I'm Wary

I'm learning about marketing as K is taking a marketing course at school this year. It makes me a bit uncomfortable going into the stores lately, knowing what I know now. I didn't realize marketers target their customers in such detail, they know so much about each age group and what their tastes are. I feel as if I can't trust them, as if I'm being manipulated. And I'm paying closer attention to the products, trying to discern the quality and whether it's in my best interest to buy the product.

A friend of mine told me she avoids shopping in Walmart because they don't have a good record of treating their employees well. They hire mostly part time workers to avoid paying too many benefits. It's not the only place that does that. Apparently Costco has a really good record. Their business is run as a non-profit (I think she said that) and the employees have a lot of benefits.

Last Friday morning we woke up to the fact that our internet connection wasn't working. It turned out to be a broken cable modem, it likely died from old age. I had a kind of panic, in fact I ended up at the library later that morning so I could log on and do a few things. I had to postpone an online bill payment, and hoped I wouldn't need to use Google for anything! Fortunately M was able to get a new cable modem by end of day. It seems the cable company is always short of these, but some happened to be delivered that afternoon. We also got new digital TV boxes as apparently the cable company is going completely digital and we would lose some channels otherwise. The cable company is always short of these as well because a lot of people need to upgrade.

Anyway, this is just some food for thought today!