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fishmech posted:I really have to ask what you mean by " dilapidated the phone shopping experience". It's hardly ever been glamorous or anything. If you want someone who can do something other than what I described above, and give you a consistent experience, go to a dedicated phone store with trained people (who hopefully make commission at least) or go online. Wal-Mart is a very janky third-party experience involving high turnover people who don't know really anything about phones besides what they brought with them to the job. Conjecturally, if you were to replace all these people with a T-Mobile salesman or what have you, you'd get a better experience and probably a better deal on the consumer end.
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Jul 29, 2019 19:47
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Speaking of, did you know that in other countries, after your one-year phone contract runs out (where incoming calls and texts are not counted against your arbitrary limits), they just give you a new phone of your choosing if you agree to renew, whereas in America, after your two-year contract expires, you’re presented with the same bullshit “upgrade” options as a new customer that doesn’t even have a loving login, which amount to an overpriced, full-price phone, or an even more expensive monthly lease, because gently caress this place and everyone in it?
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Jul 29, 2019 20:53
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i am harry posted:Speaking of, did you know that in other countries, after your one-year phone contract runs out (where incoming calls and texts are not counted against your arbitrary limits), they just give you a new phone of your choosing if you agree to renew, whereas in America, after your two-year contract expires, you’re presented with the same bullshit “upgrade” options as a new customer that doesn’t even have a loving login, which amount to an overpriced, full-price phone, or an even more expensive monthly lease, because gently caress this place and everyone in it? Like any market in America you have to play it to get a good deal. You can get two-year contracts that upgrade your phone automatically, or you may be able to get a cheaper contract where you're responsible for upgrading, and can keep the phone you started with as long as you like it/it works. You can buy a top-of-the-line $1,000 world-ender quasiphysical antimatter phone, or a $300 it-just-works phone and make out OK. Frankly I'm surprised phone companies don't try to get you to pay interest on multi-year phone deals. Probably will if they decide to make a smartphone designed to last three years or more.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:03
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Frankly I'm surprised phone companies don't try to get you to pay interest on multi-year phone deals. Probably will if they decide to make a smartphone designed to last three years or more. Every time someone mentions that their phone loan is 0 interest I've nearly always been able to find that exact same phone for sale for cheap enough that they are paying near credit card interest rates on it. I think Apple is the only ones where this isn't the case because of their pricing model.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:14
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i am harry posted:Speaking of, did you know that in other countries, after your one-year phone contract runs out (where incoming calls and texts are not counted against your arbitrary limits), they just give you a new phone of your choosing if you agree to renew, whereas in America, after your two-year contract expires, you’re presented with the same bullshit “upgrade” options as a new customer that doesn’t even have a loving login, which amount to an overpriced, full-price phone, or an even more expensive monthly lease, because gently caress this place and everyone in it? Which other countries and specific carriers are you talking about? Going completely outside of contract is common across a lot of Europe for instance, so people aren't signing contracts to get phones, and certainly not getting free phones from the contract they didn't do. Or for that matter going completely off contract in the US is popular as hell now too. And not sure whether you're saying the limits are arbitrary in other countries or here, but it's real easy and cheap to get unlimited texts and calls in the US for like a decade now.
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Jul 29, 2019 23:12
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fishmech posted:Which other countries and specific carriers are you talking about? Going completely outside of contract is common across a lot of Europe for instance, so people aren't signing contracts to get phones, and certainly not getting free phones from the contract they didn't do. Or for that matter going completely off contract in the US is popular as hell now too. I refuse to believe this is true. Nobody ever calls or texts me, therefore it must be expensive and that is why they are not calling or texting.
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Jul 30, 2019 00:33
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i am harry posted:Speaking of, did you know that in other countries, after your one-year phone contract runs out (where incoming calls and texts are not counted against your arbitrary limits), they just give you a new phone of your choosing if you agree to renew, whereas in America, after your two-year contract expires, you’re presented with the same bullshit “upgrade” options as a new customer that doesn’t even have a loving login, which amount to an overpriced, full-price phone, or an even more expensive monthly lease, because gently caress this place and everyone in it? Hey OP, I don't know what's wrong with your account but it's reposting comments from 2009.
