Menards or Home Depot….

I actually despise going into any of these kinds of stores!

Never is a store within the Brand layed out the same.

So it never fails wherever you park the item you are shopping for ends up on the opposite end of the store.

The checkout counters are on the opposite end of either where you parked or where the product is.

There is no store clerk in the department that I’m looking for something in.

On plywood they put the skew sticker on the finished side! WTF???

Products cost more than my normal suppliers.

I got more,,,,,

KPE wrote:

I recently decided I will no longer go to home Depot for anything after seeing their corporate training tool regarding white privilege. I’m sure you can find it with a basic Google search. Sad to see companies pushing this divisive material and pretending it’s in the name of equality.

Fact check pls

After a quick google search I found this

Attachments:

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Deuces wrote:

Fact check pls

Fact checking the actual document? Coletrain posted it below your response, or you could have run a simple search to find this.

Or fact checking that I have seen this document and made my decision based upon that? In that case you’ll have to take my word that I don’t go to home depot anymore because I saw this document used as training material.

Is Lowe’s really that bad?

Deuces wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>KPE wrote:</div>
I recently decided I will no longer go to home Depot for anything after seeing their corporate training tool regarding white privilege. I’m sure you can find it with a basic Google search. Sad to see companies pushing this divisive material and pretending it’s in the name of equality.

Fact check pls

I thought this woke training material for HD was pretty well known about.

In fact a Home Depot spokesperson stated that it is authentic, but it’s from their Canadian Division. They said it’s not required corporate training globally, however they did NOT state they would be putting a stop to it. Ambiguous corporate response, which, for the uninitiated, means they won’t be doing anything about it.

So we should be woke and cancel culture them because we don’t like what they do or did?

The cycle of being offended about what we don’t like is a vicious one and almost every party and all sides are guilty of it.

Dan wrote:

So we should be woke and cancel culture them because we don’t like what they do or did?

The cycle of being offended about what we don’t like is a vicious one and almost every party and all sides are guilty of it.

One side more than others. way more…

Dan wrote:

So we should be woke and cancel culture them because we don’t like what they do or did?

The cycle of being offended about what we don’t like is a vicious one and almost every party and all sides are guilty of it.

Amen.

If I go somewhere looking for lumber, I couldn’t care less what gender the person working claims to be, what their training strategies are, or their political ideologies. Give me the product I’m seeking at a reasonable price of expected quality and I’ll likely be back. If the pricing or quality is off, I won’t be back. Simple as that.

Any and all sides are on a mission to be offended. If you turn on the news, every lead story is something about what the other side did or does. It didn’t even take one page of posts on an outdoor forum about Menards and Home Depot for someone to bring up gender….crazy

Dan wrote:

So we should be woke and cancel culture them because we don’t like what they do or did?

The cycle of being offended about what we don’t like is a vicious one and almost every party and all sides are guilty of it.

I’m not suggesting you do anything at all, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t like or agree with the materials that they used to train employees in this case, therefore I choose to shop elsewhere. It is actually that simple. The question was posed Menards or home depot and many members of this site responded with their preference and the reason why. I did the same.

A free market isn’t cancel culture, it’s a just a free market. I’m not calling for home depot to be boycotted or shut down, I’m simply highlighting the reason I personally don’t shop there.

I no more than said I don’t shop at either, and ended up with myself in both a Menards and Home Depot in the same day yesterday between appointments. I don’t make it a regular habit…but it does happen.

I walked into Home Depot, grabbed 2 Milwaukee 9.0 batteries, and proceeded to checkout without issue. They were easy to find and it wasn’t busy at all.

Later I ended up at Menards. We needed around 100 iron stair balusters for our build. Sure, theirs came from China and might be lesser quality, but they are balusters. After doing some digging, we found that those supplied by a Midwestern company through the local lumberyard did as well. The only difference was that Menards’ scale was clearly larger, making theirs about $4 cheaper for each. Someone offered us a box when they saw me counting through them and we were in and out within 10 minutes.

You can probably find something to be offended by with most large companies. Menards has a long history of pollution and contaminating our water. I’d think that would be more important to outdoors enthusiasts than some one-page privilege training.

• $30,000 in fines and court costs in 2011 for violating state laws against hazardous waste disposal for a 2007 incident in which a pallet of herbicide was dumped on a parking island at a Menards store in Onalaska;
• $68,125 in penalties in 2006 to settle an administrative order brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against Menards for damaging a Sioux Falls, S.D. stream that ran through its property by filling in nearly 1,400 feet of the stream and replacing it with a 66-inch storm sewer pipe;
• A $2 million fine in 2005 after Department of Natural Resources officials found a floor drain at a company shop that they believe was used to dump paint, solvents, oil and other waste that fed into a tributary of the Chippewa River. The sanction broke the previous record for a state environmental fine of $1.7 million set in 1997, also by Menard;
• A $1.7 million fine in 1997 for 21 violations that occurred when Menard used his pickup truck to haul plastic bags of chromium and arsenic-laden wood ash to his home to dispose of with the household trash. Menard pleaded no contest to felony and misdemeanor charges involving records violations, unlawful transportation and improper disposal of hazardous;
• A $160,000 state penalty in 1994 in a civil judgment against Menards for transporting and disposing of ash produced by incinerating CCA-treated lumber without a license. Wood treated with CCA contains carcinogen and is considered hazardous waste that requires disposal in a licensed landfill.

