The Cellar - Corporations you love/corporations you hate

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Corporations you love/corporations you hate

I love: Google, Red Hat, Logitech

I hate: GM, AT&T, Comcast

I used to hate but am now indifferent: Verizon, Microsoft

You?

I forgot

Hate: Clear Channel

love: Google, Whole Foods, Boiron, J.Crew, Target
hate: Walmart, Monsanto, Cargill, Merck, SmithKline, Ebay

edit/add: love Lush, hate Ikea

Love: Trader Joe's, Whole Foods. Both have found a viable niche in the overcrowded grocery market (quirky house brands / high-end and organics), both offer good products that are hard to find elsewhere, and both have employees who genuinely look like they know what they're talking about AND enjoy being there. Shit, if I could get paid anything close to what I make where I work now, I'd consider looking into jobs with one or the other. (Hint: I can't.)

Hate: Safeway. They took two perfectly good grocery chains (Genuardi's and Zagara's) and fucked them both up.

Love: IKEA. A good idea (decent few-frills furniture and housewares, DIY to keep costs down, done with a little style) that's held up well over the years. Nearly impossible to leave with an empty cart.

Hate: Best Buy. A big pile of electronics and housewares with the worst customer service known to mankind.

Love: Rockstar Games/Take Two. They continue to respond to criticism of their games' content by making the next ones push the taste envelope even harder. This is a good thing.

Hate: Electronic Arts. Once a great company, now a corporate predator coasting on name recognition.

(here we go.....)
Hate:
:rattat: Walmart
Nike
GAP
Nestle
Clear Channel
the murdoch empire/newscorp
Monsanto
$major_oil_company
CanWest
RIAA members
Associated (owner of the racist, facist Evening Standard & Daily Mail)
EA

Love:
Apple
Bodyshop

Indifferent:
McDonalds

LOVE LOVE LOVE:
Target
Trader Joe's
Red Bull

HATE HATE HATE:
STARBUCKS
Disney
STARBUCKS
Walmart
STARBUCKS

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaguar

(here we go.....)
Hate:
GAP

Goddamn it, how did I forget them?

Once upon a time, Banana Republic was a really nifty and quirky clothing outlet. They sold clothes normal people would want to wear AND oddities from around the world. I mean, L.L. Bean sells leather bomber jackets. Banana Republic sold bomber jackets AND silk aviator's scarves AND lambskin flight helmets. It was fun just walking around the store.

Then the Gap bought them out, subjected the chain to a massive dose of their Bland-ogrifier Ray, and turned them into Yuppie Central. EEEEECCCCH.

To this day, I have a sweater from the _old_ Banana Republic that I'd love to replace with a bigger size, but since the chain's demise I've never found one quite like it. (The Poet's Sweater was a THICK fisherman's sweater made from flecked cotton, not wool. About as warm and cozy as a sweater could get, but soft enough to wear over a T-shirt.) I've tried every store and online site I could find, no dice. I may have to take up knitting.

I hate proctor and gamble for ruining Iams and Eukanuba pet foods by reformulating them using cheaper ingredients and for the animal testing they do.

I loathe Microsoft, mainly because I feel powerless to use anything else, and they seem to deliberately engineer their products to fail. Their customer service reps read from scripts in a call center in Bangladesh and appear to have never actually used the software. But I can't bring myself to switch to something less "convenient." Furthermore, I'm afraid if I switch to Linux, MS will find out and send jackbooted thugs to beat me up in my sleep. I'm such a sheep, and Bill Gates is the demonic shepherd.

Starbucks sells the most overrated coffee in the world. It has that weird burnt aftertaste that everyone equates with "quality" when it's just burnt. IMO :blush: That people will pay 5 bucks for 8 ounces of water that has been dripped through burnt beans amazes me.

AT&T has screwed up my phone bill for 6 months running. But I pay a flat rate for unlimited long distance (that is, once I make my monthly call to remind them of the fact, and get my bill fixed).

