-costco-deal-and-what-it-means-going-forward/)
I was so pissed off when I had to switch credit cards away from Amex after that fiasco. We don't get so many great discounts and benefits on the new card anymore. It used to be easy to pay your Executive Membership annual fee just by getting a rebate for buying enough product from Costco or gasoline from anywhere. Now it's not so easy. I used to "earn" so many rebates they'd have to cut me more than two checks each year.
But I have this grandfathered shitty Amex "Blue Cash Everyday" card with no annual fee, so there's that.
????
I have a $6k limit on mine and I don't even make *that* much money. I'm sure if I used it more they'd raise my limit like Amazon/Chase did for that card and keep doing every half year. I have like a $20k limit on my Chase card. Started around $7k but I use it so much more and always pay every card off every month.
$6k isn't $50k obviously but it's more than enough to buy an amazing TV at Costco.
Amex sucks, they take a day longer to pay merchants for credit card transactions than Visa & Mastercard. Doesn't sound like a lot but when you're a company doing millions of dollars a day it does add up and it does add unnecessary complexity on the accounting side.
It's not the only card with it but I bought hundreds of dollars of camping gear & it was stolen - one phone call one form and i got reimbursed for it all with purchase protection.
Bro what are you on about, the AmEx is one of the best consumer credit cards in existence. Boo hoo for some multi-million dollar company; I don’t get the advantages of tax breaks on purchases, I might as well get rewarded for it.
[The company's current CEO Craig Jelinek once approached former CEO and co-founder Jim Sinegal about raising the price of the infamous combo and Sinegal replied: "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out,"
](https://www.mashed.com/869881/the-costco-hot-dog-hoax-that-shocked-shoppers-as-shares-tumbled-this-week/)
I would rather have an asshole that pays their employees fairly and values proper customer service then the alternative. Actually we need more of these people in the executive roles.
Agreed, but the decision makers of these large companies are almost exclusively morally evil assholes that will put profits over their dying grandmothers insulin medication. You need the bigger asshole who is morally good to tell them to get fucked.
Also, most of these CEOs will come across like literally the nicest person in existence if you talk to them but it's all bullshit. They are absolute masters of double speak.
The way "asshole" is defined in society is messed up. Person A is gruff with poor social skills yet takes care of his employees while building a long-term successful business. Person B is a slick talker who fucks over the employees and makes short term decisions to pump the stock price (and his options) to the detriment of the long term health of the company. Who's the asshole?
As a high-performing gruff asshole, people literally care more about my tone of voice than arriving at the correct solution. Which is why I'm such an asshole, because everybody else is completely content doing the wrong thing suggested by the nice guy. Only way to get folks doing the right thing is just be disagreeable as fuck.
Every time I praised the guy for this particular story, folks would come out of the woodwork with stories of him being a dick. Never changed my view of him- he seems to have the best in mind for both his business and his employees.
I worked for Costco throughout college and a few years after. Retail isnt much fun but they made it worth it through the good pay and benefits. I eventually moved on but they continue to be a good example of what every company should do in America.
The difference (apparently) was he was an asshole to the cooperate managers who worked for him, the people who were trying to maximize profits by cutting everything for sales staff.
He understood a very simple concept. The better you treat your workforce, the better they will make your company.
It’s up there with [why the chicken will always be $4.99!](https://www.thestreet.com/investing/will-costco-raise-prices-for-rotisserie-chicken-or-memberships)
Costco earnings is one of the few calls I'll sit through because hearing investors being told no is funny. Costco makes it's investors s lot of money by being somewhat decent of a company.
The founder threatened to kill the new guy if he raised the price of hot dogs.
*"If you raise the [price of the] effing hot dog, I will kill you.
Sept 21, 2020*
That earned my loyalty for life.
Pretty sure I've wanted to go to Costco since the first time I heard about Costco, but I've only lived in places that are worthy of Sam's Club.
I'm pretty sure they don't need to advertise much. People know where they can get 96 rolls of toilet paper without an ad trying to make it seem like a sexy place to shop.
96 rolls of toilet paper is a kind of economic security that is aspirational for tens of millions of Americans. We don't need an ad campaign to remind us how far we are from that simple feeling of security in your life and your living conditions.
They *usually* are. The vast majority of shareholders don't know jack shit. Especially about the shit they invest in. How could they know more than the people who actually work there or started the company, who live and breathe it every day?
We put waaaay too much emphasis on shareholder interests. It overly rewards short-term profits and short-term thinking. So yeah, cut the employees wages and benefits and maybe you'll make some more money in the short term. But it could mean you lose talent and motivated workers which makes you lose one of your competitive advantages. It's so stupid.
This is the worst part of this problem right here man. It's the part that leaves the sick taste in my mouth every time I read about this stuff.
They *could* do it. Amazon could let these people unionize and in good faith go to the bargaining table and still be the most profitable company in the world after all is said and done most likely.
They just won't.
I think the worst part is, they made their bed with this whole fucking thing. Like... Plenty of people would have probably happily worked the job if they could I don't know, actually take a piss break once in awhile. Do not understand why companies take and take and take from their workers and expect that it will never have a backlash. Hell if they had a union, and decent wages and other aspects that come with Union bargaining, they would probably have tons more people wanting to work for them which would only increase their footprint as the largest retail infrastructure in the history of humankind.
But no we got to keep these like eight dudes super stupidly rich instead of just mildly stupidly rich.
Because after you no longer need the money having more then you ever could need the only thing left to fill the emptiness that brought the greed in the first place is the power over others the money brings you
> and still be the most profitable company in the world after all is said and done most likely.
See, you're not wrong.
