Trip to Wal-Mart

I haven't had the chance to post lately (This is Brian), so I thought I'd talk a little about a trip I took recently to Wal-Mart... That doesn't sound that exciting (I guess unless it's the story Rach told about her recent experience there during a storm)... But I'm not talking about going to your local Wal-Mart supercenter, I'm talking about the trip Wal-Mart paid for me to fly to their headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas...

This story actually has a funny start because of how I first found out about the trip. Now, take into consideration that it wasn't more than a couple months ago that I finally decided to take a contract at a new Wal-Mart up here in the South Bend area (Osceola, to be exact). I hadn't even signed a contract at this point. So, I get a phonecall from a very perky, full-of-energy person asking if I was interested in an "opportunity" she'd like to tell me about. My initial reaction was to move my thumb to the "End Call" button since I thought it was a telemarketer. As I listened a few more seconds, however, I heard her mention she was calling on behalf of a Dr. Patel at the corporate office of Wal-Mart, and that they were putting together a meeting of new Wal-Mart doctors called "Best New Doctor/Patient Experience." Basically, it was a meeting geared toward new doctors to help us learn more about Wal-Mart and the way they are changing the way they do things, but also to help give us some ideas on how to run our offices (not just procedures, but help on advertising, etc.)... There were only ten of us, and the interesting thing was how diverse the group was. I was one of three doctors who just graduated in May, and there were a few who had been working for a couple of years... Interestingly, though, we had a couple doctors who had actually been practicing for a long time (one who had already retired who graduated optometry school in 1970 and was coming out of retirement to start a Wal-Mart practice). One thing that was a little initimidating was Sunday night when I arrived in Arkansas (which was the only time I'd ever been in Arkansas), I was responsible for picking up the rental car and driving one other doctor to the hotel. This other doctor was the other one who'd been practicing for a while in Florida (she graduated optometry school in 1980 -- coincidentally the same year I was born, which out of respect for her I made sure to not mention). That night we ended up getting dinner together since we hadn't met any other doctors. The intimidating thing (aside from the fact that she'd been practicing for as long as I'd been alive) was when she was telling me how she'd been in private practice for 12 years, and when she sold off her practice the building alone sold for 1.2 million dollars. Here I am in debt up to and past my ears from school, and I'm eating barbeque with a millionare... We still split the check. ;)


I'm really happy I was given the opportunity to attend this meeting because it gave me a lot of ideas to help get my practice up and running. Also, though, a group of us from the meeting were able to form some good friendships in a small amount of time, and I'll look forward to seeing them again in future meetings. Hopefully, though, our future meetings won't have to take place in Bentonville, Arkansas... See, Wal-Mart made that their headquarters because it's where Sam Walton had his beginnings in the retail business... The problem with going there is the fact that the whole town (which is very small) is nothing but Wal-Mart. They have their headquarters there, their developmental center (where we were having our meeting), manufacturing labs, etc... I guess the only reason you'd ever go to that town is if you had some business with Wal-Mart, but I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was neat, however, to go into their headquarters building and see people pitching their product to Wal-Mart execs... We saw a cart full of empty wine bottles and wondered if that meant we'd just missed a huge party or if some wine company tried really hard to "influence" Wal-Mart to sell their product...


I wasn't taking a lot of pictures on this trip, but I did take a couple with my phone (so bear with the quality).







One of the planes I took on my trip... There was a common theme on this trip when it came to the planes... They were SMALL!!!




This engine is from a different plane, I believe, but I had to take a picture of what was right outside my window...

Oh, a little sidenote about my flights... The Tuesday I was coming home, my first flight went from Arkansas to Cincinnati, OH around 3:30 (where it landed just after 6pm, I believe) and didn't leave there to fly to South Bend until after 8pm -- landing just before 10pm... Given the fact that even after only being gone a couple days I was dying to get back to Rach and Lucas, it was a looong day of flying.




Lastly, this picture is of the entrance to a building a group of us went to Monday night there in Arkansas... We were going to a bar named Eddie Haskell's, which was inside this building... The building was brand new, so we all thought it was an odd name for them to choose for the building...