Winco Vs WalMart

The other Day my wife started coming home with brown paper bags full of groceries with the word Winco stamped on the front.

She was telling my how much money she saved by shopping there. Less than the local super stores, a lot less. It made me suspicious, a little. Checked the expiration dates, all fine, checked to make sure the food wasn’t coming from China or other questionable quality control countries, nope everything made here in the U.S., Brand name stuff. Scratched my Head, WTF? how is it they are so frigge'n cheap?

What’s the deal?, Gas is pushing $5 a gallon, everything through the roof, gas companies being grilled by the government being asked, How could you do this to people and their smug response, "Supply and demand", Apparently thats an excuse to do things that are morally corrupt. Basically they are screwing people over because they can and you have no choice. U.S. Executives who are making the corrupt decisions to own you, and now its time you pay them to excess.

Screw success now a days in the corporate world, they all want far above and beyond, they want excess. Excess is when you take the morals out of success and take and take, with no regards to families and being a human being.

So anyhow, WinCo, what are they doing that they undercut everyone’s prices? What’s the deal, what’s the scam? How can they keep the prices for actual living wage people Vs the constant 10%-20% price hikes every time the gas price goes up $0.10

So I hopped online to check out the WinCo Corporation to see if it was a branch of Walmart or some other place, though I doubted it, as the Walton family are anything but Moral in their operations or judgments. The other thing that was bugging me is why can they operate at a reasonable level when no other store in America can do this.

Turns out the reason why WinCo can operate the way they do is because they are in fact NOT a publicly traded corporation. There are no top heavy, as in multi Billion dollar paid executives with their own plush benefits that takes 99.998% of the profits leaving the rest of the corporate system to struggle over the last 0.001% of the profit structure. (Direct Quotes from Jackass magazine folks)

They are privately owned by the employees who work there. Everyone from the top management to the lowly bagger has the exact same benefits, exact same medical and dental, Same vacation and same profit sharing structure.

So it seems it isn’t top heavy at all like every other corporation in America because it isn’t a corporate structure with public stock.

It’s a company that is privately owned by the employees with private stock. The stock is not determined through the public but through a private assessment company. Financial compensation and structure is done with the 9,200+ employees who all have a say in the company payout and structure.

So unlike a corporation where three people determine the structure and compensation for everyone else. Everyone determines what the 0.01% of the top brass is going to get. There is no runaway executive getting hundreds of millions of dollars, with a multi-million compensation package for getting fired due to miss use and negligence of corporate resources. They are treated like everyone else in the company. They are their own check and balance structure, unlike other Corporations.

They are in every sense of the word “Success”, Not “excess”

So it turns out WinCo, is the model of a company structure that all companies should follow. A structure with checks and balance, a structure where the employees, not a disinterested third party individual with extra money to burn, driven by greed, who invests in them, that determine the direction the company will move and how the company will operate.

It is literally owned by the employees, operated by the employees, and the employees determine the structure of the company. You wont find grossly negligent and incompetent managers because the employees will fire them. If you work there, you got to actually know what the heck your doing, not simply have a degree from Harvard.

So unlike the share holders of public companies that demand Microsoft like returns at the expense of employees and customers alike, these guys are making a living and treating themselves and their customers fairly.

So now we shop at WinCo. It’s not a super fancy place to shop, it’s not all about presentation and environment at the cost of your pocket book, its about supplying a demand and making a reasonable living in the process.

Like the 85% of us non-"excess" executives here in America, who are simply trying to make a living and do a job well, And I gotta say they are doing the job right on every level of the word "Right".

You can operate and make a profit and live well without raping your employees and customers, and WinCo seems to be operating under that understanding.

The biggest thing they have going for them?

The fact it’s run by employees and not managers who reside in an office in some far away city, who never touch a product and feel they are above manual labor or associating with the people who make the company's profit and make the company operate.

Check them out.. http://www.wincofoods.com/

As long as they operate by the employees with the employees as top priority, They will get my business whenever possible. Unlike WalMart who will only get my finger as I drive by. I refuse to shop at WalMart! and put the world of pressure on my wife to never shop there for anything.

So they get a clean bill of health, and a hope that other businesses will take them as an operational example of the right way to do business. They are the living proof that you can operate succeed and make a very decent profit while supplying a real service and treating employees as what they really are, as Assets, not as Liabilities.

Fear the Reaper, no wait..

