I hated the spongmonkey ad campaign for Quiznos so much that I vowed never to eat there, and I’ve stuck to it. There are probably others, but that’s the only one I can think of right now.
Meijer, for what I view as bad treatment of employees and customers alike. In the last ten years it seems they have cut their staff in half. The few cashiers they have now are forced to bag the groceries, too. The rest of the checkouts are ‘‘U-Scan’’ which is both inconvenient and unfortunate for the folks who used to fill those jobs. Lines are always backed up and the cashiers always overworked so it’s clear that Meijer doesn’t give a shit about its employees or its customers. There used to be attendants in the clothing section–no more. There’s never anyone around to help when you need it. Meijer is a cheap bastard and I cannot stand it. Every time I walk in there I want to spit and curse and write angry letters. So I don’t go in there very often.
Walmart, for basically the same reason everyone else does.
Mobile – very, very bad track record for denying benefits to same-sex couples. I refuse to finance bigotry. Oil is always about choosing the lesser of the evils, anyways. Mobile seems to be the most egregiously bad.
I also avoid doing business with Chase Bank because I work in debt counseling and am pretty dissatisfied with the way Chase handles our mutual clients.
Ran a personal boycott of Sony for something like 15 years since the Sony Florendo lawsuit (Mrs. Sony Florendo ran a Filipino restaurant in Baltimore in the 80s. Sony Corporation sued to prevent her from using “Sony”. I believe in intellectual property but that was being putzes about it); had pretty much given it up, then they reaffirmed their putzhood with the CD rootkit nonsense a couple of years ago so I’m back to giving them negative points when making my purchase decisions.
Circuit City, because of their recent action of firing all their employees who worked full time, got paid better than minimum wage and had benefits, and then offering to rehire them…at minimum wage, and part-time only. Now I must admit that I don’t have a lot of money to spend in places like Circuit City anyways (being a full-time, retail wage slave who makes better than minimum and gets benefits) but if I did, and on the rare occassions I do…I’ll spend my money elsewhere, and I remind any friends who mention Circuit City to me what my feelings are and why.
Chipotle…I had the worst case of food poisoning in my life after eating at Chipotle…but that’s not enough. See, I know that their corporate policy was responsible. My daughter worked for them, briefly, during cold and flu season, and she fell ill. She called in sick, but was told that calling off sick in the first 30 days is not allowed, and she’d better show up for her next shift…which she did, sniffling and sneezing and leaving the line to throw up. She was grudgingly sent home, but told she’d better have a doctor’s note when she came back. Now she’d been unemployed, and uninsured, and couldn’t really afford to go to see a doctor…but she did, and got her note…but she till had to work while she was sick…and the bug was going through the entire staff, so they were all sick at some point…thhough the managers got to go home or call off without penalty. Anyways, I figured my food poisoning could have been caused by some poor new employee who was too sick to really be working food serice, but desperately needed the job. So I won’t go back, and I tell all my friends about my and my daughter’s experiences.
I won’t buy any product from Toshiba
You may want to re-examine the Domino’s thing. “They” as a corporation aren’t pro-life or pro-choice (they have no position on the matter) and Tom Monaghan sold his entire interest in Domino’s back in 1998.
I don’t buy Domino’s pizza but it’s because I think it’s lousy pizza.
At the U of I? Grog’s, baby. When I was there it was $4 for a medium pizza with onions and bell peppers, delivered. I’m pretty sure that’s cheaper than cattle feed and it tasted at least as good 
I’ve done online dating but refuse to patronize eHarmony; I don’t care for Neil Clark Warren’s attitude towards gays and lesbians (you can find his interview on “Fresh Air” at NPR’s website) so I take my money elsewhere (I’m straight, just find his opinions distasteful).
Maybe not, but telling the story makes me feel a whole lot better 
Fair enough, then just Wal-Mart and Chik-Fil-A. I forgot to mention Chik-Fil-A in my post, but I include it for the reason stated already.
…but my god they have the best fries ever. sob Sometimes I can’t avoid buying some. I refuse to buy more than that, though.
I was a professional protester picketing Publix for pecuniary purposes.
The local grocers union hired me, and others, to picket the new store in town for a slew of reasons, the unstated one being that Publix had no unions. I was unable to step on the property without maliciously trespassing.
i have since been in the store a few times. It is rather expensive and no one remembers me.
