Jimmy's Graduation

Last Thursday my brother Jimmy graduated from high school. It was interesting to see since this was my first graduation as a college graduate. I was watching my brother and his peers receive their diplomas and I had a thought. The decision to go to college must be completely different than it was six years ago when I graduated from high school. The media in general must scare these students. Is it true that a college degree is worthless in this economy? Will I be able to get a job right out of college? Will I have huge student loans and no income? Sadly, graduates are turning away from going to college. Why go to college if it is worthless? Well, this depends on your definition of worthless. The problem now a days is that college will not get you a job, but that is not what college is for. It will get you to think differently and let you experience things that you never would have if you did not go to college. This is why my cousin Danny and I created a bucket list for my brother. This bucket list is a list of 15 things that Jimmy has to get done by the time he graduates college.  

#1 Join a non-academic club. 

Jimmy loves free time. He enjoys the fact that he is able to do anything he wants with that time. He has no appointments or plans. This is why Danny and I put this on his bucket list. Jimmy will end up joining a pharmaceutical club since it is his major, but he will not join a club for fun or to learn something new. He will join pharmaceutical club because he thinks it will help him get a job. It won't though. So we made the rule that Jimmy needed to join a non-academic club. We even provided him with a list of all of the non-academic clubs at URI. The list is very long so I will name a few; Ghost Hunting Club, Quiddich, Humans vs Zombies, and Paintball club. 

#2 Order a drink from 10 different countries. 

Having known Jimmy since he was born, I know that if it were possible, he would drink Orange Jug for the rest of his life. (Orange Jug is a jug that is colored orange. Legend has it that our mother only puts water in the jug and it magically changes to a different flavor like lemonade, fruit punch, or ice tea.) This is why we included this task. Jimmy will hopefully get this done by the end of his freshmen year. He could be a cheater and drink Earl Grey Tea or order an espresso, but I hope he tries something new. 

#3 Try 10 new meals

This is going to be tough. As much as we make fun of her for cooking chicken every night, my mother has provided my family with a different meal every night. Jimmy will most likely have to try different cultural cuisines to achieve a passing grade on this assignment. 

#4 Go on alternative Spring Break. 

I never went on one but wish I had. Alternative Spring Breaks are volunteer projects such as building houses or cleaning up a community. most schools will send students to areas such as South America, Africa, or impoverished towns in the USA.

#5 Go on the Cliff Walk in Newport, RI. 

Being so close to Newport, it would be a shame if Jimmy did not see the huge mansions and try to impress women by telling them that his family owned one. 

#6 Get coffee with a non-English speaking person.

The most interesting people are the ones who you have never talked to. Most people are afraid to talk to people who they cannot understand. this is why we provided Jimmy with a list of the phrase "Hello, my name is Jimmy. Would you like to get coffee with me?" in different languages.

#7 See Waterfire

This is a show that the Providence, RI theater district puts on after sundown. I am not 100% sure what it is but the pictures looked interesting and URI has a shuttle going to see it the first week of classes.

#8 Go on a school sponsored trip.

Many students do not take full advantage of this. Most schools provide day or overnight trips for little or no cost to the student. Some events could be a Celtics game, or visiting New York City for a couple of days. 

#9 Read one book for pleasure per semester. 

With all of the reading required for classes, students start to hate reading. This is why Jimmy is required to read one book for pleasure. It will prevent him from going insane between classes. It will also allow him to read some books that I know he did not read in high school such as the Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye. He will get to read these books without the time constraint. 

#10 "Boston in a Day"

Boston in a Day is a list of sights and activities that Jimmy must complete in 1 day. Some of these events are free and some are cheap. Eating a slice of Pizza at Regina's Pizzeria is going to be his favorite. With access to the T station in Providence, this should not be a problem. 

#11 See a performer you have never heard of.

Most schools put on shows for the students that are free. Most of the time these are unknown comedians or bands that are cheap for the school to hire. There is also the option of going to a local coffee shop and seeing a performer. 

#12 Perform on stage.

This is any form of performing, the only rule is that he needs to be sober. It will make the experience even more enjoyable and memorable. Karaoke counts.