Don't Fear the reaper, or in this case, in regards to change, don't fear changing the Status quo.

For those of you who have had more then one job, which is the majority of you. You have managed to acquire better jobs as you move on in life, and with jobs threaten and piss-poor economic outlook, over all, Life is still pretty damn good as you still make it what it is.

It seems out there, people only feel better about themselves by denying culpability of their actions by blaming others for their short comings instead of accepting their faults and doing something about it. I would say if the same habit continues after 50 the person is pretty much a lost cause.

My supervisor for instance, he has a sorted history, that I found out running into his past "co-workers" and he has not changed at all, which will eventually cost him his current job as well. He will move on and do it all over again as the company realizes his problems, he will bail out and jump to anther company and proceed to chew up their work flow.

Those of us who can change and can accept ones own faults, we have nothing but blue sky's and a future ahead of us.

Mainly because the issues that cause us grief and hardship from our own doing can be changed to become an asset in our personal life, by facing it, correcting it and accepting it and moving forward. Which leads to the Owl, The Blue whale, and the Cow.

THE OWL:
This pretty self explanatory, the Owl sez "Who" and we say "ourselves" Anything in your life is mostly due to ourselves. Bad job? people we deal with being total shit heads or grossly negligent and incompetent then turn to point fingers at you to save their own ass? Well just because you have a job, doesn't mean you have to stop looking for one. You can focus on them and how they are destroying your life, or you can look at the fact that your their because you choose to be there, and you can also not be there.

As history points out, it's actually much better to look for a job while your employed then when your not. If the upper management can't see a managers incompetence, even when its grossly negligent, then do you really belong in such a company, because the issues go all the way to the top. People tend to hire like minded individuals.

Besides, the business model theories taught in the 70's and 80's are now being implemented with new management, and they are efficient in weeding out the competent. Why? Because in short term cost cutting, competent people are expensive. This is simply the applied business model implemented by individuals who are educated beyond their intelligence. Plain and simple.
If you have the visibility to see the issues with in a place your working, and you still choose to sit there and take it by not moving on to a better employment opportunity, then YOU are holding yourself back, not the managers who do their best to use their business skills which is the art of shifting culpability to others. (Yes, an actual business tool for management, not a joke) They are good at it or they would be gone a long time ago. So why is your job crap and why do you suffer, ultimately it is because of you. It's hard to admit your in charge of your own employment but it is true.

which leads to the..
BLUE WHALE:
The blue whale is the largest mammal on the face of the earth, it is over the length of three buses, You can park a car in its mouth, its veins are large enough for salmon to swim in, yet it's throat is only the size of your fist.
Do you know why? The correct answer is: Because that is just the way it is, accept the fact and move on. The sooner you do the the sooner you can do other things.

In business there are a lot of blue whales, like a bad work condition which sometimes can be completely due to a single managers need to create hostile work environments. This is how the business works, it's a blue whale, accept it and move on, don't focus on the fact a manager keeps screwing up the work flow or actively causes work failures, and then blames the last person in line, it is what it is.

You can't work in those kind of conditions? well refer to the part about, just because you have a job, it doesn't mean you can't keep looking for one.

THE COW:
The cow is also very simply but important, sometimes you just need a big thick steak. Don't forget why your working. which is for them big thick steaks (figuratively speaking, so no offense to the herbal minded people, being of course the vegetarians and the vegans.) If the place your working in keeps you from your objective, then your most certainly in the wrong line of work.

If others keep you from living your life by "beating you down" in work then what is the lesson and skills you learned from where your currently at? I would bet you, you are better because of it, you learned how to deal with issues and people, and you have more working skills which work well when applying luck for another job. competition makes you more alert and more capable of looking for problems, if anything to avoid them.

which leads to the last subject.. How do I get lucky in work.

The definition of Luck is also very simply: Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
If your prepared for an opportunity, then you are lucky, if your not, then your unlucky.
"Damn he was lucky, that job landed in his lap!" because he had what it took to do the job, otherwise he would be like the 60+ people before him who didn't get the job landing in their lap, because they where not prepared for the job as it was an open opportunity.

An average person runs across 3-8 opportunities per week, however they either do not recognize the opportunity so are oblivious to it, or are not prepared to exercise the opportunity. Hence they are unlucky. this is also commonly known as the "Daily grind"
They look at these people who have "charmed lives" and focus on the fact that these guys/gals have everything and you do not.

