I am not really trying to defend them, I certianly dislike complete control of a city by a single store. Especially smaller towns. You will hear about them moving in and putting all other stores out of business, then rasing their prices. I lived in one such small town for a period of about eight months and it sucked. The town pretty much consisted of Wal-mart, Hastings, and a Staples (well, of the type of store I would go to). Everybody bought groceries from Wal-mart, rented videos or bought books from Hastings, and staples was just kind there in case you needed it

. However, I am sure there benefits are pretty close to the same as Target, K-Mart, ShopKo, S-Mart

, or any other such stores. To say not to shop at Wal-Mart because they need to treat there employees better, I just don't see that to be relevent. I was merely giving an example of a story I heard to the contrary. And you are right, it was probably because she had friends in high places. It is also not the only story I have heard of employees in tough situations being given a break. Not to mention that if you work for them you get a whole whopping 10% off anything in the store... except groceries.