I wrote a letter to Target
For those who don't know, this is the company I work for.
I started working for Target about 2 months ago and I have come across
some real sticky issues which conflict with my personal ethics. I'm
going to address the biggest issue I have first. In the infant feeding
aisle at our store, you have formula on one side (I will commend
Target brand formula for not being vague about breastfeeding being the
better choice for infant feeding) and bottles and breastfeeding
supplies on the other side. On the side with the breastfeeding
products the signs are very inappropriate. I'm going to assume that
you don't want a picture of a woman breastfeeding lest you offend
anyone (although anyone who would be offended obviously has some
issues they need to deal with), but that whole side of the aisle is
covered in bottle nipples and babies being fed artificially. This is
just not acceptable. What would be the problem with just having happy
babies with no rubber in their mouths or a picture of a breast pump or
something similar? What you are doing here is normalizing a way of
feeding babies that is not normal or natural and in fact puts babies
at risk. Even in the chart on that aisle which is supposed to help
women pick the best breast pump for them, you have a picture of a
woman holding a baby with a pacifier in it's mouth. For one,
pacifiers are not generally advised if you want to exclusively
breastfeed (which ever medical council in the world recommends for the
first 6 months of life). If you just turned that baby to face towards
the woman, people would assume she was breastfeeding it while she
wouldn't have to ACTUALLY breastfeed it, therefore offending nobody.
And anyone looking in that chart would surely not be offended by it
anyway? Or again, you could have a picture of the breast pump instead.
I work as a breastfeeding peer counselor for WIC and our office was
ruined last year by the floods. We are trying to obtain grant money
for a new building. Maybe you could balance out your misguided
advertising by using some of that money you advertise about (You know
the 5% of your profit that goes to local communities)to help us create
a new space to help our local w0men and children?
The other issue is the disgusting amount of waste created every single
day by just this one store. I work on logistics and so I get to unpack
all the product. Mostly I do softlines and we get boxes where we'll
have a particular size of underwear wrapped in a pack of say, 10 and
then there will be 10 more of the same underwear in the same size all
wrapped individually. None of it makes any sense. We will get a repack
box with like, one bra and a tube of mascara in it. It's truly
sickening. Our earth is dying and just in our one store, which is
pretty small for a Target, we are throwing away mountains of garbage.
Also, the food that gets destroyed because it has a dent in it or
damaged packaging? This could all go to shelters or food banks! What
is the point of giving so much money to local communities when this
happens? You could JUST give away your waste and it would probably be
equal in value. I have been told by staff who have worked for Target
longer as well, that they throw away furniture which doesn't sell. Why
can't this go to shelters? Especially in a community which was ravaged
by floods just one year ago and displaced so many families, there is
so much good you could do here without even trying.
Call me naive, but I thought Target were better than Walmart so I hold
out hope that you can make some changes at least in our community and
at our store.
I also plan to respond to all the comments on my last post, but have been waiting for a day off.
I started working for Target about 2 months ago and I have come across
some real sticky issues which conflict with my personal ethics. I'm
going to address the biggest issue I have first. In the infant feeding
aisle at our store, you have formula on one side (I will commend
Target brand formula for not being vague about breastfeeding being the
better choice for infant feeding) and bottles and breastfeeding
supplies on the other side. On the side with the breastfeeding
products the signs are very inappropriate. I'm going to assume that
you don't want a picture of a woman breastfeeding lest you offend
anyone (although anyone who would be offended obviously has some
issues they need to deal with), but that whole side of the aisle is
covered in bottle nipples and babies being fed artificially. This is
just not acceptable. What would be the problem with just having happy
babies with no rubber in their mouths or a picture of a breast pump or
something similar? What you are doing here is normalizing a way of
feeding babies that is not normal or natural and in fact puts babies
at risk. Even in the chart on that aisle which is supposed to help
women pick the best breast pump for them, you have a picture of a
woman holding a baby with a pacifier in it's mouth. For one,
pacifiers are not generally advised if you want to exclusively
breastfeed (which ever medical council in the world recommends for the
first 6 months of life). If you just turned that baby to face towards
the woman, people would assume she was breastfeeding it while she
wouldn't have to ACTUALLY breastfeed it, therefore offending nobody.
And anyone looking in that chart would surely not be offended by it
anyway? Or again, you could have a picture of the breast pump instead.
I work as a breastfeeding peer counselor for WIC and our office was
ruined last year by the floods. We are trying to obtain grant money
for a new building. Maybe you could balance out your misguided
advertising by using some of that money you advertise about (You know
the 5% of your profit that goes to local communities)to help us create
a new space to help our local w0men and children?
The other issue is the disgusting amount of waste created every single
day by just this one store. I work on logistics and so I get to unpack
all the product. Mostly I do softlines and we get boxes where we'll
have a particular size of underwear wrapped in a pack of say, 10 and
then there will be 10 more of the same underwear in the same size all
wrapped individually. None of it makes any sense. We will get a repack
box with like, one bra and a tube of mascara in it. It's truly
sickening. Our earth is dying and just in our one store, which is
pretty small for a Target, we are throwing away mountains of garbage.
Also, the food that gets destroyed because it has a dent in it or
damaged packaging? This could all go to shelters or food banks! What
is the point of giving so much money to local communities when this
happens? You could JUST give away your waste and it would probably be
equal in value. I have been told by staff who have worked for Target
longer as well, that they throw away furniture which doesn't sell. Why
can't this go to shelters? Especially in a community which was ravaged
by floods just one year ago and displaced so many families, there is
so much good you could do here without even trying.
Call me naive, but I thought Target were better than Walmart so I hold
out hope that you can make some changes at least in our community and
at our store.
I also plan to respond to all the comments on my last post, but have been waiting for a day off.