Ellen Cherry, you have the wrong target. Blaming formula companies for not breastfeeding is like blaming McDonald’s because people are fat. People need to take some responsiblity for their own actions. I don’t think any formula company in the past decade has been stupid enough to target breastfeeding. When I delivered, the formula company dropped off a bag to every new mom. The contents depended on if you were breastfeeding or bottlefeeding. Bottlefeeding moms (I’d imagine) got bottles and formula and coupons for diapers,etc. Breastfeeding moms got lanolin, a book on breastfeeding, a waterbottle stamped “remember to drink while you nurse!,” coupons for diapers, $3 off a boppy, etc.
Who they were targeting was not breastmilk, but the other formula companies. If you do give up on breast, they wanted a warm fuzzy associated with their caring formula company.
I’m missing the part in the article where the formula companies admit they are targeting breastfeeding? I see where the fact that they hand it out make women more likely to formula feed, but that’s the McDonald’s problem. No matter how I’d like to blame McDonalds for my three extra pounds, they are mine - and have nothing to do with their french fries.
My gut answer at first was - no. I mind my own business.
But yesterday I saw some guy in a handicapped spots without handicapped plates or a sticker and it got me fired up. I’m not handicapped and actually there were plenty of open spots, but it still fired me up.
I’ll agree to disagree. There’s a lot more tied up in feeding a child than feeding yourself. New mothers are more vulnerable targets than someone who consumes fattening food at lunch.
Today some busybody harridan on the train lectured me on not picking my nose. I wasn’t. I was adjusting my nosering so that the pointy sharp end wasn’t sticking sinus-side up. My fingers weren’t even IN my nostrils, I was twisting the stud. After I pointed this fact out she had to inquire as to my profession and then give me a lecture on how noserings aren’t appropriate for people like me and why I shouldn’t be wearing casual trousers to work. It took all my self-restraint not to go off on her although I couldn’t resist slapping her hand away when she tried to read my ID tag. It totally reminded me of this thread, though.
But McDonald’s advertising targets kids, too, or at least it used to.
Now, this is different, because eating at McDonald’s isn’t likely to make you unable to cook at home or eat at other restaurants, while (AIUI) exclusive formula-feeding will make breast milk dry up in a fairly short time.
I’m still going to say it’s not right to scam them. No matter how obnoxious and harmful they may be, it’s still always wrong to scam companies or individuals.
Oh, all that stuff pisses me off. People abusing others, committing injustices, being overly self-important, generally being assholes…it all makes me mad and I brood over it when my mind’s not otherwise engaged. On that message board I’d have probably said something like “if you’re going to be an ass, at least give the bags away to people who need them, crotch-pheasant,” except probably worded more politely. Small stuff too - I get peeved on a daily basis like clockwork by the assholes who park in my bus stop to wait for people or ‘duck into the cornerstore’ - sometimes the bus passes us up when you do that, fuckers!
It’s very depressing, but I don’t really wish I could ignore it. I just try not to let it take over my life, and not to let it affect the way I treat others. If I could take some petty revenge on such people without them knowing, I’d probably do it.
I think you would have an easier time having me arrested if I were to actually steal, as in the above examples. Stores could call kids’ parents for taking candy without paying, but the police won’t respond if you try to press charges against greedy trick-or-treaters. I don’t like them, either, but there is a difference.
OneCentStamp, that is a brilliant story - really brightened up the thread, and my day!
This thread is apposite for me, too - just yesterday I was cycling to campus in rush hour, and pulled on to the pavement for a short stretch to let a bus overtake me in the bus lane (the other lane was full of slow-moving traffic). As I made to rejoin the road, I was prevented from doing so by a builder’s van coming up behind the bus. Now, I wasn’t bothered about the minuscule inconvenience to me, but it really irritated me that this guy felt he had the right to jump the queue (illegally, too). I caught up with him at the traffic lights and called through his window: “funny looking bus, or are you just a cheeky ****?” before cycling off for my own safety. OK, perhaps not the best response, but what else can you do?
