Walmart is an example of a commercial third place...a place people go to socialize that isn't home or the workplace. But like Starbucks and McDonald's, Walmart also functions as a replacement home for some people. Across America, Walmart parking lots fill up with the vans, RVs, and cars of nomads, vacationers, and the homeless. The NY Times sent a pair of photographers out to capture some of these parking lots at night.
There are standards of etiquette — do not, for instance, sit in the parking lot in lawn chairs — and also online rosters of no-go Walmarts. There is an expectation that you should buy something, but there is no parking fee. There is a measure of solitary privacy, even in a place that is deliberately accessible. Still that doesn't prevent some people from leaving skid marks in the parking lot.
El Monte RV provides a short guide to Walmart camping and Allstays has a list of Walmarts that allow overnight parking.
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WinCo is an Idaho-based grocery chain that frequently beats Walmart on price while providing health care benefits for any employee working over 24 hours a week as well as an annual pension.
While all of these factors help WinCo compete with Walmart on price, what really might scare the world's largest retailer is how WinCo treats its employees. In sharp contrast to Walmart, which regularly comes under fire for practices like understaffing stores to keep costs down and hiring tons of temporary workers as a means to avoid paying full-time worker benefits, WinCo has a reputation for doing right by employees. It provides health benefits to all staffers who work at least 24 hours per week. The company also has a pension, with employees getting an amount equal to 20% of their annual salary put in a plan that's paid for by WinCo; a company spokesperson told the Idaho Statesman that more than 400 nonexecutive workers (cashiers, produce clerks, and such) currently have pensions worth over $1 million apiece.
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