Know what the "Charmed people concentrate on? "Whats my next job?" because they are always looking for the next opportunity and are preparing their skills to utilize the next opportunity, which is why they always seem to have good luck. Because their are still looking for jobs, even though they already have one.

So why the rant? because after 11 years of exemplary service, after saving the company from many issues and keeping things running smooth, and making them a very tidy profit in the process a new manager moved and decided (still wondering if it's because he feels I am a threat to him), so eliminated me within 1 month stating I am unemployable, even though I cover more aspects in the company then any one other person. and do so with no issues.

I saw this coming when he was first hired from his first statements and actions.
Am I unlucky? Well the manager who he replaced was a problem, as was the 4 managers before him.
I prepared by eliminating all my debits, pay off everything, and then banking all my money. My opportunity to get another job before the event, I skated on because I was comfortable, that aside, I have almost a years worth of mortgage in the bank and job skills which exceeds managements, which makes me very employable, if anything I am capable of making my own job and being self employed.

As such I sat calmly while he ranted, and almost laughed as he felt he destroyed my life. He has in fact liberated me into finding something other then a dead end job, which I know for a fact the company will not exist within 8 to 10 years anyways. Management will close the doors do to "inability" to run the company and not capable of maintaining a profit margin acceptable to the parent company..

Though the courts are currently involved "to prove a point to the manager in question" After I walk in the door, the statement "I am here, because the courts have found you done something illegal" is all I need to say before resigning my position and getting a job with a 25% pay increase, which is right around the corner and already lined up, I may have it prior to walking back in the door to resign due to having a better job.

Regardless, I don't feel any stress, I simply realized how much of my life I have wasted by not making the move earlier, I knew i should have moved over four years ago, but status quo was holding me back.

Comfort is the most dangerous thing in one's life. It prevents you from growing as a person, as Status quo tends to draw you into stagnation, and that is a corporate disease that runs ramped here in America. a 2% pay raise per year is a dead end job, why the hell would I be there?
the answer is its my fault, I had hundreds of "Known" opportunities and did nothing about them.

I actually am getting fit and loosing this spare tire, and now at the end of the day I don't feel so frigge'n tired, and I don't have that gray cloud over my head due to wondering how management will screw up the next day. My life is mine again, not theirs. Having good health is just a side note.

And I still get a fat juicy stake, Things are not as bad, in fact the only thing worse was if this scared, hostile manager left me alone to do my job.

My favorite movie line is still "Without change, something sleeps inside of us, The sleeper must awaken!"

Braaaiiiins..

So it seems there is a bit of a difference between the way a man works and a woman works..

..Like duh!

So the connection is, if Shawn of the Dead was real, us guys would have our best buddy out in the shed to play video games, which would be a true statement as this clip pretty much covers the basic facts between men and women.
Nothing Box
I would agree with this dynamic as it seems to be very true at my house. some times, I like to coast while watching TV or while eating dinner, or... (Watch the video before continuing.)

Having a rootbeer float often does not mean I'm contemplating the parallel universal method of trans portal time flow warp-travel theory.
AND It certainly isn't a hidden message connected to the fact that the third week in the first month of next year tied to the fact that when I first met my wife, which constitutes a hidden message in regards to how much I love her or what my next move may be considered as when dealing with significant relationship body language which in turn really means that my feelings towards here is less significant when absorbed by video games, which it isn't.

I am just wolfing down a rootbeer float (usually half consumed by my boy so we are both drinking fast to get the most before it is gone, because my boy will drink it all if I don't get some down first.)
Or
Just because the boy and I are out foraging on blackberries doesn't mean I'm secretly training him to be an anti-social, emotional abuser of woman and exercising the second principle of humanity in regards to woodland survival and anti-human behavior, it simply means.

The boy and I are hungry, and blackberries are free, and we are dumb enough to get poked by thorns because our hunger drives us beyond any thorns we encounter. Thats it. it's just because it's FOOD!

What where we thinking when we come in all dirty, berry stained and scratched up? while the wife knows she told us not to go out and get dirty or not to wear certain clothing while eating blackberries because they stain.
It isn't because, I as the older male know it will piss her off, that I am doing it on purpose because she specifically told us not to do this last week, and is a means of training my boy to disrespect something she thinks that she has told me a million times not to do, it is because, well, nothing! who would do that if they thought about it, honestly..