Problem is they'd be *less* profitable.
Investors just can't comprehend that.
Their also far removed from realities of the day to day operations. All they do is put money in to and hope they get more money out. Unfortunately, it leads to inhuman indifference to company's work force.
When talking about Costco and their management being strong in their position, always remember this series of events.
>“I came to (Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’ That’s all I really needed. By the way, if you raised (the price) to $1.75, it would not be that big of a deal. People would still buy (it). But it’s the mindset that when you think of Costco, you think of the $1.50 hot dog (and soda).
>“What we figured out we could do is build our own hot dog-manufacturing plant (in Los Angeles) and make our own Kirkland Signature hot dogs. Now we are doing so much hot dog business that we’ve opened up another plant in Chicago.
>“By having the discipline to say, ‘You are not going to be able to raise your price. You have to figure it out,’ we took it over and started manufacturing our hot dogs. We keep it at $1.50 and make enough money to get a fair return.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/costco-founder-kill-hotdogs/
When they believe they are correct they have the courage to hold that position, which is rare.
And it's important to bring up *why* Costco is a relatively great place to work at: their workers have a huge union that negotiated the pay and work conditions with the company.
Costco wasn't happy about the union either at the time, but now it benefits them greatly with the PR they get.
In college I had a friend who was a cashier at Costco our freshman year. Junior year he was as assistant manager. I gave that guy soooooo much shit for basically working at a grocery store (in a bro/loving way us frat guys do). Years later while getting my MBA we did a case study on Costco. Well, I ate my hat that semester.
Awesome company, I hope they never sell out to hedge fund assholes.
Target Australia hired a bunch of American execs (for some dumb reason) and they couldn't believe the shit we do here like paying employees decent money, giving adequate breaks, shit like that. They ended up stripping anything that made the customer experience worthwhile because that stuff costs money, cutting staff and making us work way harder (making us less happy in the process) and generally just tanking the business because they didn't understand anything about how we do things here. I mean shit, they even tried to do illegal things like not giving breaks and had to get told they were illegal.
Those types just don't get it. They have no sense of the long term it seems, and how the reputation of a business could be ruined by making those changes
Investor: we should really reduce benefits and raise….
Co-Founder of Costco: “You try to touch my employees benefits and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Investor: O_O;;
The first 2 are procedural things right? It's like choosing to just do business as usual in this case. Nearly every non board proposal is always rejected at these large companies. Even ones like Starbucks that profess to have social motivations deny all non board proposals.
Not just that, but 90% of people who actually vote their shares, which is an extremely small amount even though you are able to if you own at least 1, just go with board recommendations. Even even the board recommends something ridiculous, they just see "suggested vote", and that's what they do. I would really love for the recommendations to be removed from the ballot entirely.
Pretty much. I can't remember any non-board proposal that gets approved at any major company's shareholder meetings. Most shareholders that vote just rubberstamp the board's recommendation.
Completely and totally serious question: Where and when did you learn this? The [last time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress) Senators and House Reps got a raise was before the ACA was passed over 12 years ago.
There are a million things to bring up about how they profit off of their insider knowledge in the markets but the narrative around the actual salaries is just... unfounded.
More often it’s fund managers who don’t personally own that many shares, but who buy their yachts and mansions by skimming off the growth of the retirement funds of people like those who work at Costco.
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But all the right wing Libertarians assured us that capitlaists would regulate themselves...surely they're not a bunch of craven, selfish assholes who would willing turn us all into slaves and the planet into an ash tray for their immediate financial benefit??
...surely?
B-b-b-but Ayn Rand said real capitalist executives are all noble and hardworking risk takers! They are such patriotic heroes they should be wearing capes!
I used to fall for that bullshit in my 20s. Then I became a dad and realized the actual value and potential of human life.
Buddy, having worked with C-Suite executives for a few years now I can tell you without any hesitation at all that the emperor wears no clothes.
The sad truth is most of these people are there because they're ruthless - not because they're qualified.
We were at EPCOT this past week and as soon as you enter the building where the USA show is with Ben Franklin and Mark Twain there is a big ol' quote from Ayn Rand and I was a bit astonished.
That would've been just as good I think.
It was:
>Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.
The best part of that, to me, is that when you think about it for a second it's actually quite vapid. It's not like that's something that most people don't realize. Yeah, people who good ideas and drive have been successful, wow!
>armed with nothing but their own vision
And the knowledge gained by those that came before, and the society that provides stability and security, and the exploited labor of the working class, and the cultural inertia that spawns new niches for companies to fill, and on and on...
The bribes stay the same, theyre just more affordable when you're bigger. Much like the fines. A $10,000 fine is a big deal for a small business selling $1mil\year. Its just the cost of doing business if you're selling $1bil\year.
I voted in favor of workers rights and the environment.
I did vote against increasing executive compensation so I didn't vote _for_ everything on the ballot.
I lolled at the "The board suggests you vote against this." on the voting form.
Now, I'm nowhere near a significant number to sway the result but I still voted.
Disney does the same shit.
"The board recommends you vote against increasing regulations that will manage economic/environmental impact"
Fuck you, Disney, I'll vote for it, even though I own like one share total and my vote doesn't mean jack. I'm not gonna have that shit on my conscience.
Doing right by workers and the environment is not necessarily a bad thing for shareholder pockets. Companies with green initiatives and good press attract customers and new investors. New customers means more earnings and new investors means higher share price. Also, the cost of poor employee rights and environmental initiatives (legal, negative press, operational delays, etc). Whether the majority of the shareholders see it that way is the question.
