so the strike is over.

what i'm talking about is the grocery store workers strike that started back in october. hindsight seems to bring clarity in places where it was lacking previously, since the whole thing started workers lost, i hear, over three hundred million dollars in wages, i don't know the toll it took on the stores, i know business was way down, mostly because with minimal staffing and picketers outside hassling everybody, shopping at union grocery stores was little more than a pain that could be avoided if there was a stater brothers or food-4-less anywhere near.

the other fallout is that i'm not shopping at wal-mart anymore. the whole reason for the strike was wal-mart's expansion into the grocery business coupled with their non union status which enables them to offer lower wages and fewer benefits and make the grocery companies squeeze their workers to remain competitive. the workers, wanting to protect themselves, strike when the upcoming bargaining agreement proposes to cut their benefits. that i didn't have a problem with, but i did get rubbed the wrong way when i went to albertson's early in the strike to get something i wasn't able to find anywhere else and a picketer asked me not to shop there until the strike was over. that i understood, but it's sort of ridiculous to ask people to not shop where you work and then to come back when you want them to, i mean you're actively driving business away from the company that employs you.

i went grocery shopping last night, which is the first time i've had to do that since the strike ended at the beginning of the month, and upon reflection, i decided not to go to albertson's, which is where i went before the strike and to instead go to food-4-less, which is where i went during the strike. i'm not entirely sure why i chose to do that, i think it's the slight segment of my personality that's vindictive, i mean if the stores and workers could hold out on each other and the general public for five months, i figure they deserve at least that much from me.

feeling: a cut on my fist
thinking of: completion
music: "rigged on a fix" rancid