I've never had anything but great customer service from:
eMachines (cheap computers, but knowledgeable staff - who'da thunk it)
Remington (excellent firearms, and if one breaks, they fall all over themselves fixing it)
Cabela's (no-questions-asked return policy, the best store in the world)
McDonalds (the food sucks, but I have never ever had any McDonalds kid be an asshole to me, or fail to say "thank you, come again." I wonder if they are brainwashed, or just get caned if they step out of line, but it works).
Progressive Insurance (had to get it for the SR-22 coverage, but as it turns out, they do a better job than most, and really do tell you if someone else is cheaper.)

Love:
Pixar
Target
Central Market (Texas' version of Whole Foods, except cleaner, and with a much greater variety of products. Oh, and not staffed by dirty hippies.)
Apple
Sonic

Hate:
EA
Disney
Whole Foods
Applebee's
Burger King

Indifferent:
Starbucks
Microsoft
Wal-Mart

Hate:
All banks
All insurance companies
McDonalds
D-Link

Love:
Just Us Coffee
Asus
Lush
Ikea

Love/Hate:
Tim Hortons
Microsoft

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Love:Central Market (Texas' version of Whole Foods, except cleaner, and with a much greater variety of products. Oh, and not staffed by dirty hippies.)

I can't imagine a cleaner store than the Whole Foods here in town. And if by "dirty hippies" you mean "a preponderance of really pretty girls" then I agree. :)

I know I'm supposed to hate Disney, but after visiting Disney World in February and having such a wonderful time with my kid, I jsut can't bring myself to do it.

I love Target, hate Wal-Mart. Totally agree with Noodle on the Starbucks thing. Their coffee tastes burnt and nasty. I'll take 7-11 coffee over Starbucks any time, as well as a breakfast bar and a pack of smokes for what I would pay at Starbucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaguar

(here we go.....)
Hate:
:rattat: Walmart

Walmart's made it to England?

Love:
My employer
Dell
McDonalds
Central Market
Larry's Market
PBS
Hewlett-Packard
Cadillac
Local Credit Union
Vonage
Leatherman
REI
yeah, Google, too

New! Blarg Online Services
New! Uwajamaya

Hate:
(new and improved) Republican Party
Wal-Mart
News Corp (words fail me :rar: :bitching: )
Local Firestone/Goodyear car "repair" shops
Qwest
MBNA
Comcast Cable
ChoicePoint
FoxNews (I know, redundant)

love:
Target
<that's pretty much it>

hate:
walmart
hp
compaq
qwest
verizon
household bank
WB
safeway

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV

yeah, Google, too

Speaking of Google...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Speaking of Google...

Try putting in your phone number...

LOVE

Kinecta Federal Credit Union
Best Buy
Microsoft
Nike
Level 3 Communications
Exodus Communications
Google
Wal-Mart
DPC

HATE

Apple Computers
Oracle
Ticketmaster
Haliburton
Eli Lilly
AOL/Time Warner
Fry's Electronics
Bank of America
Fox News
Cingular
GTE (but now they're not so bad as Verizon)
Exxon Oil
Shell Oil
OPEC

BigV, they have Central Markets in Seattle?? Do you have H-E-B's too, or have they only expanded the Central Market part of the business?

Perth, I think even Whole Foods was aware that their Austin stores sucked ass--they just opened a huge new Whole Foods supercenter to compete with Central Market. I haven't been, but supposedly it's much more upscale and has a chocolate fountain, of all things...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Speaking of Google...

The satellite thing is new. If your connection can handle it, try "driving" across the country. Very trippy. The sat photo of my house was taken last summer, when we put in the new sidewalks -- you can see the cement truck parked in the driveway.... :mg:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV

Try putting in your phone number...

Aieee!

Hmm... the statellite photo on google for my house is at least two years old, since it still has a clean blue pool in the back yard. But the little red arrow was pointing to the wrong house.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Perth, I think even Whole Foods was aware that their Austin stores sucked ass--they just opened a huge new Whole Foods supercenter to compete with Central Market. I haven't been, but supposedly it's much more upscale and has a chocolate fountain, of all things...

A chocolate... fountain.

A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN.

Goddamn, I'm moving.