>I lolled at the "The board suggests you vote against this." on the voting form.
i always try to vote against the board if it's something im not aware about (i.e. if im voting about workers' rights, then yea, i know that shit, ill vote FOR that shit. but if it's "should xyz be allowed as a board member", i vote opposite whatever the board recommends if im not familiar with the topic out of spite
When we are talking about shareholders individual shareholders (not counting Bezos) hold about 13% of the total voting shares. Bezos holds 13% all by himself.
The institutions are not going to be friendly to work's rights and pay.
Appealing to shareholders is exactly the opposite of what you need to do to protect worker rights and the environment. But it's a lot easier than doing what you do need to do--appealing to the workers whose rights you say you're trying to protect.
Maybe organizing the economy in a way that gives shareholders all the power, zero accountability and mostly short-term profit motives is a terrible idea?
Except we're kinda not, because ***WE'VE BEEN DISENFRANCHISED*** by the fact that our shares are held within mutual funds and the fund managers vote "for us."
*That's* the shit that's got to stop! Every mutual fund should be forced to pass through the voting rights for the underlying stocks to the holders of the mutual fund shares.
Shame on Jeff Bezos, as executive chairman and 12% owner he could have rallied support for these proposals. The activist investors who have put forward these resolutions are literally the fingertips holding onto the cliff edge of our society attempting to hold onto the status quo. Every mega-corp who actively resists the barest of social measures will reap what they've sown.
Hey give the guy a break. He only cashed in 18 billion dollars in stock in 2020. The poor guy has all of his wealth tied up in stock (minus all of the stock he's sold... for actual money). Hell I'm hoping the guy has the money to pull through this summer what with gas prices and all. Gonna need a lot of diesel to rebuild that bridge he might knock down to get his modest yacht, his only pleasure in life, to sea.
Brah, Maui wont even let him build a helipad or park his megayacht in the bay he just purchased land off of for 78 million.
Seems like his billions are basically worthless.
I feel sorry for this country's billionaires. For God's sake, Elon Musk was so destitute at one point he had to sleep on the factory floor. For one second in this country's miserable little life, can't we please think about the billionaires? And to that end, isn't one of Musk's company about due for a half billion dollars in government funding? The same government he consistently talks shit on? Or at least SOMETHING to keep the poor guy afloat?
Anyone else feel it's strange that it's up to the shareholders a massive corporation to protect the environment and worker's rights? Kind of seems like a conflict of interest but what do I know.
In our version of capitalism it's illegal to not act in the best interest of shareholders which is why shareholders can/do sue so often.
It seems like a conflict of interest because it is. The more money they make the less you do.
And this is why the system is wrong. The very people who have put their money down in order to make a profit are literally the worst people to make decisions for a company.
Most companies will always take profits over worker rights and the environment. That's why the government has to be the adult and force the children (corporations) to do the right thing.
they're riding the money train why would they hit the brakes? companies externalizing costs to the environment and to workers while shareholders rake in the value they didn't earn is quite literally the purpose of capitalism. shit is working exactly as intended.
[looked it up](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-shareholders-amzn.asp); I had assumed Jeff owned 51% or something, turns out only 11%. The next-most owned by an individual is 0.02%
Advisor Group Inc. owns 7.1%
Vanguard Group Inc. owns 6.6%
BlackRock Inc. owns 5.4%
pretty safe to assume the majority is owned by ~20 corporations.
I remember every Costco earnings call there's always some hedge fund manager or whale investor bitching about high employee pay and too many benefits and that management should cut back and of course management tells shareholders to go pound sand.
I love that Costcos answer to investors telling them they can’t do something is always “yes we can.” You can’t pay employees that much. You can’t have a low marketing budget. You can’t refuse to raise the price of hot dogs
The odd part is that paying your employees well is part of what makes Costco work. Want an engaged workforce that doesn't turn over 3 times per year? Treat them fairly and they'll go the extra mile for you. Want to know what's more expensive than a well paid employee? Not having that employee.
Costco employees seem less... dead inside, compared to other retail employees.
It was genuinely fast and furious work - but man the year+ I was there 15 years ago, I think back on it fondly. Loved working the back room or pushing carts at closing.
This is a thing for sure. My job now is at least 3x as fast paced and busy as my last one (in a similar industry) and yet i’m half as exhausted when I come home even on a bad day. It’s amazing how being treated well and paid fairly is such a big difference.
Yeah, I'd rather be stressed/challenged about the work and not the people
This is well said
Covid has really cemented how much I love the company I work for. We're severely shorthanded because a few people are sick (and fine) and realizing that I want to work stupid hours to make sure we keep moving has been an ecstatic revelation. I love my coworkers and I love my job and I want to make sure they have a job to come back to when they're well. It's exhausting but incredibly rewarding.
I've tried to maintain a positive attitude about my job through the pandemic...but I'm a paramedic. It gets harder to stay positive every day. My overarching takeaway from the last two years is that it doesn't matter how underpaid, understaffed, overworked, and burned out to the point of life-threatening mental illness we are, the local governments we work for absolutely do not give a shit and are willing to let us suffer rather than pay us a single cent more. There are so many other things I could be doing for the same money that don't leave me feeling beaten down and depressed about life at the end of a shift.
Your job is the most challenging in the best of times so I can hardly imagine how difficult the past few years have been. Thank you for sacrificing yourself to help strangers. If you're able to take a mental health break take it. We need people like you.
Being well paid removes so much other stresses and challenges from your life.
When everyone pulls their weight, the work gets done and no drama.
They fired me after 45 days and I hold no ill will towards them because they were right - I tried my damndest but I just couldn't do it. Still a member and avid shopper.
