Adfreak informs us that Wal-Mart has changed their logo:
The important thing that is lost here is the hyphen, which was represented as a star. This is actually a change in company culture.
When I lived in Colorado Springs, I worked many, many shitty jobs. I worked at a Wendy's for three hours, I was a landscaper, a mall Easter Bunny, a K-Mart shoe salesman and more. But worst of all, I worked to set up a Super Wal-Mart at the very end of my time in the Springs. I was desperate for cash. There were no customers, since the store had yet to open, which was a major plus.
The downside was that we had storewide meetings every single morning. Every single day, the store manager, whose name was Gary Peacock, would blast the song "Takin' Care of Business" on repeat and I and all of my other blue-vested compatriots would assemble around the makeshift stage, clapping in time with the music. At the end of every meeting, where we would hear about the progress of the store—mostly our job was assembling and stocking all the shelves, which, in a Super Wal-Mart, is a hell of a job—we would do the Wal-Mart Cheer. This is apparently the Wal-Mart way; other former Wal-Mart employees have told me that they've done the cheer, as well.
Peacock would shout, "Gimme a W!" and all the adults, dressed in their blue smocks, would hold their hands above their heads to make a giant W with their bodies. Then, he would shout "Gimme an A!" and we'd put our hands together to form an A and so on and so forth. It would end with a cheer, of course, and our morale would be suitably boosted for another day of shelf-stocking.
But the most demoralizing part of the whole thing was the hyphen. When we got to the space between the L and the M, Peacock would shout: "Gimme a squiggly!" and everybody would have to do the twist and lower ourselves to the floor before twisting back upright, while making a "Whooooooooooooop!" noise that got lower as we went down and higher as we stood back up. Never mind that it was a hyphen and not at all squiggly, a fact which drove me insane every single day. The worst part was that some of the employees fucking loved doing the squiggly. It was probably the high point of their days. They would laugh every time.
So what are the Peacocks of the world going to shout now, between the L and the M? Is there still going to be a squiggly? Are they going to acknowledge that it's an asterisk at the end? Or are they going to shout "Give me a Kurt Vonnegut asshole!" instead? And what will happen then, dear Lord, what, exactly, will happen then?