In fact, I read a better suggestion that evening: take the number down from the side of the van, then prank-call it at inconvenient hours. Several times [snigger]. Just too late for me, alas!
See, the thing is, this sort of shit does impact other people. Running red lights is a citywide habit in Baltimore, and since i moved here i’ve seen or heard a number of accidents caused by exactly this habit. For about two and a half years i lived near a reasonably busy intersection (Calvert and 29th, for the locals) and periodically i would hear a huge crunch from my apartment and run out to find two or three cars crushed in the intersection, all the result of some fucking idiot deciding that red lights don’t apply to him or her.
This shit does worry me, and it worries me because i know that it could be me or someone i know driving through that intersection when some selfish prick decides to run the red.
Ooooh, littering is my current obsession, mainly because, in the last few weeks, everywhere i look people seem to be throwing shit on the ground—soda cans, hamburgers wrappers, newspapers, chip packets.
The worst offenders seem to be people in cars (what is it about being in a car that turns every Baltimore citizen into a complete asshole?), who decide that they don’t want their beautiful car interior sullied by an soda can or whatever. These self-absorbed sons of bitches can’t even hold the fucking thing until they find a trash can; no, they just launch it out the window. (And actually, the term “sons of bitches” isn’t even appropriate, because every instance of this that i’ve seen over the past couple of months has been a woman.)
I was jogging yesterday by the road, and suddenly a crunched-up fast food box was ejected from the window of a car waiting at the traffic light. I stopped dead in my tracks and was about to pick the box up and launch it back through the window, but the light turned green and the car moved off, so i had to be content with giving the occupants the finger and calling them selfish cunts.
And again, while i probably shouldn’t get so angry about this stuff, i refuse to accept that it doesn’t affect me. Sure, Baltimore has bigger problems than street litter, but if we all just made sure our own shit was placed properly in the trash, the world would be a more attractive place.
Well, whoever “they” are, they’re wrong. One of the reasons that things like running red lights and littering bother me is precisely because i don’t do those things, and also because it’s so easy not to do those things. Seriously, how little effort does it take to stop at a red light or throw your trash in the bin instead of on the street?
I’m not saying i have no faults or foibles of my own, only that my dislike for the selfish habits of others is not necessarily some projection about my own shortcomings.
I agree that this mght be an appropriate attitude for some circumstances, but i can’t think of any personal circumstances that make it OK to run red lights or throw your shit on the ground.
Sure, but it’s not like there’s some finite amount of worry or outrage in the world. The fact that i get annoyed by some of the smaller stuff doesn’t mean that these big issues pass me by. I’m perfectly capable of thinking about and worrying about them too.
Diaper bag woman isn’t hurting the formula company in any real way. When we do promotions, what we want is to run out of the item. We don’t deliberately give all of the items to individuals, but if they all ended up in one person’s hands, that’s just one of the risks of promotions. The promotions include advertising, and having one person have a dozen items can be more remarkable, and therefore more effective, than having a dozen people each have one. For example, we had a number of years where we did a promotion where we gave away stuffed monkeys who wore little t-shirts with our logo on them. We also gave away people t-shirts that matched the monkey t-shirts. Every year, we changed the color of the t-shirts. We had people essentially collect the whole line of monkeys and t-shirts, people who would stop by the booth to pick up that year’s monkey. That wasn’t the point of the promotion. One monkey per person means greater monkey saturation! But once people started getting the monkeys, they had to keep coming back to get other monkeys. Talk about an addiction that’s a real monkey on your back!
A thread on a board from a bitch gloating about stealing can even be its own effective promotion.
She is hurting other people who would be interested in the promotion, though, so that behavior sucks.
I couldn’t help myself and checked the formula thread again yesterday morning.
This woman who had sent away for 20 of the free diaper bags etc had made it sound like such a good deal, that at least 10 other women in the thread decided to do the same thing.
Yesterday they were bitching & moaning because they got a free can of formula but no diaper bag was included.
I couldn’t leave it alone and posted “Maybe they ran out of bags because so many people were abusing the offer!”.