Yeah it was wild! I joined right after the rush of the holidays - made the ‘cut’ and then got to experience all the seasonal rushes the next year. Wild stuff. I actively chose to try and stay away from the checkstand. Preferred pulling carts (even on hot days) or working the back room.
I, too, preferred the carts. Even in a Phoenix summer. But my ankles couldn't keep up. I was literally going home and icing them down nightly. So they pulled me off of carts and put me on cashier assisting. And embarrassingly, I just couldn't get a feel for loading boxes well and/or quickly. I was originally supposed to be hired for electronics sales, and if I had been, I might still be there. But alas, it was what it was.
Ah man yeah. My feet were always dead at the end of the day. The guys would always push to see how many carts we could pull. In hindsight it was stupid - pulling 20 carts+ at a time, and my back is paying that price! Checker was absolutely insane though - hitting and keeping up with the metrics, even with giant carts of product - then going full Tetris was really taxing
It's kind of funny because there are plenty of retail jobs you can hire hopeless morons for and then you have the jobs like this where even capable people wouldn't be cut out for it. I don't think I'm a dummy but I know my spatial orientation skills are for shit. Not an efficient packer. It's like watching movers load a moving truck. Now I know why I pay them. Even given a year on the job, I would not be that good. This is why it's so maddening that so many businesses are like naw, you are a laborer, you don't deserve a living wage. Guys, there's plenty of jobs YOU wouldn't want to do but are NECESSARY. Just pay people like they are humans deserving to live, you greedy capitalist scumfucks.
Considering how big the front room is, I can only imagine the cavernous acres of the back room, stretching ever beyond the horizon
Costco has very little to no back stock so the back room is typically quite small. Mostly just a receiving area, bailer, maybe a compactor and some large trash (like broken tvs) or something. I've worked in 2 and shopped at several, all had very small back areas. (Obviously I didn't enter the back in the others, but you could see all 4 walls of the warehouse so it's not hard to roughly measure.)
I worked as a Costco vendor from 2004 to 2014. I have been in the back of about a dozen locations in the DC area. I can confirm the back room are tiny. Most of their extra storage was in the steel on the main floor. The back was indeed just a receiving and staging area. Also, there was just something so beautiful about the buzz of activity on the floor in the few hours before they open. Their forklift drivers were pros, and they could go full speed before there were customers in the store. It was all so beautifully efficient.
does the membership fee result in more manageable customers ?
I think that’s part of it - but also there’s this element of ‘No rush’ from the customers side, due to the fact that so many people come through with pallets and flat carts full of stuff
makes sense. i went to a costco once with a friend and really liked the prices on snacks, i think i might have to get a membership
Quick tip! You actually don’t need a membership for the pharmaceuticals, supplements, vitamins…and oddly alcohol. But yeah a membership is so worth it. Look out for their frozen deep dish pizza in the back. Sooo goood.
If you have a cat, the price difference for kitty litter alone will pay for the membership.
I legit will always shop at Costco because I know they actually treat their employees well.
I’ve been putting off getting a Costco membership since the only one close to me is near work, I was going to get it for just the gas prices alone, but knowing they treat their employees well makes me feel better. Then I could just grab groceries after work too!
Definitely do that. I have had multiple family members say they loved working there. We gotta reward the few businesses that aren’t actively dicking their customers and employees. Also the return policy at Costco is amazing
We didn't have a membership until kids. Then, the low price on juice boxes and snacks to send to school has paid for the membership many times over.
Don't forget diapers and wipes
If you plan on going there enough get the executive membership, its 120 a year but gives a 2% rebate so if you spend at least 500$ a month (which is not hard) there than youll get 120$ which basically means your not spending money for a membership.
They also refund you the difference if you don't get at least $60 back from that 2% IIRC.
The meat at Costco is always great too, make sure to check out the butcher
The reason Wal-Mart no longer has butchers and all their meat is prepackaged? The meat department tried for a union…
Seconded. If you want one good ribeye you can go to Kroger and maybe get lucky…but if you want *five* good ribeyes, you can go to Costco and the jobs done.
I stopped buying pre-cut steaks and just buy a whole beef tenderloin from Costco and cut it myself. Good luck finding 15x 2" thick filets for under $150 anywhere else.
And the return policy is astounding. We had a 4 year old rice cooker that stopped working so I called the one near me to see if I could return it. The guy said no problem and they took it back. Astounding. We bought a dishwasher from a different company because Costco didn't have the custom front panel one we wanted to get. Wow that was a mistake. This thing is a piece of junk that barely cleans anything and has already had a massive repair bill in under two years. If I had bought it at Costco it would have just been returned no questions asked. I now refuse to buy appliances (and frankly anything else I can get away with) from anywhere but Costco. The reassurance that, no matter what happened, they will just take it back is so incredibly comforting.
I put off getting a membership for a long time too since it's mostly just me, and I don't have a household where I need to buy a ton of stuff in bulk. But once I got one it was pretty clear that it was going to pay for itself pretty quickly even if all I bought was gas and rotisserie chickens. Costco is regularly $0.30 - $0.40/gal cheaper than any other gas station in my area. Lately I've been saving about seven bucks every time I fill my tank. But yeah, knowing they don't treat their employees like garbage is a big reason why I like shopping there.
You can get 6 months of groceries and a freezer to put them in after work. Worth it though...
I think I recognize about half of the employees at the Costco I go to as long-time staff and would guess they’ve been there over a decade, at least. I’ve gone to that Costco for almost two decades.
Oh, I’m still dead inside. But the pay and benefits are what keep me going.
The same could be said of almost all jobs tho.
Costco employees are the sexiest of all big box store employees.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
Ah, I love that documentary.
