Hobby Lobby doesn't cater to "our people"

[DarkAnts]

I lived in a town in the Midwest (Joplin) that had "Blue Laws" which prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays. There was an occasion in which my husband had a bad cold and I went into the drug store to buy some Nyquil. I was shocked to learn that, since it was Sunday and there was alcohol in Nyquil, I could not purchase it. I was from Chicago and had never encountered anything like that. This was back in the 70s so I don't know if those laws are still in effect. One ice storm and one tornado later, we moved to the West Coast.

I will go for a hot toddy over nyquil any day. Its the magic drink when I got a cold and cough so bad that I can not sleep.

[galaxygirl]

I went to Hobby Lobby once, it was Saturday night around 7:30pm. I was perusing, enjoying the selection, and then the loudspeaker came on:

"Hobby Lobby will be closing in 15 minutes. As a reminder, we will not be open tomorrow in order for our employees to enjoy God's day of rest."

I decided on the spot to never, ever, go there again. Then I looked up the company and regretted going in the first place.

Apparently God's day of rest is a big lie, because the store I work at is next to a HL and they get trucks delivered on Sundays...

[thoughtful]

In an interview (I can't find a date on it, but it appears to be from about three years ago), he claimed the following:

But he resists an expensive bar-code inventory and pricing system. Why? For one thing, some of his foreign manufacturers can’t support a bar-code system. For another, employees know what’s on shelves and can more readily help customers if they take inventory the old-fashioned way, by counting. The computer won’t know if products are broken or stolen, he says. “It blithely goes on telling the staff they have such-and-such, when in fact they don’t.â€

The lack of bar codes slows checkout lines a couple of seconds per product, Green says, and if cashiers get backed up, managers open another lane. Bottom line: Bar codes don’t pay their way.

http://www.success.com/article/from-the ... YFz1d.dpuf

BTW, the only comment on this article is from a fellow who seems to think that he was emailing Mr. Green personally.

ETA - reviews from employees:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Hobby- ... -E7537.htm

Some are a bit disappointed in how the "Christian company" treats people.

[artdecades]

He doesn't sell Jewish items, he just buys them:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

This infuriates me, both as a Jew and as someone who believes that removing cultural artifacts from their original context and culture, thereby removing it from being accessible to the people that created it/its for, is harmful. However, this does not surprise me. Fundie types like him always see Judaism as a sort of incomplete or unfulfilled Christianity. Its the same reason the Duggar family appropriates the Star of David. They don't see the us as a valid religious group with our own culture, but a stepping stone in the history of Jesus. Thats why he will buy an artifact for his bible museum but totally disregard our existence as consumers. Not that I would have ever shopped their anyway, knowing their history with Obamacare.

[PennySycamore]

How the hell does avoiding bar codes help you determine whether or not an item was stolen?

[RandomTrivia]

In an interview (I can't find a date on it, but it appears to be from about three years ago), he claimed the following:

Oh malarkey. I worked at a store (smaller than HL, but still a store) that used bar codes. We still did a manual "old-fashioned" inventory once a year, to make sure that the computer's inventory matched what we actually had. Closed early and counted every single thing in the store - and we sold flatware, among other things, so we counted dozens of forks, spoons, etc. No, the computer didn't know what was broken, stolen, or misplaced - until we counted and corrected the numbers when necessary. We also did occasional counts throughout the year - usually when the system said we had 12 of something, a customer wanted 12, and we could only find 8, or whatever. Usually meant that something go scanned at the wrong quantity at checkout, or that we had some on display somewhere that we'd overlooked.

When they do inventory at HL, if there's no computer inventory linked to the bar codes, how do they know how many X the store is supposed to have? Without bar codes, I'd think the computer's inventory numbers would be more likely to be incorrect, since they're depending on the clerks to punch everything in under the right codes. (Gah, just the thought of doing inventory there makes me want to run away. Thousands of sheets of scrapbook paper and skeins of yarn.

Also, who are these foreign manufacturers that can't handle bar-code systems? I call bullshit on that one. There's a good percentage of products at HL that are sold at Michaels, Jo-Ann, or elsewhere, and they're barcoded at those stores - I doubt companies make separate un-bar-coded packaging for things shipped to HL.

The utter cynic in me wants to say that "bar codes don't pay their way" means that not bar-coding improves profits, because it's easier for a sale item to be sold at regular price, and the customer can't catch it and get the correct price, due to lack of bar-codes (which leads to HL's receipts being damn near incomprehensible if you're trying to see what you paid for X item).

[EmiGirl]

Of course there is a group of Christians who believe that bar coding is the Mark of the Beast

[RosyDaisy]

I just Googled "barcode mark of the beast", and..well... I'm not going down that rabbit hole of crazy.

[thoughtful]

Of course there is a group of Christians who believe that bar coding is the Mark of the Beast

And many of Green's critics figure that is his real reason, but he doesn't admit to that, so there is no way to know.

Something I read quoted a store manager saying that, but not Green himself.

[meda]

best comment on the Kveller article: "Let my people craft!" :lol:

[Becket70]

And many of Green's critics figure that is his real reason, but he doesn't admit to that, so there is no way to know.

Something I read quoted a store manager saying that, but not Green himself.

Well, now I have heard everything. Barcodes are the Mark of the Beast? Anybody who works on a hospital nursing unit, please fill me in. How do they keep track of every syringe, gauze pad and pill they use on a patient without scanning some kind of code? Surely it is done by some kind of scanning system. Is that also the Mark of the Beast?