We are outside, there are berries, they are yummy. Whats running through our heads? Nothing, other then blackberries are yummy, and they are in reach, and it is a challenge to grab them and we guys overcome challenges.

We don't get into it because we know the spouse is going to rip into us later, or as a means of rebellion or some hidden agenda that we don't respect or love our family, we do it cuz we pull out the nothing box, and while thats going on, we where hungry, so after words, after the nothing box is put away and we see we are scratched up and stained, then we run in and try to change our clothing before the female unit notice we change our clothing, which never works, and then we try to hide in our nothing box again as we get into trouble.

Another one for the "Nothing box" If you don't want us eating blackberry's then let us play the video games instead of kicking us outside where the berries are. It's a no win for both parties, at least remind us to change into grubby cloths when you kick us out, because we don't remember because on the way out the door we are checking our nothing box to see what to do while we are outside, and theres nothing in the nothing box to remind us to change before getting into the blackberries.

So when the nothing box is put away, Well the "I love you" box is still full, so it is still there, just not in the same box as the "what where you thinking" which is what normally goes in the "Nothing" box.

Crazy little tune

Just had to share this one, a little bit of things I like.

a bit of CG and some traditional animation, and of course a good beat to boot.

reminds me of the steam boat Willie cartoon, (first Mickey Mouse flick) but for some reason the crates remind me of the laughing man from Ghost in the shell, Go figure.

Geek-Fu Grip!

Student: Honorable Geek-Fu master.
Master: Yes student, you may speak.
Student: Please tell us of the enlightened Tauren quest again.
Other Students: Yes, please master tell use.
Master: Ok, I’ll tell you again, Gather around the masters feet so that we may become enlightened as a group of the power of the Geek-Fu death grip.

One would expect to hear something like this, but it only gets better. Mur Lafferty’s Lessons From a Geek Fu Master really gets to the convergence of Geeks to a self proclaimed master of the fabled Geek-Fu. And a Master she is with her impressive geek accomplishments. This includes video games, Warcraft RPG, and World of Warcraft credits. Like Damn!

She shows how geeks really are resilient pioneering and enduring people leading the way for the rest of society to follow. How we build the world for other non-geeks to say, hey, that’s cool, and we claim this coolness for ourselves.
Making us geeks to go forth further into social abnormalities to claim our own geekiness so we can say, We geeks are still cooler!
She does audio work for podcasts such as escape pod along with her personal podcast Lessons From A Geek Fu Master

She covers everything geek, and reminds me why I love my wife who occasionally displays hidden geek tendencies. If only I could really get her to come fully to the geek side of the force instead of just dabbling in it, then, as Vader would say, "the circle would become complete."

Yoda would say, “Aaah, enlightened you have become, but master of 360 you are not.”

And of course the ever popular “Some one set us up the bomb!” and “All your base are belong to us!"

If ever one could cause a geekgasium, she could, I think she unknowingly has become a geek goddess, even though she admits she geeks out at cons and conventions over other geek icons, I think she doesn't realize she has risen to the level of a geek icon herself.

Ho! Ho!, Frigge'n Ho!

It seems this is the season of political discontent (I wouldn’t even call it political correctness anymore as this is just sick and wrong.)

It seems that the life long tradition of Santa is now something that is offensive to politicians and word governments at large because Santa is a happy guy. “By God! We aren’t happy unless you aren’t happy!”

It seems A Santa claimed he was sacked from an Australia/New Zealand company from saying "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and said structure banned all other Santa's in Australia and New Zealand from saying “Ho, Ho, Ho”

Sacked Santa

Santa indoctrination,

Santa banned

The grounds for this is, The Aussie's and Kiwis feel that by saying "Ho, Ho, Ho." That individuals, particularly women, as children do not enter into this equation, that the governments and corporations of countries who never seem to have anything nice to say about the U.S, who also claim we (Americans) do nothing right, and other various dispersions cast at us Americans. Has taken a stance that the idea of a slang term "Ho" as in "Ya bee-yitch ho!" started by the seemingly uneducated street gang youth of America, is to dictate how civilized society is to live and speak. (No traditions and no freedom of speech allowed!)

So by saying "Ho, Ho, Ho," which All us (Fracke’d up, war monger, uneducated Americans) use as a “slang Term” Note how they recognize it is a "slang term", can not be used in the possibility of offending non-American women. like "Yo, Yo, Hu?"

