Tops Supermarkets, mainly because I’m a former employee and I was less than impressed with the company and the union.
We have Tops Supermarkets in Bangkok. I wonder if they’re the same? I always thought it was a local company. Thet’re owned by our Central Department Store group , but it could be just a franchise. The ones here are not that great either.
We are all trash in the eyes of Big Telecom. Somehow or another, introducing competition hasn’t changed this. At street level all the companies work the same: you deal with the overworked, the undertrained, and the rulebound. The companies are basically huge, poorly adjusted bill collecting machines that offer phone, tv or cable service as a kind of lucrative sideline.
The full name I think is Tops Friendly Markets. In the US they were part of the Royal Ahold group of companies. AIUI the chain started in Buffalo and was bought by Royal Ahold. Starting last year, Royal Ahold has been trying to divest itself of several of its smaller subsidiary chains in the US, and Tops was one of them. It’s not impossible that Royal Ahold would use the name elsewhere, though.
I have to admit, though, my decision to avoid Tops is one that’s absolutely painless for me. Occasionally they’ll have specials that may beat the price at the other local chain, but in general I find the other large supermarket chain in the area to be much more pleasant.
Diamonds.
Veal. I was raised on a midwestern dairy farm (40 head) and I was in charge of the calves. I was very entertained by them and loved their energy.
It breaks my heart to think of calves being treated badly. I don’t care about the “improvements” in the industry. They’re still treated badly.
I’ve never tried veal and likely never will.
I tend to shop locally as much as I can afford to, but Walmart and Starbucks especially seem to have the specific intention of putting local stores out of business.
On the other hand, the local candy store that fought and almost won having our town’s beautiful walking mall turned into a road.
I-pod - I blame them for starting the “can’t change your own battery” trend that all mp3 players now seem to subscribe to.
My son boycotts Target because he bought a $75 video game there that didn’t work. Their ‘policy’ is that they can’t take returns on those, but wtf you’re just plain screwed if you buy faulty merchandise from them?
I also boycott factory farmed meat/milk/eggs and as much as my budget will allow.
Pretty much. Sorry for what happened to your son, but games for some systems are extremely easy to copy. If they took returns on opened games, it would be trivial for some people to make a copy and return the real one to the store, basically abusing the system. Same goes for CDs and DVDs. It would be nice for them to at least offer a replacement though.
Perhaps I’m just making a semantic differentiation, but I choose to support some enterprises because I feel they are where I prefer to trade. I don’t conciously avoid certain operators, they just don’t appear on my list of options when I consider commerce.
Tycho
Great thread. Let the hate commence:
Bank of America- Incompetent and evil. When the CEO BRAGS that they made their record profits by screwing their customers… Screwed up my business, screwed up my mortgage payment and therefore screwed my credit. Plus they started this whole “let’s give bank accounts to illegals” idea. Screw them with a garden weasel.
Speaking of garden tools,
Home Depot- It is bad enough that 4 out of 5 times I wind up at Lowe’s anyway because they are out of stock on some very common item I need, but the whole “illegal alien lounge” thing that they build outside their stores is a deal breaker. Lowes is five times farther away but a whole lot more convenient. How’d they do that? Maybe by not sucking donkey ass.
Sony- Aside from the fact that their consumer electronics are crappy and overpriced, as mentioned upthread, I have only two words to describe this despicable company,** ROOT KIT**. IMHO, they commited a crime and should be heavily sanctioned, perhaps with the managers involved recieveing JAIL TIME. It sucks that I have to go to Panasonic or JVC for my pro gear though, although their pro gear isn’t that wonderful either. I had a problem with one of their monitors, and had misplaced the manual, so I went on their United States website, and the only manual they had was IN JAPANESE. Sayonara.
Monster Cable. I wouldn’t really buy it anyway, but they’ve sued a number of people who use the word “Monster” in businesses that are unrelated to cables.
That’s definitely not the Tops here. The actual name of the subsidiary is Tops Supermarket Co. Odd, but another grocery-store coincidence is Foodland, a small local chain. There are some in Hawaii, too, but not connected as far as I can tell.
That’s an opinion, not a fact. The best television set I’ve ever had is the Sony Trinitron. Still going strong in our home after 13 1/2 years. Wheenver it does give out, IF it ever does, our next set will definitely be a Sony.
Not done yet, hit reply by mistake.
Epson- Crappy crap, and they had a reputation for spying on their employees excessively.
HP/Compaq- As a service tech, I never liked Compaq, what with their all custom proprietary designs where a dautercard might be $1200, more than a whole new computer with more power, so a lot of Compaqs wound up in the landfill before their time. Their suck seemed to ruin HP. Thanks a lot, Carly. Canon imaging products, FTW.
Dell- Suck-o-rama.
**Cisco Systems-**Currently an infiltration target of the Cult of Scientology. How deep they are into this place is hard to determine, but any involvement is too much. Very scary, especially considering the nature of the company’s product.
Earthlink- They claim to have shed their Scientology but Sky Dayton still works there and writes a “lifestyle” column in their magazine that is pure Scientology.
