Very cool, if true

Heh, funny how they omitted any mention of labor practices (http://www.wholeworkersunite.org/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=11&bid=21&btitle=Sections&meid=23). Union-busting is a strange way to show your "respect" for people.

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I view that as him thinking that he has a fantastic system in place (that seems far more democratic than most companies) and being terrified that a union will disrupt/destroy that.

He's probably wrong, but it's understandable.

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birdofparadox.livejournal.com

Whole Foods *did* have a run-in (or four) with PeTA** a few years back because they were using inhumane methods of pest control (like snap and glue traps for rats/mice)...

I'd still shop there (if only there was one here in MS!) but I'm glad to see they're taking an interest in the animals they sell (after PeTA launched a massive campaign against them for the pest control and farming practices) as well as the ones no one particularly wants in their grocery stores.

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green-amber.livejournal.com

Is that the same as Whole Foods market, that amazing place we kept eating near my B and B in Berkeley on Telegraph? i do remember the locals complaining despite how great it looked about the no union policy.

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And if you read the article Andrew linked to, you'll see that in reponse to this, they're changed their purchasing requirements for poultry, resulting in suppliers changing their animal rearing techniques - e.g. a duck breeder installing swimming ponds - and are planning to do so for meat, starting with pork. And that the CEO consulted with PETA on how to do it. Meanwhile, he himself went from vegetarian to vegan.

Sounds pretty good to me.

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Interesting piece, and would bear further study, I think.

I also note with interest that they trade in the UK as "Fresh & Wild", with half a dozen stores in London - my nearest is Clapham Junction - and one in Bristol. I shall visit.

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Oh yeah...

But Andrew. Please. Titles. Any sodding title will do at a push.

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Not really, it's probably more like he's making a ton of money and fears that a union will disrupt that.

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Yeah, but it's really nothing great compared to Berkeley Bowl and other locally owned stores in the Bay Area (though in most parts of the US, Whole Foods is far better than anything else available).

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If you'd read the article you'd see that he's deliberately limited his pay to massively less than most chief-execs make, hands out large bonuses to people and generally seems to be interested in quality over profits whenever there's a clash.

Which isn't to say he's not making money, but it certainly doesn't seem to be his prime motivation.

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etb.livejournal.com

And your basis for saying this is what? One article that, unless I missed something, has nothing bad to say about him? It makes him out to be the greatest manager ever. His "issues" with unions are pretty well known, so the fact that the article avoids all mention of it except to claim that he "[became] a student of labor unions when he was confronted by unionization efforts in the 1990s" doesn't exactly lend credibility to the rest of the article. If he's so wonderful, his approach to handling unions would be fascinating and worthwhile to discuss. Besides, it's an issue simply because it makes some people reluctant to spend money there.

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Why titles? I've only occasionally used them up to now - they add an amusing headline or whatever, but they're hardly vital.

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Big deal. You can make less than what most CEOs make and still make more than the GNP of certain small countries. You can hand out large bonuses to a few employees without making a serious dent in your profits. If he were that interested in having a democratic system, why would he be afraid that unions would disrupt that? The only people who have anything to fear from unions are self-interested bosses, not workers or bosses who are truly concerned about workers' interests.

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etb.livejournal.com

though in most parts of the US, Whole Foods is far better than anything else available

I expect it's fair to say that in most parts of the US, there is no Whole Foods, so it's moot.

I've been in two of them. The one in Cambridge, MA didn't seem great (an opinion shared by my brother, for whom it was his only grocery store by virtue of being 5 minutes' walk from home), but it had only just become a Whole Foods, so we can give it a pass. The one in Center City Philadelphia was OK, but it felt like an ordinary supermarket with an unusually good selection and a light dusting of goofiness: "TEAM MEMBERS ONLY" signs instead of "EMPLOYEES ONLY". We went there once; then we found a place that looks and smells like a co-op, even though it isn't, which is my second favorite kind of grocery store (my favorite being an actual co-op).

There's one in Pittsburgh now, but it opened after I'd become habituated to an actual co-op, and it's slightly harder to get to by bus.

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[1] I tend to browse in summary view.

Take a look at this:
http://www.livejournal.com/customview.cgi?user=lproven&styleid=130615&checkcookies=1&skip=0%20

No titles, no indication of content & nothing to click on.

[2] I'm trying to find a way to pull in my FL as an RSS view.

Either way: no title, no entry, no readee.

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Ouch. How can you read in that format? There's barely a meaningful title in the whole list - how are you supposed to make a choice on what to read based on the information you have?

Entries show up in RSS without titles too.

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De gustibus non est disputandum, old chap.

I have 313 friends and counting. I try not to spend too long on LJ every day. I like the summary view. I know who tends to write stuff I find interesting and who doesn't, I have a few custom views and every now and again I'll read the whole list, but this suits me.

If I could download posts into an offline reader and filter them, I'd be happier still, but the technology isn't there yet.

One thing I do know, though - if you've used a good OLR - and CIX's Ameol
is the best I have ever seen on any platform - then using a web browser for this kind of thing really, really sucks. Even a good smart fast tabbed one, such as Firefox.

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I've used CIX. I use Xnews for my usenet needs. I use The Bat! for email. The superior power of dedicated reading programs are not beyond me. If heartily wish that LJ had a comments API because then you could pretty much write a LJ interface program that worked the way you want it to.

You said that you knew who wrote good stuff - in which case a fiew different custom views seems like best solution. I have 8 myself, some of which get read more than others. But Titles don't seem to help you at all, except insofar as they make items in your summary view easier to click on (you can just click on the right hand column if you want to open the entry after all).

I can't see what your system gains you over friends groups, but I'm happy to be enlightened.

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Were you on CIX? What ID?

Xnews I've not tried, but I do V little usenet and Thunderbird more than suffices. I played with The Bat but with all the free ones around I was disinclined to pay. It looked good but not that good, tho' many friends /rave/ about it. Oh, and it wouldn't uninstall, which was a PITA.

I have about 1/2 dozen custom views. Yes, I could do more, or narrow them down, but it'd get even more fiddly. What I really want is to download them all and pick & choose instantly from a local DB, not from the slow long-latency Web.

From titles I can get an idea if someone who posts a lot of wibble has got something to say or if they're just doing a meme or whinging or whatever. It's all I've got, so I use it. A blank post, except from a consistently interesting poster, is unlikely to get read; even less likely than one called "oh, and another thing" or some other content-free title.

"My weekend,", "meme", "i'm so unhappy" or "this is funny" are all unlikely to be clicked. "Pub," "this is cool", "thought provoking" or "party" are all likely to be.

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I was on CIX as AndrewDucker, I think. It was about 5 years ago and little-used though, as I was largely on there for Visual Foxpro support and Usenet was far, far more useful.

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Cooo. Both at that, and at Usenet being useful.

VFP is something I don't go anywhere near, so we probably never crossed paths. Shame.

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I find Usenet extremely useful. First place I go if I have a technical question I want answered is Google Groups. If I've got a question chances are someone else has had it at least 20 times.

I loved VFP - extremely fast data access and properly OOP. Shame it never caught on (and wasn't as user-friendly as VB).

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As a search resource, it can be useful, but apart from some quieter groups, to track, I've always found the signal:noise ratio way too low for me.

I know of FP/VFP's technical merits. In part, it was killed to make way for Access, which was a bloody shame. However, I am as far from a database programmer as it's possible to get and still be in IT, I think.

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Aah, the only group I still read is rec.arts.comics.misc. I used to be big on rec.arts.sf.written, but couldn't keep up with the 200-odd posts a day.

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