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Jul 30, 2019 00:54
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Like any market in America you have to play it to get a good deal. You can get two-year contracts that upgrade your phone automatically, or you may be able to get a cheaper contract where you're responsible for upgrading, and can keep the phone you started with as long as you like it/it works. You can buy a top-of-the-line $1,000 world-ender quasiphysical antimatter phone, or a $300 it-just-works phone and make out OK. I need citation on the first couple sentences because upgrades have never been free, there's always been some kind of device subsidy tacked on
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Jul 30, 2019 02:49
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I heard in Europe they keep eggs in the cupboard
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Jul 30, 2019 03:23
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I heard in Europe they keep eggs in the cupboard The things you can do if you don't chemically scrub eggs at the farm, coat them with wax or god knows what and then have to keep them chilled constantly lest they go really bad.
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Jul 30, 2019 04:42
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Baronash posted:Hey OP, I don't know what's wrong with your account but it's reposting comments from 2009. Imagine Bernie Sanders yelling, "Ten years! Still nothing has changed!"
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Jul 30, 2019 04:48
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Motronic posted:Every time someone mentions that their phone loan is 0 interest I've nearly always been able to find that exact same phone for sale for cheap enough that they are paying near credit card interest rates on it. I think Apple is the only ones where this isn't the case because of their pricing model. The game ends up being "hold onto your previous phone as long as possible and wait for a fire sale on the model you want." quote:I need citation on the first couple sentences because upgrades have never been free, there's always been some kind of device subsidy tacked on Yeah amazing how the fees come in for phones and Internet.
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Jul 30, 2019 04:54
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sauer kraut posted:The things you can do if you don't chemically scrub eggs at the farm, coat them with wax or god knows what and then have to keep them chilled constantly lest they go really bad. Coating them with wax would probably make them keep longer. They just wash them with bleach is all.
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Jul 30, 2019 05:45
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Gamestop is reorganizing their management per reddit. Might be a prelude to store closures.
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Aug 1, 2019 02:50
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Sodomy Hussein posted:The game ends up being "hold onto your previous phone as long as possible and wait for a fire sale on the model you want." Literally even when I had an upgrade every two years plan with Verizon back when that was the norm there was a device surcharge and weirdly it didn't stop when your device was paid for and it was actually better to upgrade asap so they weren't just pocketing that fee
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Aug 1, 2019 06:53
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/01/business/lowes-layoffs-store-workers/index.html Lowe's isn't giving hard numbers, but announced they're laying off "thousands" of employees.
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Aug 2, 2019 09:04
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I worked for Lowe’s for four years and it was only a matter of time. Only hire part time, get rid of department managers, and customer service slacked which makes people hate you more. When all you care about is shareholder profits this is what happens.
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Aug 2, 2019 14:36
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Customer service is king, yet so many companies are super keen on having the least amount of customer facing employees as possible.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:36
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Employees are money not going to shareholders
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Aug 2, 2019 17:38
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As said before, modern business strategy is to give money to shareholders above all else, even if it means killing the company.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:50
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Ghost Leviathan posted:As said before, modern business strategy is to give money to shareholders above all else, even if it means killing the company. Well, giving shareholders more money next quarter is next quarters' problem. This quarter was fantastic!
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Aug 2, 2019 18:25
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Yeah, basically. Its still dumb as hell.
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Aug 2, 2019 20:24
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anonumos posted:Well, giving shareholders more money next quarter is next quarters' problem. This quarter was fantastic! Bonuses all around!
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Aug 2, 2019 20:33
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Yeah, basically.
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Aug 2, 2019 20:51
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The company I work for had healthy and better than average growth and profits last year but nevertheless failed to reach shareholder targets. This means we've had a frozen department budget all year and we've been tasked with finding ways to reduce our overhead by any means necessary. Our yearly review will now be based on how well we slash and burn our department and infrastructure so as to maximize shareholder value. 
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Aug 2, 2019 22:59
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I've been insinuating that at work whenever they do something particularly dumb. I swear, the fact that they expect people to give 200% for some nebulous bonus that tracks out to a few extra cents an hour is mind boggling. Not as mind boggling as the fact it works on some people. Hell, I've seen people try and discourage reporting accidents so we would get our drat ice cream party, and its not management doing that idiocy.
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Aug 3, 2019 00:32
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Yea that big 100 dollar expense ice cream party, miserable fucks.