EPA.gov is a great resource to find out who has the worst environmental track record. Home Depot is not off the hook on this one, in fact just last year they were “awarded” the highest civil penalty in US history for TSCA violations for not adhering to federal regulations. $20.75 MM.

They also had a significant penalty in 2008 for multiple clean water act violations at 34 sites across the country (discharging polluted water without appropriate controls and permits).

I always encourage folks to take a look at the EPA’s various databases or their multisystem search to find out who is polluting in their area. I’ve used these systems frequently in my career and to find items of interest to me personally.

I find it offensive that people need a reason not to shop someplace.

I dont go to Menards because I dont go to a home improvement store to buy groceries. Their 11% rebate is utterly ridiculous as well. Just mark the price down I dont want to go through the hassle of mailing in crap in this day and age for in store credit.

I dont really care one way or another about any of this but it reminds me of a conversation with my cousin who runs his own construction company in northern MN. One day I was hanging out with him and we stopped at the local small town hardware store and he placed an order for what amounted to thousands of dollars worth of materials for a job he was working on. I turned to him and said, “I bet you could have saved more than a thousand dollars by shopping at home depot in DL.” He responded by saying, “now what kind of man would I be if I claim to love America and support the small town life and I go give my money to a big box store. This guy needs to earn a living too and I’m helping him to do that.”

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. He aligns politically with where most on this site do. I only mention that because I can’t imagine a better response than the one he gave for those that do

crappie55369 wrote:

I dont really care one way or another about any of this but it reminds me of a conversation with my cousin who runs his own construction company in northern MN. One day I was hanging out with him and we stopped at the local small town hardware store and he placed an order for what amounted to thousands of dollars worth of materials for a job he was working on. I turned to him and said, “I bet you could have saved more than a thousand dollars by shopping at home depot in DL.” He responded by saying, “now what kind of man would I be if I claim to love America and support the small town life and I go give my money to a big box store. This guy needs to earn a living too and I’m helping him to do that.”

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. He aligns politically with where most on this site do. I only mention that because I can’t imagine a better response than the one he gave for those that do

It doesn’t matter to your cousin. He bills it all out to the job at 10 percent increase. That’s simple construction management.

Bearcat89 wrote:

It doesn’t matter to your cousin. He bills it all out to the job at 10 percent increase. That’s simple construction management

Certainly possible but then why doesn’t everyone shop locally? Only reason I can think of would be cause he’s loosing business to the other guy that can undercut him by shopping at the big box store and not being able to be competitive would certainly matter to any business owner

I think your idea of Construction Management is pretty far off BC.

Smaller local supply companies can often make up for higher prices with their flexibility and customer service.

Mookie Blaylock wrote:

I think your idea of Construction Management is pretty far off BC.

Smaller local supply companies can often make up for higher prices with their flexibility and customer service.

Not to far off. I see it every day. Percentages may be off but no always. Just like if I order you a dumpster to a site I will order it and bill you my fee plus 5 percent. It’s all typically in a bid or billed as a extra.

My point was more so stopping him from trying to troll others, because none of us do that any more RIGHT ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

My point was more so stopping him from trying to troll others, because none of us do that any more RIGHT ?

Absolutely not

crappie55369 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
It doesn’t matter to your cousin. He bills it all out to the job at 10 percent increase. That’s simple construction management

Certainly possible but then why doesn’t everyone shop locally? Only reason I can think of would be cause he’s loosing business to the other guy that can undercut him by shopping at the big box store and not being able to be competitive would certainly matter to any business owner

So you think he is loosing money on jobs then ? Or bidding them higher. Its part of bidding 101. You do not have to be the lowest bid to get a job. But you are not going to big a job for 3k knowing you are going to spend 4k on it. Unless, you are trying to keep employees busy, but that’s typically much bigger compies who will eat one job to make huge on another.
I’m not trying to make a entire separate argument. I’d be better off keeping my thoughts to my self. But I just assumed you were stirring the pot so I just shot you a few simple business tactics

I must have missed the trolling.

I see your point that the 1k loss for buying local doesn’t hit his books that way. If he quoted the higher priced materials, the only actual loss would come from lost business by being a more expensive contractor.

Mookie Blaylock wrote:

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. He aligns politically with where most on this site do.

I think it was probably this part… “Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. He aligns politically with where most on this site do.”

Half million employees, and you get perhaps a handful that put out a stupid unofficial flyer, do the math. Emotion>logic. Check the facts.