If you like chocolate fountains, go to a wedding expo. They had one in Colorado Springs a few months back and there were probably 8 of those things. And they gave samples.

Once in my lifetime was enough for a wedding expo. My vote had "Elope" written on it, but I was outvoted 1 to 1.

How could I forget At&t? Thanks for reminding me, noodle. They are complete idiots. I called them to get a long distance access code number for one time use- I've done it in the past- I KNOW they have them- just like that whole 10-10-321 thing...anyway, they wouldn't give it me, told me I had to sign up for long distance from them, keep sending me bills, I'm not paying them.

And yes, Starbucks coffee tastes burnt- even when you buy it in the grocery store and make it yourself- it's just disgusting.

oh. Knew I forgot something.

British Fucking Telecom. I have a deep and personal loathing of this company. They take this place by managing to fail to send me a bill or take money from my account for 3 months (i've got better things to do than make sure companies take what they're owed) and then rather than telling me and settling up proceeded to cut off my service without any warning and then try and extort money out of my to turn it back on. Despite it being, 100% (and they admitted it) their fault. For failing to ring me back on their 'ring me back' service, repeatedly, for keeping me on hold for longer than anyone else and for taking over a fucking month to install a line. May the free market continue to shit on your fucked up excuse for customer service and hilariously uncompetitive prices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaguar

British Fucking Telecom.

"Damn and blast British Telecom," he muttered from force of habit.
-- Douglas Adams

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV

Love:
Larry's Market

We used to love QFC in the early '90s. Clean, personal service, happy employees, no friggen savings card. Not the same now. :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV

Try putting in your phone number...

I keep getting errors when I put in a phone number whether I do it at maps.google.com or just google.com.

Quote:

"Damn and blast British Telecom," he muttered from force of habit.
-- Douglas Adams

I don't think you can say you've settled into the country until you've spent at least one hour on hold to BT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by staceyv

I hate proctor and gamble for ruining Iams and Eukanuba pet foods by reformulating them using cheaper ingredients and for the animal testing they do.

I think you have to feed pet food to pets to test it properly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dar512

Walmart's made it to England?

I think he just hates it conceptually.

they'll probably become infected with it soon enough. :borg:

Google maps doesn't give me a little red arrow, but I do get a nifty shot of the town. The maps button shows my street, but not me. Guess I don't exist yet.

I also don't show up on Google maps. If you do a regular Google search of my phone number, you get my name and address. If you do a search of my name and town, you get my phone number and street address. But I don't show up on their map. Interesting. They must have separate databases.

HATE!
SBC
Yum coproration
Pepsico
starbucks
Sisco (the food distributer)
Bank of america (well... banks in general.. )
Haliburton (and all subsidiaries)
Westar Energy
Sunflower Broadband (local.. greedy and the owner is a dick)
Nike
Baseball...
budwiser and coors
ver-fucking-izon

Love
Target
Deals (any dollar store variation)
Williams Entertainment (mmm.... pinball)
Sony
subway

love to hate
walmart
microsoft

Can't we all just get along? :lol:

Love:
Peet's Coffee - Just. Plain. Awesome. best coffee ever made
Costco - Affordable American Crap!
Apple - more tech companies should be run by designers instead of engineers.
Ikea - Affordable Swedish Crap!

Hate:
I'm having a hard time filling this category. I'm sort of just indifferent to most companies.

Hate:
Walmart
Starbucks
Microsoft
Comcast
Fox
Pharmaceutical industry
Clearchannel
RIAA
MPAA (eh, really more neutral, because I don't watch movies)
Hewlett-Packard (for killing off their line of rpn calculators)
Disney

Love:
Google
PBS/NPR
Wegmans
Mozilla Foundation
Wikipedia
Apple
BBC
Restoration Hardware
Sears Kenmore
Newegg.com
Penzey's Spices
Land's End (though they've slipped since they were acquired)
Thinkgeek.com

...I'll add more later. When I think of 'em.

ohhh BBC! Forgot that one on the love list. If they dare touch my radio 4 they'll have Tumbridge Wells in Downing st with pitchforks and firebrands. (this is an english only joke really)

Quote:

Originally Posted by dar512

Walmart's made it to England?