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Aug 3, 2019 00:40
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Dameius posted:The company I work for had healthy and better than average growth and profits last year but nevertheless failed to reach shareholder targets. This means we've had a frozen department budget all year and we've been tasked with finding ways to reduce our overhead by any means necessary. Our yearly review will now be based on how well we slash and burn our department and infrastructure so as to maximize shareholder value. Private equity is even worse since they have the power to flat out lay people off or do other trims to hit each quarterly target.
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Aug 3, 2019 01:07
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Hand Row posted:Private equity is even worse since they have the power to flat out lay people off or do other trims to hit each quarterly target. The ol' Bain Reach Around.
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Aug 3, 2019 02:04
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/business/sears-kmart-closure-list-trnd/index.html Let's check in how Sears is doing now after coming out of bankruptcy.... 26 more store closures.
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Aug 7, 2019 21:24
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OhFunny posted:https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/business/sears-kmart-closure-list-trnd/index.html Yeah, I'm not seeing a GM turnaround for this one. 
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Aug 7, 2019 21:27
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OhFunny posted:https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/business/sears-kmart-closure-list-trnd/index.html I'm kinda surprised it's so few. Yet it's not like there's that much left after all.
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Aug 7, 2019 21:31
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The Kmart that I worked at as a teenager in my city closed recently, and the one in the neighboring city before that. Now I'm wondering who the hell let these stories build such big loving parking lots and buildings for these stores and what they're gonna do with them now that they're just giant empty grey buildings. It's bullshit.
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Aug 8, 2019 00:19
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Awful CompSloth posted:The Kmart that I worked at as a teenager in my city closed recently, and the one in the neighboring city before that. Now I'm wondering who the hell let these stories build such big loving parking lots and buildings for these stores and what they're gonna do with them now that they're just giant empty grey buildings. It's bullshit. Based on the corpse of K-mart in my town be transformed into "luxury" apartments and let chain restaurants claim the parking lots with new buildings .
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Aug 8, 2019 00:25
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Based on the corpse of K-mart in my town be transformed into "luxury" apartments and let chain restaurants claim the parking lots with new buildings . A strip mall with a Kohl's in my hometown with a massive fuckoff parking lot that was never close to full any day of the year is being rebuilt into mixed-use apartments and retail. I'm not really a huge fan of the scale of this development in terms of being pedestrian-friendly/accessible from the street, but it's still a huge improvement over what came before.
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Aug 8, 2019 01:16
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Awful CompSloth posted:The Kmart that I worked at as a teenager in my city closed recently, and the one in the neighboring city before that. Now I'm wondering who the hell let these stories build such big loving parking lots and buildings for these stores and what they're gonna do with them now that they're just giant empty grey buildings. It's bullshit. where do minimum parking regulations? nobody knows http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/Trouble.pdf it's not all bad though, giant parking lots are easily redeveloped. they're actually a great resource for suburban infill projects, you can put housing in the parking lots and use the giant empty stores for all kind of purposes. notably, a public library https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/15/the-mcallen-main-library-a-model-for-big-box-retrofit-or-not
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Aug 8, 2019 14:37
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 I don't see the point of the canal, I guess that's just decorative, but the general phasing and idea is sound.
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Aug 8, 2019 17:41
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I thought the Kmarts in Australia were doing better but they remodelled them in recent years to a layout that nobody can make any sense of, including where and how you're supposed to actually pay for things.
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Aug 8, 2019 19:10
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Baronjutter posted:I don't see the point of the canal, I guess that's just decorative, but the general phasing and idea is sound. it's a big ditch for stormwater runoff, part of suburban site remediation includes dealing with the huge amount of stormwater generated by a broad expanse of impermeable surface
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Aug 8, 2019 19:13
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Awful CompSloth posted:what they're gonna do with them now that they're just giant empty grey buildings. It's bullshit. If it's anything like Wisconsin, the remaining big box retailers will use that empty building as a real estate assessment "comp", claiming that their currently occupied building is now somehow worth less because that empty building is valued lower now. Then they get the assessed value reduced and thus pay lower taxes. Which shifts the tax burden to you, the homeowner. We've been trying to get the "Dark Stores" loophole closed for years but our Speaker of the Assembly (Robin Vos, R) won't even let it come to a vote on the floor after referendums everywhere showed overwhelming support.
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Aug 8, 2019 19:27
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