#13 Visit a local Island

This includes Long Island, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. The best part about this is that Jimmy has the option to take a Ferry to these destinations. It is cheap and a fun way to explore a new area.

#14 Sit with a new person at 1 meal a week. 

This will allow Jimmy to meet new people. In college, non of my friends ever wanted to wake up early to go to breakfast so I went by myself. I got to meet some interesting people that I never would have talked to because I was too busy with homework or spending time with my friends. 

#15 Let this be the only 15 you gain

Yes the "Freshmen 15" is real. Yes, Jimmy is not allowed to gain the "Freshmen 15"

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price

I recently watched a documentary on the business practices of Walmart titled, "Walmart:The High Cost of Low Price." After watching this, I most likely will not shop there again. I recommend this documentary to anyone who enjoys, well, documentaries and hates the economy right now.

The documentary starts off talking about what happens when a Walmart enters a community. What occurs is the same thing that happens anywhere when a new chain store or restaurant comes into a city or town. People flock to that one area and they do great business while the other businesses revenue drops. Most of the time, however, people get tired of the new chain and business goes back to normal at these smaller places. That is not the case with Walmart. Walmart continues to do business. Walmart comes into a community with promises of new jobs and bringing in more money to the town. For the first month, maybe a year, this is true. That is until the other smaller businesses finally lose all hope and shut down. Family businesses that have been around nearly forever are forced to close because of Walmart. Since I am taking a finance course in my Masters Program, I know that this is just business. The better business comes out on top. The problem here is that there are two losers, the owner/ workers of that small business and us, the consumer. When these small businesses go out of business, we are losing something valuable. Walmart employees are not trained on the items that they are selling. If you ask anyone a question at Walmart, they read the same tag that you just read or go in the back and look up the item online. If you go to a garage and ask a question about a part or product, they will give you an real answer because they have actually used the item. You lose the knowledge of the product when you switch to Walmart. You also lose the quality. Walmart is known for how cheap they can buy items for so they can keep their prices low. It does not matter if the product works or not because they get get thousands of the same item and do not care if a few work or not. Small businesses cannot afford to sell bad products. When you buy from a small business, you are buying quality because the small business cannot afford to sell bad products (there are exceptions to this but those companies do not last long). Walmart's, and other chains, have a Customer Service area for customers to return items. This should be the first red flag. If there is an entire area devoted to returning items, that means that the company knows they are giving you crap. They are prepared for the customer to return items, they expect it. They know that their employees either sold you a defective item or an item that you really did not need. They do not care because they make it easy for you to return the item to ensure that you keep coming back. By shopping at Walmart you lose quality products and service. You cannot blame the hourly employees for their lack of knowledge though. Most of these employees have very little training. Former employees stated that they watch training videos discussing customer service and how the store operates. The guy who helps you in the electronics area was probably working in the household items area the day before. He has no idea what he is talking about. If you ask him for a recommendation, he will most likely tell you that Apple products are better and that Sony has the best televisions. This will be based on the fact that everyone likes the IPad or IPhone and the Sony television looks the brightest to him.

The documentary continues with the employees. Walmart Hourly employees make a grand total of about $13,000 a year. That is below the poverty line. This works to Walmart's advantage. Not only do they pay these employees little to nothing, but most of these employees spend their money at Walmart. These employees cannot afford to shop anywhere else. Walmart Hourly employees also work about 60 hours a week. This is because all hourly workers work overtime. They do not get paid overtime though. Most of the managers tell the hourly employees that there is no overtime money so they cannot pay them overtime but need people to work late because of the amount of work left to do that day. This is illegal. you need to get paid for every hour you work. So how come nobody says anything about this? The employees are scared. Since most of these employees are below the poverty line, they need this job. Walmart managers are constantly hiring to scare the employees into thinking that they will get fired if they do not work unpaid overtime hours. At $13,000 a year, these employees are living paycheck to paycheck. They cannot afford to be fired. Nor can they afford an attorney if they decide to sue Walmart for firing them. They lose either way. 