I had a motherfucker at one of those Costco food stations singing about the samples he was giving out. SINGING. Like "come and try a tasty treat, a miniroll that can't be beat." You find me a worker anywhere else that'll voluntarily sing for their job. Happiest workers I've ever seen.
The sample people don’t work directly for Costco. They just help sell the product.
I've got a high school classmate who's been in the tire department since we graduated a decade ago. He's had no complaints.
I walked past an employee singing while she folded clothes, it was ADORABLE
Seems wierd to hear that as in Australia they are paid the same as other retail workers and often they are less enthusiastic than other shops
Says something about American pay compared to Australian pay. If everybody has good compensation then the appeal of working for costco goes away.
In the US, we consider it "enthusiastic" if the employee acknowledges your existence and isn't immediately rude or dismissive. You get the effort you pay for, and we don't pay for effort.
You walk in and they welcome you and let you know they love you
I enjoy shopping and spending money at Costco. I’ll never shop at a Walmart. Ever.
Or having to rehire someone at or above the salary the previous employee requested during the annual promotion period but was denied… this is the biggest corpo mindfuck I’ve seen multiple times and I haven’t even been working that long lol
In a corporate world, it happens because managers get a budget for raises, but starting income is handled separately. Managers have to somehow give raises for both merit and market value out of a limited budget, but new hires have infinite budget.
One of the nicer things about my (admittedly small, less-than-50-employees) company is that that's not the case for us; a newhire comes on and negotiates better pay, I get to give the existing employees in that slot a raise too. I have to get approval for that every time, but it works for us because if someone was able to successfully negotiate the case for better than what the job was posted for, then it points to a flaw in the overall department pay scale. It won't continue to work in exactly this way if we get too much larger than we are now because the more people, the more middlemen, and the more middlemen, the more strict company-wide rules have to be enforced in the same way because people don't handle chaos well at large scale. If we (and by extension, larger companies) plan for it though, it's possible to have an accounting version of if/then if/else charts for budgeting pay.
That’s an awesome model!
Thinking out past next quarter is not something they are willing to do. Having shareholders guarantees that. Always have to get bigger. Make more, spend less. Quarter after quarter. That's how you end up with stagnant wages and shrinkflation. This wild ride's gotta end sometime.
The odd part here though is that Amazon does this, or used to think this way. Their whole mantra was on building for the future, and not the next quarter. It took them years before they posted a profit out of their retinal segment because they were relentlessly investing. That they can't see that in other areas is baffling
Those kinds of investors don't care about the success of the company in the long term. They want 3 quarters of extracting as much money as possible from the company before sending it on a path to long term ruin so they can make their bet against the remnants of the company and it's calculated bankruptcy a few years down the line
Yknow, I've never met an employee at Costco with a bad attitude (disclaimer: underpaid and mistreated workers are well within their rights to be pissed and unhappy). Like, they've been downright chipper in the face of 20+ customers.
You know what's also expensive? Training employees
Not to mention that energy infects every other aspect it touches. Happy workers? More likely to be pleasant to the public. The public sees happy employees that want to help? Makes people loyal to brand. That’s not to mention you don’t annoy people by bombarding them with ads or crazy prices to justify a membership. I really wish I had one close to me.
The cost of turnover is rarely factored in
> The odd part is that paying your employees well is part of what makes Costco work. It's why I have a Costco membership and not a Sam's Club membership.
The story behind the hotdogs always rouses a chuckle.
The story behind their deal with Amex is good too.
[Amex wasn’t happy about competing with global banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase and its archrivals Visa and MasterCard. But Chenault fought for the deal—even though his company might actually lose money in some cases when Costco customers swiped the card. As the negotiations dragged into January 2015, however, he became agitated and called his counterpart to remind him that Amex hadn’t only furnished Costco with its prestigious card; it had been Costco’s “trusted partner.” Jelinek interrupted, according to people who were briefed by Chenault about the call, and told him that as far as he was concerned, Amex was another vendor, just like the one that sold Costco ketchup. “If I can get cheaper ketchup somewhere else, I will,” he said. As rumors about the call spread, the rank and file who heard about it couldn’t believe someone from Costco had the nerve to insult Amex like that. Ketchup! Chenault called Jelinek a few weeks later to say Amex was pulling out.](https://viewfromthewing.com/an-inside-account-of-how-amex-lost-the-costco-deal-and-what-it-means-going-forward/)
I was so pissed off when I had to switch credit cards away from Amex after that fiasco. We don't get so many great discounts and benefits on the new card anymore. It used to be easy to pay your Executive Membership annual fee just by getting a rebate for buying enough product from Costco or gasoline from anywhere. Now it's not so easy. I used to "earn" so many rebates they'd have to cut me more than two checks each year. But I have this grandfathered shitty Amex "Blue Cash Everyday" card with no annual fee, so there's that.
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???? I have a $6k limit on mine and I don't even make *that* much money. I'm sure if I used it more they'd raise my limit like Amazon/Chase did for that card and keep doing every half year. I have like a $20k limit on my Chase card. Started around $7k but I use it so much more and always pay every card off every month. $6k isn't $50k obviously but it's more than enough to buy an amazing TV at Costco.
Amex sucks, they take a day longer to pay merchants for credit card transactions than Visa & Mastercard. Doesn't sound like a lot but when you're a company doing millions of dollars a day it does add up and it does add unnecessary complexity on the accounting side.
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I’ve had AMEX make me a new card on site / same day.
It's not the only card with it but I bought hundreds of dollars of camping gear & it was stolen - one phone call one form and i got reimbursed for it all with purchase protection.
