Spring Break
Who's got a doorbuster deal on coffins?
Issue date: 12/4/08
This year's three "Black Friday" deaths give me pause as I look ahead to another season of consumers buying a migration route from China to retail outlets to American basements and ultimately to landfills or yard sales. I, like some (though I stop short of saying "most" or "all") Americans, wonder why people need to die in order for the retailius oblongotta center of the national brain to be satisfied.
Analysis of the deaths is in order. According to the New York Times, Jdimytai Damour, a worker from Queens was trampled by a rowdy mob of over 2,000 trying to get at "doorbuster" deals as he and "six to 10" other employees tried to hold back the mob.
Eyewitness testimony and basic physics indicate that they failed in this noble if short-sighted goal, and in a truly ironic way that has already been immortalized on FAIL blog, the mob gave a new meaning to the phrase "doorbuster." In fact, Wal-Mart has quietly fired the surviving workers who were trampled alongside Damour, on the pretense that they were preventing shoppers from entering the parallel retail universe that is Wal-Mart.
Just kidding. In order to ease the pain of a dead employee, Wal-Mart issued a statement defending its actions, saying that they had retained extra security to ensure employee safety and "consulted police," though it seems that someone with decision-making power decided that consultation was enough. Sucks to be a security temp worker without collective bargaining power. Wal-Mart, of course, has a great relationship with labor. Ask anyone who has ever worked at Wal-Mart, and they will tell you that it was probably the best job they ever had.
Just kidding again. Wal-Mart views workers as disposable commodities to be placed in front of doors with consumerist mobs on the other side of them, which in this case turns out to be a really apt metaphor. In all seriousness, Mr. Damour's tragic and apparently unavoidable death raises questions in the mind of decent folk, such as, What could possibly be inside of Wal-Mart that warrants killing a man? Or even going in through working doors?
Analysis of the deaths is in order. According to the New York Times, Jdimytai Damour, a worker from Queens was trampled by a rowdy mob of over 2,000 trying to get at "doorbuster" deals as he and "six to 10" other employees tried to hold back the mob.
Eyewitness testimony and basic physics indicate that they failed in this noble if short-sighted goal, and in a truly ironic way that has already been immortalized on FAIL blog, the mob gave a new meaning to the phrase "doorbuster." In fact, Wal-Mart has quietly fired the surviving workers who were trampled alongside Damour, on the pretense that they were preventing shoppers from entering the parallel retail universe that is Wal-Mart.
Just kidding. In order to ease the pain of a dead employee, Wal-Mart issued a statement defending its actions, saying that they had retained extra security to ensure employee safety and "consulted police," though it seems that someone with decision-making power decided that consultation was enough. Sucks to be a security temp worker without collective bargaining power. Wal-Mart, of course, has a great relationship with labor. Ask anyone who has ever worked at Wal-Mart, and they will tell you that it was probably the best job they ever had.
Just kidding again. Wal-Mart views workers as disposable commodities to be placed in front of doors with consumerist mobs on the other side of them, which in this case turns out to be a really apt metaphor. In all seriousness, Mr. Damour's tragic and apparently unavoidable death raises questions in the mind of decent folk, such as, What could possibly be inside of Wal-Mart that warrants killing a man? Or even going in through working doors?
Be the first to comment on this story