The other issue with Walmart and its employees is the benefits. Walmart has a great insurance plan for its employees. Everyone gets the same benefits at the same cost. That is great except the hourly employees cannot afford it. One hourly employee stated that she was getting $75 taken out of every paycheck for health insurance for her children. That leaves her with less than $10,000 for the year. This employee stated that employees have to decide if they want healthcare or food. Another former employee said, "There’s no where around that there’s a company that makes this much money and still turns around and makes their associates go to the state for aid.” The documentary then goes on to show how much money employees get from state aid. One example is that in Massachusetts 4,172 Walmart workers and dependents are on state healthcare.

Walmart also costs the state money in other ways. Walmart is given subsidies to build their stores in certain areas. Walmart has been given over $1 Billion to build their stores. They create bidding wars between towns so they can get more money to build these stores. Towns are paying a billion dollar corporation to build stores in the towns. Meanwhile, these small businesses are given no money to keep their store running and are forced to sell their business. The problem does not stop there for the store owner. The price of all businesses drops significantly once a Walmart comes into town. Not only does the company lose value, but so do the buildings. These store owners are left with nothing. Most times there is not sale of a business or the store itself. The business shuts down and the building is left vacant. You would think that Walmart could not get any worse. It does. Since Walmart creates these bidding wars between towns, sometimes they get a better offer late in the game. There have been times where a Walmart has been completely built, and then another town offers more money. Walmart then says here is your money back, we are moving. These Walmarts stay in the area though. They will move a couple of miles down the road. An example is Cathedral City Missouri that gave Walmart $1.8 Million to build a store in their town. Walmart then backed out last minute and moved their store 2.2 miles to the city line into a town that offered them more money. Now this town is left with a huge, empty store that cannot be used for anything else. Now the town has to decide if they want to have a vacant, half finished Walmart standing there or use the money that it paid Walmart to build, to now knock it down. According to "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices", there are 26,699,678 square feet of vacant Walmart stores (2004). 

There is an entire section that talks about overseas business and how Walmart treats their factory workers. I will not get into this topic because we all know how these workers are treated. I will provide a little insight as to how these workers are treated. Walmart factory workers are given an option on where to live. They can live in the factory dorms or live off site. All workers pay a "dorm fee" but if you live off site you do not have to pay for utilities. If you live in the dorms you have to pay for every item you use and how much you use. Everything has a meter. Most workers work a 12 hour shift but get paid for 8. This would be at minimum wage but since most Asian countries do not have minimum wage, Walmart pays them as little as they can, and Walmart can go pretty low. Workers are then threatened into lying to health inspectors. 

Walmart is also known for how secure their store is. In each store there is about 200 cameras and four security personnel. Their parking lots are not safe at all. 80% of all crimes at Walmart occur in the parking lot. That means that you are more likely to be robbed than Walmart. As soon as you purchase an item at Walmart, Walmart has no care for you. Walmart parking lots have been the place of murder, child and adult abduction, rape, assault, molestation, mugging, and theft. Walmart was brought to trial and it was discovered that Walmart had done a study as to how much crime would drop if they had security patrol the parking lots. I was discovered that at that particular Walmart, the crime rate would drop to 0. Walmart tried to hide this information so they would not need to pay for extra security.
Walmart has also, in the past, talked about how caring their employees are by advertising their work with charities. The Walton family, Sam Walton is the founder of Walmart and Sam's club, has donated less than 1% of their billion dollar fortune. Sam Walton's wife and 3 children each have an estimated $18 Billion. Walmart has a fund for Walmart employees who need assistance. Employees are able to donate directly out of their paycheck. These employees raised over $5 Million for this fund. The Walton family, as a whole, donated $6,000. To put that into perspective, if the Walton family donated 1% of their fortune to this fund, it would cost them $180 Million. 1/10th of a percent would be $18 Million. 1/100th of a percent would be $1.8 Million. Bill Gates has donated over 58% of his fortune to charities. 

So, I will not longer be shopping at Walmart. The way that they treat their employees and the communities that they are in is enough for me to spend the extra money to shop elsewhere. I encourage you to watch this documentary and make your own opinion on the topic.