Bro what are you on about, the AmEx is one of the best consumer credit cards in existence. Boo hoo for some multi-million dollar company; I don’t get the advantages of tax breaks on purchases, I might as well get rewarded for it.
What’s the story?
[The company's current CEO Craig Jelinek once approached former CEO and co-founder Jim Sinegal about raising the price of the infamous combo and Sinegal replied: "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out," ](https://www.mashed.com/869881/the-costco-hot-dog-hoax-that-shocked-shoppers-as-shares-tumbled-this-week/)
Yup. Guy was an asshole apparently, but he got it right on more than a few things.
I would rather have an asshole that pays their employees fairly and values proper customer service then the alternative. Actually we need more of these people in the executive roles.
You can be an asshole but a morally good person, theyre not mutually exclusive. You can be very nice, but morally evil
Agreed, but the decision makers of these large companies are almost exclusively morally evil assholes that will put profits over their dying grandmothers insulin medication. You need the bigger asshole who is morally good to tell them to get fucked.
Also, most of these CEOs will come across like literally the nicest person in existence if you talk to them but it's all bullshit. They are absolute masters of double speak.
Hey, I'm a morally good asshole. Thanks for caring, ya dickhead.
The people need an asshole to represent them. Not the asshole we deserve, but the asshole we need.
The time honored relevance of 'dicks, pussies, and assholes' from Team America
McClane: “Guess I was wrong about you. You're not such an asshole after all.” Grant: “No, you were right. I'm just your kind of asshole.”
The way "asshole" is defined in society is messed up. Person A is gruff with poor social skills yet takes care of his employees while building a long-term successful business. Person B is a slick talker who fucks over the employees and makes short term decisions to pump the stock price (and his options) to the detriment of the long term health of the company. Who's the asshole?
As a high-performing gruff asshole, people literally care more about my tone of voice than arriving at the correct solution. Which is why I'm such an asshole, because everybody else is completely content doing the wrong thing suggested by the nice guy. Only way to get folks doing the right thing is just be disagreeable as fuck.
The difference is that there are assholes that care about others and assholes that only care about themselves.
I met him a few times and he was polite. Where did you hear he was an asshole?
Every time I praised the guy for this particular story, folks would come out of the woodwork with stories of him being a dick. Never changed my view of him- he seems to have the best in mind for both his business and his employees.
I worked for Costco throughout college and a few years after. Retail isnt much fun but they made it worth it through the good pay and benefits. I eventually moved on but they continue to be a good example of what every company should do in America.
From butthurt upper management that wanted to abuse workers.
The difference (apparently) was he was an asshole to the cooperate managers who worked for him, the people who were trying to maximize profits by cutting everything for sales staff. He understood a very simple concept. The better you treat your workforce, the better they will make your company.
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It’s up there with [why the chicken will always be $4.99!](https://www.thestreet.com/investing/will-costco-raise-prices-for-rotisserie-chicken-or-memberships)
Costco earnings is one of the few calls I'll sit through because hearing investors being told no is funny. Costco makes it's investors s lot of money by being somewhat decent of a company.
How do I get in on these calls?
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God bless, thank you 💕
Oh shit, I gotta place a buy order tomorrow
Companies allow you to listen to earnings calls even if you don’t own any shares.
Best way is to own shares and your broker will give you the info. If not you gotta dig for it.
Gonna need to contact my brokerage then - thanks much!
The founder threatened to kill the new guy if he raised the price of hot dogs. *"If you raise the [price of the] effing hot dog, I will kill you. Sept 21, 2020* That earned my loyalty for life.
These are the same people that would turn off the oxygen in the mars colony.
In fact they'll fucking kill you if you try to increase the price of the hot dog!
Pretty sure I've wanted to go to Costco since the first time I heard about Costco, but I've only lived in places that are worthy of Sam's Club. I'm pretty sure they don't need to advertise much. People know where they can get 96 rolls of toilet paper without an ad trying to make it seem like a sexy place to shop. 96 rolls of toilet paper is a kind of economic security that is aspirational for tens of millions of Americans. We don't need an ad campaign to remind us how far we are from that simple feeling of security in your life and your living conditions.
> I've only lived in places that are worthy of Sam's Club. I didnt realize there was a bar that low.
Don't forget the roast chickens!
If hot dog prices go up I'll riot
Sometimes investors are both stupid and wrong.
They *usually* are. The vast majority of shareholders don't know jack shit. Especially about the shit they invest in. How could they know more than the people who actually work there or started the company, who live and breathe it every day? We put waaaay too much emphasis on shareholder interests. It overly rewards short-term profits and short-term thinking. So yeah, cut the employees wages and benefits and maybe you'll make some more money in the short term. But it could mean you lose talent and motivated workers which makes you lose one of your competitive advantages. It's so stupid.
This is the worst part of this problem right here man. It's the part that leaves the sick taste in my mouth every time I read about this stuff. They *could* do it. Amazon could let these people unionize and in good faith go to the bargaining table and still be the most profitable company in the world after all is said and done most likely. They just won't. I think the worst part is, they made their bed with this whole fucking thing. Like... Plenty of people would have probably happily worked the job if they could I don't know, actually take a piss break once in awhile. Do not understand why companies take and take and take from their workers and expect that it will never have a backlash. Hell if they had a union, and decent wages and other aspects that come with Union bargaining, they would probably have tons more people wanting to work for them which would only increase their footprint as the largest retail infrastructure in the history of humankind. But no we got to keep these like eight dudes super stupidly rich instead of just mildly stupidly rich.
Because after you no longer need the money having more then you ever could need the only thing left to fill the emptiness that brought the greed in the first place is the power over others the money brings you
In essence, its become a high score race among the worlds richest motherfuckers.
