Mr. Greenfield, you are right: I agree that many people reading your letter to the editor haven’t managed a retail store and haven’t managed a mob of people.

I have on both counts. I am a manager for the McDonald’s on East 33rd and Euclid in Des Moines where I have sold beanie babies to EVEN LARGER crowds of people for four years in a row. I also head cashiered at the Target by Valley West Mall last Christmas. What Wal-Mart, and especially Mrs. Culvin did that fateful night about the Playstations was despicable, irresponsible, and an example of the height of ineptitude in dealing with crowds of people.

As for moving the line: The Playstations WERE moved. You had people bring them to the front of the store, I presume to create a diversion while the paint counter was hastily set up. We stood in line and watched as the Playstations were wheeled up to the customer service desk (where we were initially standing). Man, oh man, the web of lies grows!

Frankly, there was a better decision than moving the line. Two of them. The number tickets could have been given out at the customer service desk, like Mrs. Culvert told us when she addressed (read: screeched at) the crowd.

Or, since half of the people showed up before the line was to start at 10 p.m., the systems could have been raffled.

Everyone in line gets a raffle ticket then at midnight Wal-Mart draws 21 tickets. That way the people who showed up at ten (remember, we were assured there would be NO line until ten) would have a shot.

But no. Mrs. Culvin and her ilk decided that the best thing to do with a crowd of edgy people (we had no illusions about getting a Playstation, we all knew supplies were limited to 21) was to have them run across the store, while Wal-Mart was busy filling the aisles with merchandise that had yet to be shelved.

Oh, and placing a palette of light bulbs next to the paint counter was classic.

Didn’t you guys think that far ahead that possibly a huge stack of light, breakable things could be knocked over if a hundred people were going to run through?

Oh, to get back to Mr. Greenfield’s letter. Mobs don’t choose anything. The mob didn’t CHOOSE to become disorderly; it was disorderly precisely because it was a mob. It’s management’s decisions when addressing the mob that sets the stage. Wal-Mart’s stage was set for a tragedy. Wal-Mart and Mrs. Culvin are lucky that no one (I assume, since I think something like this would make the news) was badly hurt or killed in their little stunt.

Finally, yes, we can blame Sony for shipping one half of the order. But the Wal-Mart management deserves all of the blame for turning the ordeal into a store-trashing, fairness-shattering, free-for-all of greed and then laughing about it afterwards.

Keith TwombleySophomore in Computer Science and Philosophy