So for a tradition that has been around longer then the nations in question, at what point do these places care what under privileged school drop-out’s say?

Why does the gang youth, and often uneducated (not all, mind you, but the majority) school drop out, drug dealing, gang bangers language, in any way relate to how a kid can enjoy a family tradition that has been around longer then the law makers in question.

So it seems frivolous, soulless, hostile and ethic less lawyers, can retroactively change a societies ability to enjoy a season,

by stripping an individuals ability to say words that have no actual meaning or context,

except in the twisted minds of individuals looking for big cash payouts for being struck as imagined as possibly insulted by a being a gang wanna-be from things seen on “fictional” movies and TV shows of how things are in America, that actually has no bearing on actual American lifestyles at large.

But apparently this has a profound effect of people living on the other side of the globe as they now get to sue Santa’s, and stores with Santa’s because he is happy enough to have a gut wiggling laugh.

Perhaps these other nations do not understand that "Ho" was due to broken run down English because they couldn't speak clearly enough to say "Whore" as they don't really know how to spell.

As in..

"Bee-ietch! Yow Fucking Bee-ietch, I is tak’en to ya-all!, Now got yar ass out there and make yowDaddy s’more dead prez-dents, for’n I slap yo monkey mon-ay mak'n ass in da ditch!

Frigge’n Ho’s, I swear yaz got to keep on their ass, or dey jit be wawk'en off-n wit a pipe sucking down all yo mon-ayz wit dat frigge’n crack!"

I, guess I can honestly see how non-Americans would incorporate that into their civilizations speech and society.

Now honestly is this how Aussi’s and Kiwi’s talk? And who gives a crap what American slang is when they all throw shit at us in the media all day about how wrong America is on every level, including and especially our youth gang issues.

One thing you’ll be hearing from us Americans in the malls this Holiday season.. “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

-It’s called freedom of speech, looks like you guys could use some lessons..

..Ya Ho’s

Pearl Harbor, 2008, Aka Red Dawn...

.. So another Saturday drive to work, I work on the weekends, which mostly suck, mostly.

And heading off the island, onto the mainland, down the freeway and across the river to my job I go. And hopping off I-5 onto the trestle to marine view drive, on the Everett Waterfront.

As I was crossing the trestle a white military jet was coming across down the river on the deck as they would say. No markings I could see.
I live in the general vicinity of the air base on Whidbey Island, I am no stranger to U.S. military air craft, I know the profiles and I know the side profiles and underbellies of the jets in the area because they tend to fly over Camano Island now and then. I know our aircraft because I follow the military as a sort of sick hobby, and practically live on the military channel.

This one however was white, and much to slim for the ones I know, and had a hint of "Russian" to it’s side profile. From the aircraft I been watching on the military channel.
If I was to guess it looked like a hybrid fighter-bomber, with all the items on the inside of the plane instead of being loaded on the outside.

It first off was super quiet, which our planes are anything but. I often tend to stop any podcast I’m doing when they get near Camano Island, because they drown out my dog barking at two paces when their fifteen miles away.

This was quiet, on the deck, so low I thought it was going to ditch into the water, it got to the Puget sound and abruptly took a right turn heading north towards deception pass staying on the water.

I have never seen a plane fly that low and that quiet, I know Civi-planes would get their balls busted for pulling something like that, especially that close to the Navy base. This was not a civilian plane, it was a jet, as in a single seat jet, and no civilian jet is going to do anything like this.
Military planes are up high enough that you can see them regardless of what part of a hill your on. As far as I know military are forbidden to do what this guy was doing due to safety issues around civilian populations, roads, bridges, etc. being less then a 100 feet off the water and skimming the top of bridges.

So question is, we get some new planes? Or someone visiting us who isn’t supposed to be here, A.k.a, flying under the radar? They where traversing the valleys and came in from Marysville area apparently following the river.

Things that make you go HMmmmm. I’m wondering if I need to start arming myself..
I didn't have my camera with me or I woulda Snapped a picture of it. Though it had no markings of any kind.

I did some searching around on aircraft and the profile it was closets to was the ATD-X,
though the ass end was a bit fatter so the body coming from the back end of the cock pit was pretty much even all the way back instead of tapering off like this one does, the body was slightly longer and the wings where a bit more forward. however this was the profile I saw.
Our bad boys usually have ordinance under the wings (or pylons to attach ordinance if no ordinance are present), this one didn't have anything.