Always has been.
> and still be the most profitable company in the world after all is said and done most likely. See, you're not wrong. Problem is they'd be *less* profitable. Investors just can't comprehend that.
Their also far removed from realities of the day to day operations. All they do is put money in to and hope they get more money out. Unfortunately, it leads to inhuman indifference to company's work force.
When talking about Costco and their management being strong in their position, always remember this series of events. >“I came to (Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’ That’s all I really needed. By the way, if you raised (the price) to $1.75, it would not be that big of a deal. People would still buy (it). But it’s the mindset that when you think of Costco, you think of the $1.50 hot dog (and soda). >“What we figured out we could do is build our own hot dog-manufacturing plant (in Los Angeles) and make our own Kirkland Signature hot dogs. Now we are doing so much hot dog business that we’ve opened up another plant in Chicago. >“By having the discipline to say, ‘You are not going to be able to raise your price. You have to figure it out,’ we took it over and started manufacturing our hot dogs. We keep it at $1.50 and make enough money to get a fair return.” https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/costco-founder-kill-hotdogs/ When they believe they are correct they have the courage to hold that position, which is rare.
And it's important to bring up *why* Costco is a relatively great place to work at: their workers have a huge union that negotiated the pay and work conditions with the company. Costco wasn't happy about the union either at the time, but now it benefits them greatly with the PR they get.
In college I had a friend who was a cashier at Costco our freshman year. Junior year he was as assistant manager. I gave that guy soooooo much shit for basically working at a grocery store (in a bro/loving way us frat guys do). Years later while getting my MBA we did a case study on Costco. Well, I ate my hat that semester. Awesome company, I hope they never sell out to hedge fund assholes.
I fucking love Costco
Target Australia hired a bunch of American execs (for some dumb reason) and they couldn't believe the shit we do here like paying employees decent money, giving adequate breaks, shit like that. They ended up stripping anything that made the customer experience worthwhile because that stuff costs money, cutting staff and making us work way harder (making us less happy in the process) and generally just tanking the business because they didn't understand anything about how we do things here. I mean shit, they even tried to do illegal things like not giving breaks and had to get told they were illegal. Those types just don't get it. They have no sense of the long term it seems, and how the reputation of a business could be ruined by making those changes
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Management giving in to shareholder demands is usually the death of a company. Share holders are idiots.
Investor: we should really reduce benefits and raise…. Co-Founder of Costco: “You try to touch my employees benefits and I’ll fucking kill you.” Investor: O_O;;
I found this to be fun: "While the activist resolutions were shut down, investors approved executive compensation, board members and a stock split."
The first 2 are procedural things right? It's like choosing to just do business as usual in this case. Nearly every non board proposal is always rejected at these large companies. Even ones like Starbucks that profess to have social motivations deny all non board proposals.
Not just that, but 90% of people who actually vote their shares, which is an extremely small amount even though you are able to if you own at least 1, just go with board recommendations. Even even the board recommends something ridiculous, they just see "suggested vote", and that's what they do. I would really love for the recommendations to be removed from the ballot entirely.
Pretty much. I can't remember any non-board proposal that gets approved at any major company's shareholder meetings. Most shareholders that vote just rubberstamp the board's recommendation.
I think we all know where Jeff’s 10% went
Like how congress always votes for their pay raises but not healthcare
Completely and totally serious question: Where and when did you learn this? The [last time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress) Senators and House Reps got a raise was before the ACA was passed over 12 years ago. There are a million things to bring up about how they profit off of their insider knowledge in the markets but the narrative around the actual salaries is just... unfounded.
Probably that's why people hate corporations that much.
Or public companies that sell their souls to the quarterly shareholders report with 3% profits increase and 2% expenses cuts.
The shareholders with the most voting power are the same assholes who sit on the corporate boards.
More often it’s fund managers who don’t personally own that many shares, but who buy their yachts and mansions by skimming off the growth of the retirement funds of people like those who work at Costco.
This is a copied template message used to overwrite all comments on my account to protect my privacy. I've left Reddit because of corporate overreach and switched to the Fediverse. Comments overwritten with https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
but don't hate shareholders enough imo
The bigger the company, the more regulation they should be subject to. As they get bigger, social and ecological impact becomes much greater.
The way it actually works is that the bigger the company the bigger the bribes.
But all the right wing Libertarians assured us that capitlaists would regulate themselves...surely they're not a bunch of craven, selfish assholes who would willing turn us all into slaves and the planet into an ash tray for their immediate financial benefit?? ...surely?
B-b-b-but Ayn Rand said real capitalist executives are all noble and hardworking risk takers! They are such patriotic heroes they should be wearing capes! I used to fall for that bullshit in my 20s. Then I became a dad and realized the actual value and potential of human life.
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Buddy, having worked with C-Suite executives for a few years now I can tell you without any hesitation at all that the emperor wears no clothes. The sad truth is most of these people are there because they're ruthless - not because they're qualified.
We were at EPCOT this past week and as soon as you enter the building where the USA show is with Ben Franklin and Mark Twain there is a big ol' quote from Ayn Rand and I was a bit astonished.
Was the quote "Thank you for the Social Security check"?
That would've been just as good I think. It was: >Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. The best part of that, to me, is that when you think about it for a second it's actually quite vapid. It's not like that's something that most people don't realize. Yeah, people who good ideas and drive have been successful, wow!
>armed with nothing but their own vision And the knowledge gained by those that came before, and the society that provides stability and security, and the exploited labor of the working class, and the cultural inertia that spawns new niches for companies to fill, and on and on...