And as others have mentioned, if I want to see a Tom Cruise movie, I will buy a ticket for another show at the multiplex, or wait until it comes on HBO.
And I just don’t get the hate for Wal-Mart. I agree with Gala Matrix Fire. Are you guys all so damn snobby that you will dry up and die if you see a couple of morbidly fat women dressed in sweat pants and a halter tops that are straining to survive between the rolls of blubber, loading up on Little Debbie snacks and jumbo bags of Doritos and discussing the latest episode of Springer, while their youngest crotchfruit caterwauls endlessly, and the older malnourished looking ones charge around, heedlessly knocking into anything in thier path because they have never been properly disciplined? Well, actually, me too, so I head for another part of the store when I encounter those types. But mostly I find it amusing. That won’t keep me away from the $1 dvd bin though. Found some gems in there. 
I am one of those folks with some money and I love the Mart. For a long time they had the best deal on Pistachios going. I don’t notice anyone being depressed, either. Most people that go to Wal-Mart like it and have a lot of fun. The employees don’t seem overworked, they actually spend a lot of time chatting. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you can get a lot of fun and handy things there.
Of course, if you want to pay $48.50 for blue jeans just so you can feel you are among your own class, that’s your business. It is still made in china or vietnam. I’ll take my faded glory’s for $12.
Wal Mart is one of my favorite stores, and I sometimes go there just to hang out, peoplewatch, and check out the specials. Seriously.
Another, from both a consumer and vendor angle. I won’t do business of any kind with pet stores that sell puppies or kittens. Some do foster adoptions via local humane societies, and I’m down with that.
I find this thoroughly alarming.
For me, it has nothing to do with the people that shop there, and everything to do with their business practices and in particular their systematic destruction of local business. I hate the poor-quality crap they sell and the way they influence manufacturing, I hate their politics, and I hate the control they have over our economy.
I’m all for free enterprise, but I think you can do business, even big business, without the ultimate goal of controlling the nation’s (and ultimately the first world’s) retail options, and the fact that they seem to be quickly succeeding is pretty alarming. To put it another way, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I know they’re successful because they provide stuff cheap, and that most people prefer to buy cheap stuff. I’d still like to live in a place where I can buy my pharmaceuticals from a drug store that’s been owned by the same local family for over a hundred years, current pharmacist is the grandson of the original and took over for his father. Sure, I can get a prescription for $4 from Wal-Mart, twenty miles away, but I’m happy to help keep the Davison family in business.
I’ll also keep paying a little more to support the local grocery store, also open for over a hundred years and continuously family-owned by the founders, as well as every other local business I can.
I can’t go to Wal-Mart and get jeans that will last ten years and stand up to livestock and barbed wire, but I can at the local feed store. I can go to the local hardware store and describe a particular widget I’m looking for, and they can help me find a supplier and order it for me. I can’t do that at Wal-Mart. I can go into the local fabric store and find someone to help me with tricky parts of my sewing projects. I can’t do that at Wal-Mart. I can have the butcher at Chung-Sun Market cut my locally-raised steaks the way I like them, or cut a special crown-roast at Christmas. I can’t do that at Wal-Mart.
So no, at least for me, it’s not that I’m so damn snobby, it’s that I prefer to do business with business that care about doing business with, and for me. That’s all. Also, I don’t buy cheap crap. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t buy a lot of stuff, but the things I do buy are quality and last forever.
Night games at Wrigley Field.
Grew up 12 blocks from there and attended hundreds of games in my life.
I was furious (and so were thousands of others) that they’d consider night baseball.
Haven’t attended one yet, and no plans in the future. I even look the other way if I’m on the “L” during a night game.
The institutionalized discrimination against women is why I originally started avoiding them, that had to be mid-90s or earlier. Nothing I’ve read about their business practices since then has convinced me I need to shop there.
most of these are going to sound like stupid reasons, but I still feel justified in my boycott.
Hewlett-Packard - because of the slap in the face they gave me. I bought a scanner which they made in 2003. When Windows Vista came out, and I tried it out, I found that one of the couple of hardware that failed to install was my scanner. I went to HP’s website to get Vista drivers, and was told that they would NOT be making vista drivers because this scanner is no longer being made or sold. Not only that, but the page then linked me to a page where I could buy a brand new HP scanner. Go to hell HP, if you abandon support on a product that’s only 4 years old, why on earth would I fall for the same thing twice?
Old Navy - I haven’t forgotten about those god-awful commercials that aired in the 90s
The Dunkin Donuts at the Stamford, CT train station - For continuing to employee the worst workers I have ever encountered. They just don’t give a shit - I once missed a train because I was trying to buy an iced coffee, and one of the workers was hanging out in the back room, and the other one joined her after taking my money, but before making the drink, and didn’t come back for 10 minutes.
For me it’s partly a general avoidance of department stores. I prefer to shop at more specialised places, chains or otherwise, because I find they suit my needs better. The staff is more likely to be able to help me, and in many cases it’s easier for me to find whatever I’m looking for. Then there’s the whole business practices/politics thing, which puts it further down my list than many other places.
Also Wal-Mart doesn’t stock much for anime. 'Nuff said 