Kuboydal, mercenary
A major electronics maker (one that’s been mentioned in this thread) that I’ve had to work with on projects for several years. So many of their people have displayed such an incredible level of arrogant indecisiveness (“I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want, only I’m not going to tell you and it’s all your fault. And every time I change my mind or bring up a specification that I’ve been sitting on since the beginning and never told you about? That’s your fault too.”) that there must be something in their corporate culture that actively selects for it. Looking at one of their products in my home would just make me sick to my stomach.
Century 21. Racist shpos, every one of them. And that’s based on direct personal experience.
Wal-mart
There was (its gone now) a local restaraunt (Jake’s) That my wife and I USED to go to .
We were in there one night and our order seemed to be taking a very long time to arrive (45 minutes). So Iasked the waiter to check on it. He took one look at my wife, who is a large woman, and said “It won’t hurt her any to wait a few more minutes, its not like she’s skin and bones”.
We got up and left. At the door, the waiter chased us down, demanding payment for the meal. We called the manager over, explained why we were leaving and why we did not expect to recieve a bill. He attempted to back up the waiter, who was actively smirking at us over the manager’s shoulder.
We explained that we were not going to pay for bad service, extremely rude behavoir and indifference on behalf of the management and left.
Never went back
Regards
FML
A Figaro’s take-and-bake pizza here in town has a couple pretty good pizzas. They have a glossy, high-color sheet with them that has the cooking instructions.
Went in there a couple of years ago for my pizza, and read the newly printed cooking instructions. The last step was “Say Grace, then enjoy!”
Sorry, but that’s way over the line. They’re not the government, they can express their religion any way they want. But I don’t have to buy from them.
There are a couple other businesses in town that have the little Jesus-fish on their door. I assume that sign means “non-Christians not welcome,” and spare them the hassle of dealing with my sinful money.
I really used to like the food at Pasand Lounge. It’s a pretty well-reviewed Indian place and the first one I ever started going to regularly, once I realized I adored Indian food.
It pisses me right the fuck off. But an underage labor & sex slave-importing douchebag, is still an underage labor & sex slave-importing douchebag.
Previous thread where this came up: South Indian food is CONFUSING - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board
With all due respect, why on earth would you assume that? I know a number of Thai restaurants that have offerings to the gods in a little altar at the front door and they certainly don’t ask my religion when I order. None of the Indian restaurants with statues of gods on the counters turns my business away. I have a mezuzah on my door but that doesn’t mean non-Jews aren’t allowed. Sierra Trading Post has as one of their three guiding principles:
“3. That our business ethics must be consistent with the faith of the owners in Jesus Christ and His teachings.”
And they have yet to try and convert my mom before they’ll sell her a pair of socks.
You of course have the right to spend your money where you want but I think you’re taking a great deal of offense where none is being offered.
I’d have to agree with Valgard; that’s making a rather huge leap in logic. I have a customer that puts out decorations for Hindu holy events but I don’t feel uncomfortable there. Lots of Jewish businesses have symbols of their Jewish faith but so what?
If this needs to continue, let’s take it to another thread, but I’ll risk this one reply. Holy symbols that are cultural references of minority American cultures (the restaurants, basically) aren’t proselytizing, and frankly, people don’t see them as religious, but cultural.
Christianity isn’t a minority religion in the US; if we assume business owners are the same as everybody else, that means that 80% or so of them will self-identify as Christian. Having a Christian business owner is, therefore, the US default. A very small subset of those feel the need to explicitly advertise their faith by placing a symbol on the door. I can only see a few possible meanings to this:
- This business caters to Christians, they’re specifically being welcomed. 2) This business can be trusted because the owner is Christian. 3) The owner supports Christian causes. 4) The owner feels that it’s necessary that everyone know what religion he is.
The first three of those meanings are patently offensive to part of the population (including me). The last is just a bizarre thing to introduce into the business relationship, and while it’s not particularly offensive, I’m no going to go through the process of trying to determine which of the four meanings were intended.
Technically, NAU is a “Pepsi campus”, but that only applies to the fountain drinks in places run by Dining Services. Typically, whenever you find a Pepsi vending machine sitting in a hallway, there’s a Coke machine right beside it. The campus convenience stores sell only Pepsi sodas in the 20oz bottles, when I last checked, but sell both Pepsi and Coke products in 12-packs. Whether you get Dasani (Coke) or Aquafina (Pepsi) when you go looking for a water bottle seems to be pretty random.
I admit that I’m a huge Star Trek fan boy. So when UPN decided to cancel Enterprise I said to myself that I would never watch another show on that network. I still haven’t. Yeah it is childish but I really don’t care.
You should have boycotted UPN for airing Enterprise in the first place.