They own our ubiquitous horizon dominating ASDA chain. Ah, once upon a hilltop I looked upon a beach, and firs, and conifers; now, bright green luminous lettering stuns my vision declaring in subtle acronym: Anything Shit-cheap Dead or Amoral! Still my seething heart for there are some companies to warm you:

Love...

WCRS (ad agency in London - the most creative and best company benefits ever)
Innocent
Borders
Virgin
Boeing

But hate even more than Asda....

Nestle
Coca Cola
McDonalds/Burger King/KFC/Pizza Hut
Any supermarket
Blockbuster
Channel Five
Sky
NTL
AOL
Disney
GSK
Proctor & Gamble
Danone
Post-Its (an obscene waste of paper)
Any house builders
Any oil/deep sea drilling companies
The American government
Hi tech useless Japanese toy companies
Butlins
ITV
Associated Newpapers
Emap

Hate: Best Buy, Wallmart, Nike, Danier, Monsanto, All cigarette companies, Ratheon and the whole lot of military contractors.

Love:Love is a big word.

Innocent! Their 1L juice bottles @ ~3ish quid each are my most decadent regular purchase. Bananas, pineapple and coconuts.......

Borders opened across the road from Foyles. Noone fucks with Foyles bookstore, the only acceptable response to fucking with Foyles is razing to the ground and dowing the soil with salt.

Never heard of it. If it's smaller and less profitable than Borders, minus Starbucks and with the same freedom to browse and read without hovering salesmen, I may switch loyalty.

It's independant, only one store in London, biggest, broadest selection I've ever encountered. Been there over 100 years. Looking for neural net theory implimentations? There's an entire section. Post 18th centuary Islamic art? There's a section. There's a independant cafe with wireless built in and the staff are beyond compare - you come to them and they know what they're talking about. Other bookshops can only aspire to the wonder that is Foyles, judging from my credit card statements I personally finance the entire operation.

Here's a good reason to hate Best Buy:

Quote:

PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

Have a nice day, Mike.

"Humiliating," the 57-year old Bolesta was saying now. "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole -- and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."

What we have here, besides humiliation, is a sense of caution resulting in screw-ups all around.

"When I bought the stereo player," Bolesta explains, "the technician said it'd fit perfectly into my son's dashboard. But it didn't. So they called back and said they had another model that would fit perfectly, and it was cheaper. We got a $67 refund, which was fine. As long as it fit, that's all.

"So we go back and pay for it, and they tell us to go around front with our receipt and pick up the difference in the cost. I ask about installation charges. They said, 'No installation charge, because of the mix-up. Our mistake, no charge.' Swell.

"But then, the next day, I get a call at home. They're telling me, 'If you don't come in and pay the installation fee, we're calling the police.' Jeez, where did we go from them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police? So I say, 'Fine, I'll be in tomorrow.' But, overnight, I'm starting to steam a little. It's not the money -- it's the threat. So I thought, I'll count out a few $2 bills."

He has lots and lots of them.

With his Capital City Student Tours, he arranges class trips for school kids around the country traveling to large East Coast cities, including Baltimore. He's been doing this for the last 18 years. He makes all the arrangements: hotels, meals, entertainment. And it's part of his schtick that, when Bolesta hands out meal money to students, he does it in $2 bills, which he picks up from his regular bank, Sun Trust.

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

At Best Buy, they may have perceived the protest -- but did not sense the comic aspect of 57 $2 bills.

"I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor."

He remembers the cashier marking each bill with a pen. Then other store personnel began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

"I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank,'" Bolesta says. "I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"

Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called in.

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

Finally, Secret Service agent Leigh Turner arrived, examined the bills and said they were legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

This will be important news to all concerned.

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

The other day, one of Bolesta's sons needed a few bucks. Bolesta pulled out his wallet and "whipped out a couple of $2 bills. But my son turned away. He said he doesn't want 'em any more."

He's seen where such money can lead.

:lol: