RE: Your Dollar Has POWER! (Make the Most out of it!)
None of this surprises me in the slightest. These companies not only want to get bigger by all costs, they HAVE to otherwise their stocks will drop. That’s why I always support local business wherever I can. The people you deal with don’t have to answer to anyone and you can know exactly who and what you are dealing with and treat each other like humans.
In big companies, problems are basically just passed around so the blame is like a hot potato, when really the blame is no ones because sometimes these things just happen, but the company always secures itself as an entity, meaning it’s profits will be safe, while letting its employees and customers take the slack for them.
Still we can say that everyone’s to blame for supporting the biggest monster companies so religiously in the first place. How many times have I seen people choose Starbucks over a local cafe for no reason other than the fact that “Starbucks is Starbucks”, or complain about how unhealthy McDonald’s is while eating McDonald’s cause it’s “convenient”.
Oh, I am 100% on board with you there! I live in Bali and almost everything I buy comes from local initiatives that I support... I wish I could say the same for my plane tickets. It's so important in how things are going to support those small mom and pop shops, the local farmer's market, the entrepreneurs that are working out of their bedrooms. I love supporting locally.
You're so right about the blame game too! The employees of big corps often don't have enough permission or authority to even handle customer complaints or unrest so it does become a big game of having the customer suffer and wait, while no one wants to handle it. It's becoming worse and worse I'm afraid.
Funny that you say that about Starbucks. My father is visiting me here in Bali, where he could get a lovely cup of fresh Indonesian beans anywhere, yet every day, he drives 10 minutes out of the way to get a Starbucks because he wants what he knows and he says it's better to get more (large cup) than an organic, locally produced, quality cup. I just don't even bother anymore...
I really hope we can start to make changes and you know it does come from people like you who are making that conscious decision with their dollars so, high five @whatamidoing, thank you for this inspiration :)