Moving Day

This past Sunday I moved into my new condo with my girlfriend Megan. It was a long process to get everything all set but we finally got through it. I had no idea how much goes into getting a new place, whether it be apartment, condo, or a home.

First of all, I do not own a lot of stuff. My sophomore year of college I moved myself into my dorm room at New England College, and my friend James into his dorm room at Plymouth State University. We packed all of our belongings into my Volkswagen Jetta and made the trip up to New Hampshire. I will repeat what I just said. Two guys over 6 feet tall moving into college fit all of their belongings into a Volkswagen Jetta. I figured that if 20 clowns can fit into a Volkwagen Beetle then this should be a walk in the park. It was not. There was about an inch between my chest and the steering wheel once we got on the road. Packing a refrigerator, TV, two sets of skis, clothes and food took up a lot of room in the car. Needless to say, I still only have enough stuff to barely pack a small compact car.

Megan, on the other hand, has a ton of stuff. In her defense she is moving out of her childhood home. Megan was nervous about getting everything done for weeks before, while I did what I naturally do which is sit back and relax until the night before and then freak out. It worked like a charm. I got to enjoy my days off and did little to no parking until Thursday night. When Thursday night came along, I got down to business. When I say that I got down to business I am really just saying that I opened a box that I never unpacked and threw the items out that I did not want. Then, I resealed the box and was all set.

Friday night we set out to our new condo with cleaning supplies and all of our fragile items. Megan, her mom and her sister were in charge of cleaning. Since my cleaning skills are sub-par, my job was to rearrange the closet. Our closet is a huge walk-in that has shelves that can be rearranged to our liking. The previous owner had more shoes that my entire family so I had to take the shelves down so the poles could be installed to hang our clothes. This job should have taken me hours to do but I had my trusty side kick Ben to help me. Ben is Megan's Sister's child that is almost 2 1/2. He is a wiz with a plastic tool set and can drill a carpeted staircase like you wouldn't believe. It was his first time rearranging a closet as well so the two rookies were at it. My job was to put the shelves on the wall and Ben's job was to ask "What's this?" I gave the best answers that I could to Ben. As a side note to Melissa and Nate, most of the information I gave your child was made up on the spot. If he tells you that he knows the names of items and their use, most of it is incorrect.

Saturday then came along and my parents and brother Jimmy came up from CT. I went with Megan's mother to the apartment to bring in the rest of the kitchen items. My parents, Jimmy, and Uncle Billy met us at the apartment. We brought in a few items, including my Bruins Foam Head! After this we went to dinner at Margaritas. We then left, met up with Megan who was working at a wedding, and did some shopping.

Sunday was the big day. My dad and I went to pick up the Uhaul and got back to the Bourbeau's house where half of our heavy items were waiting for us in the driveway. Megan's brother-in-law, Jimmy, my dad, and I were in charge of the bigger items while Megan, her mom, my mom, and Melissa were in charge of bringing items from the garage to the truck. After taking apart the couch, removing a door to get the box spring out, and many pictures being taken, we were on our way. We got to the condo around 10:50 AM. We were done unloading the Uhaul at around 11:30 AM. My friends Steve and Nate came to help so we had a grand total of 10 people unloading cars. After the Uhaul was unloaded, my dad and megan's brother-in-law brought the Uhaul back. The made it back to the condo just in time to miss all of the unpacking and for pizza to arrive. Megan's dad was also very fortunate to make it for pizza and beer but miss the unpacking as he was at a conference.

After moving everything in and eating pizza and drinking beer, we hung up some pictures and clocks (with my wonderful new screw gun that Melissa and Nate gave to us as a moving in gift). Then  Megan and I said good bye to everyone and sat in our new condo. After about 5 minutes of being shocked that we had our own place we realized that we left my computer in her mom's car, did not have cable, and did not have a dvd player. We decided to go grocery shopping and then played the card game war. After an hour and realizing that War was never going to end, we gave up.

It was a stressful couple of days but we got through it with the help of some great movers.