Shopping Costco's Competition

I've been a satisfied member of Costco for several years now. In any relationship, though, you always wonder, at some point, What if...? What if I were a member of a different discount warehouse chain?

There are 3 discount warehouse chains, Costco, Sam's Club, and BJ's. A news article I read a year ago said they're basically the same overall and smart shoppers should simply choose whichever is geographically most convenient.

My inlaws live in a mid-tier city where all 3 chains are present. They tried them all and came to the same conclusion as the article: shop the one that's closest to home. They're BJs members now, as there's a BJ's 10 minutes away, versus the one Costco in the area that's on the far side of the city, 45 minutes away.

I was curious what the differences are. So when I was visiting my inlaws two weeks ago my father-in-law took me for a visit.

Here are Five Things about BJ's vs. Costco:

1) No lines at the pumps
The first thing I noticed was no lines at the gas pumps. Even though gas for members is $.30 per gallon less than area gas stations, there were no lines. At the Costco near my house there are always lines for gas— even with 30 pumps! This BJ's had only 12.

2) Plenty of parking (because nobody's there)
Another thing about the Costcos in my area is that the parking lots are always a mad-house. The lot at BJ's was 1/3 full. I parked 3 spaces away from the door. The store had very few customers inside— and this was on Black Friday!

3) Poor selection of electronics
Costco stores fill their entry areas with huge displays of TVs: several short aisles of flat screens in 55" size, 65", 85", and larger. With HD and 4K content playing on all of them it's a dazzling display. Beyond these are tables, mobile phones, computers, and printers. At BJs... well, there were maybe 8 models of TVs, ranging from small (by today's standards) to medium. That was it. No computers. No printers. There were... paper shredders. (Costco has those, too, but they're a few rows back.)

4) Deli!
One department BJ's had that Costco doesn't (at any store I've visited) is a deli. I would love to get freshly sliced meats and cheeses at lower-than-supermarket prices.

5) A few unique things in the freezer
One of our standard things on a Costco trip is to walk through all the freezer aisles. There are several Costco staples of frozen foods we like to buy, e.g. eggrolls, spinach and cheese ravioli, and Buffalo chicken wings. We also like checking for anything new or back from hiatus. BJ's has a lot of familiar frozen foods— not the same brands, but the same types of food. And they also have a few things I've never seen at Costco I'd try if I could get frozen food home in time. I don't know whether those are regional differences or BJ's standards.

Conclusion

On the whole I felt BJ's was Costco's poor cousin. If both stores were in my area I'd stick with Costco, even if it were less convenient. I do respect my inlaws' choice of driving 10 minutes rather than 45, though. If there were a BJ's anywhere nearby my home I might look to see if a friend with a membership would take me along shopping a few times a year. Alas the point is moot because the nearest BJ's seems to be over 1,000 miles away. Even the nearest Sam's Club is over 50 miles away. Costco has this area pretty well sewn up, it seems. But no matter; I'm a satisfied member.

CEO Fires 900 Employees on Zoom Meeting

Last week Better.com CEO Vishal Garg fired 900 employees over Zoom. "If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off," he said. "Your employment here is terminated effective immediately." Employees found their access to company software systems shut off shortly thereafter. Example news coverage: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees over Zoom, CNN.com article updated 6 Dec 2021.

Much of the media coverage I've read about this in the past few days has had a breathless nature to it. Breathless, as in reporters not understanding which parts of the story are actually unusual so they emphasize everything. Like, "A CEO fired people over Zoom! 900 people! Fired! Over Zoom!" That failure to understand happens, BTW, because most business articles are written by young 20-something writers. They lack the professional experience, and even the life experience, to put things in perspective.

From my perspective getting fired over Zoom would be nothing new. I've had remote managers, and thus remote employment reviews, for 10 years. I resigned from a job by telephone (we weren't really doing Zoom back then) 8 years ago. I was fired from a job (laid off) by phone 6 years ago. 4½ years ago I had a contentious performance review via phone. I tendered a resignation with 2 weeks notice, then the company dismissing me summarily. This was all via phone, not even Zoom. But the point is, getting fired (or quitting) without walking into the boss's office is hardly news.

What is news is how poorly Better.com CEO Garg handled this. A better approach would've been to convene a company all-hands meeting to announce there would be layoffs, followed by 1:1 conversations between employees and managers to confirm their status. That's basically a remote-working adaptation of the process I've gone through twice in major corporate layoffs that booted 30% of the companies. Better.com's layoff was 9% of its workforce.

Why didn't they do this? Almost certainly the answer is because it's expensive. It takes time. And Garg has a history of being a total jerkwad when it comes to cheaping out with employees. He's hounded them as "stealing" from their colleagues by only working "2 hours a day".

Another question is why nobody at the company, particularly nobody from HR, averted this disaster. There's 2 parts to the answer to that one, and basically both of them boil down to, because HR protects the company, not the employees. The first part is that a CEO like Garg with strong (stupid) beliefs is not going to hire/retain an HR exec who challenges him. He'll hire a toadie. And second, there are plenty of toadies out there. In Corporate America it's referred to as "Aligning with the business". That's a euphemism for supporting whatever the boss wants, whether it's fair, just, ethical, etc., or not. In HR that means things like sweeping sexual harassment allegations against key executives under the rug, as documenting and reporting them would be bad for the business. That's why sexual harassment is still such a problem in Corporate America even 30 years after HR started lecturing the rest of us on why it's wrong!

In the past few days a few Better.com executives have resigned. It looks like 2 PR heads and the VP Communication. Example news coverage: 3 Better.com executives resign after CEO lays off 900 over Zoom, CNN.com article 8 Dec 2021. Notably these are not HR leaders. They're external-facing PR people— people who, presumably, who don't want their PR careers tarnished as being the tools who defended Garg's ass-hat behavior. The tools in HR who approved it, supported it coordinated it, or at the very least enabled it, are still there.