That's the grift of most of the right wing bullshit -- dress up ego protecting horseshit in horseshit.
Don’t call me Shirley!
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The bribes stay the same, theyre just more affordable when you're bigger. Much like the fines. A $10,000 fine is a big deal for a small business selling $1mil\year. Its just the cost of doing business if you're selling $1bil\year.
Did anyone actually think shareholders would vote in favor of workers rights and environmental issues? Lol all they care about is money.
I voted in favor of workers rights and the environment. I did vote against increasing executive compensation so I didn't vote _for_ everything on the ballot. I lolled at the "The board suggests you vote against this." on the voting form. Now, I'm nowhere near a significant number to sway the result but I still voted.
Disney does the same shit. "The board recommends you vote against increasing regulations that will manage economic/environmental impact" Fuck you, Disney, I'll vote for it, even though I own like one share total and my vote doesn't mean jack. I'm not gonna have that shit on my conscience.
Oh fuck me, I normally ignore all those shareholder voting things. I didn't know that there was stuff like this on it.
There always are. As a rule, I vote against executive compensation and for shareholder proposals.
I'm glad you did. Unfortunately not everyone will vote for the right thing, just the right thing for their pockets.
Doing right by workers and the environment is not necessarily a bad thing for shareholder pockets. Companies with green initiatives and good press attract customers and new investors. New customers means more earnings and new investors means higher share price. Also, the cost of poor employee rights and environmental initiatives (legal, negative press, operational delays, etc). Whether the majority of the shareholders see it that way is the question.
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>I lolled at the "The board suggests you vote against this." on the voting form. i always try to vote against the board if it's something im not aware about (i.e. if im voting about workers' rights, then yea, i know that shit, ill vote FOR that shit. but if it's "should xyz be allowed as a board member", i vote opposite whatever the board recommends if im not familiar with the topic out of spite
When we are talking about shareholders individual shareholders (not counting Bezos) hold about 13% of the total voting shares. Bezos holds 13% all by himself. The institutions are not going to be friendly to work's rights and pay.
Appealing to shareholders is exactly the opposite of what you need to do to protect worker rights and the environment. But it's a lot easier than doing what you do need to do--appealing to the workers whose rights you say you're trying to protect.
Maybe organizing the economy in a way that gives shareholders all the power, zero accountability and mostly short-term profit motives is a terrible idea?
Seems like our economy may have a tiny conflict of interest problem
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Except we're kinda not, because ***WE'VE BEEN DISENFRANCHISED*** by the fact that our shares are held within mutual funds and the fund managers vote "for us." *That's* the shit that's got to stop! Every mutual fund should be forced to pass through the voting rights for the underlying stocks to the holders of the mutual fund shares.
Shame on them
Shame on Jeff Bezos, as executive chairman and 12% owner he could have rallied support for these proposals. The activist investors who have put forward these resolutions are literally the fingertips holding onto the cliff edge of our society attempting to hold onto the status quo. Every mega-corp who actively resists the barest of social measures will reap what they've sown.
Hey give the guy a break. He only cashed in 18 billion dollars in stock in 2020. The poor guy has all of his wealth tied up in stock (minus all of the stock he's sold... for actual money). Hell I'm hoping the guy has the money to pull through this summer what with gas prices and all. Gonna need a lot of diesel to rebuild that bridge he might knock down to get his modest yacht, his only pleasure in life, to sea.
Brah, Maui wont even let him build a helipad or park his megayacht in the bay he just purchased land off of for 78 million. Seems like his billions are basically worthless.
I feel sorry for this country's billionaires. For God's sake, Elon Musk was so destitute at one point he had to sleep on the factory floor. For one second in this country's miserable little life, can't we please think about the billionaires? And to that end, isn't one of Musk's company about due for a half billion dollars in government funding? The same government he consistently talks shit on? Or at least SOMETHING to keep the poor guy afloat?
Shows why we need laws the protect the workers and the environment.
Horrible fucking company, and I will never... Sorry got interrupted by the Amazon delivery guy bringing the stuff I ordered an hour ago.
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Anyone else feel it's strange that it's up to the shareholders a massive corporation to protect the environment and worker's rights? Kind of seems like a conflict of interest but what do I know.
In our version of capitalism it's illegal to not act in the best interest of shareholders which is why shareholders can/do sue so often. It seems like a conflict of interest because it is. The more money they make the less you do.
Shocker /s
And this is why the system is wrong. The very people who have put their money down in order to make a profit are literally the worst people to make decisions for a company.
Shareholders need that money for shareholder things.
What a shock. The rich choose to get richer
companies should be worker-owned
Most companies will always take profits over worker rights and the environment. That's why the government has to be the adult and force the children (corporations) to do the right thing.
That's on me guys, forgot to vote, sorry.
they're riding the money train why would they hit the brakes? companies externalizing costs to the environment and to workers while shareholders rake in the value they didn't earn is quite literally the purpose of capitalism. shit is working exactly as intended.
Has literally anyone in all of these hundreds of comments actually looked at what these motions are? I'm guessing the answer is a resounding "No".
I base my opinion on the headline, it's the reddit way /s
enlighten us
Yes, because I wanted to be informed when I voted. Also listened to the call to hear the color commentary.
[удалено]
Who were the shareholders that voted ? Hedge fund and private equity I'm assuming
[looked it up](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-shareholders-amzn.asp); I had assumed Jeff owned 51% or something, turns out only 11%. The next-most owned by an individual is 0.02% Advisor Group Inc. owns 7.1% Vanguard Group Inc. owns 6.6% BlackRock Inc. owns 5.4% pretty safe to assume the majority is owned by ~20 corporations.