John Lewis Boss Calls For Abusing Shop Workers To Be An Offence

[Chekhov]

I am a shop owner and have been for not far off 30 years. Guess what I think about this ?

 

The Times 17 July 23 (p8)

Sharon White [the chairman of John Lewis] : one of the big issues for John Lewis is staff safety. She recalled an incident in their Edinburgh store where a member of the security team was aggressively pushed after asking teenagers (who were trying to make off with fragarances) to leave.

White called for Westminster to follow Holyrood and make it an offence for shop workers to be assaulted, threatened or abused.

 

Well, I think it's total over sensitive, cotton wool, virtue signalling, cobblers (typical of the Leftie authoritarian Scottish Nationalists who kept the Scots wearing masks long after England - or even Wales - had stopped, and even when we knew it was doing toss all anyway).

 

1 - It is already an offence to assault someone and rightly so (but any accused person is presumed innocent until anything is proved, and rightly so, again).

 

2 - It is already an offence to threaten someone and rightly so (but any accused person is presumed innocent until anything is proved, and rightly so, again, again).

 

3 - "A member of the security staff was aggressively pushed" ? Something so rare and so serious the chairman of John Lewis mentions it in a newspaper interview..... 

Is that satire ? When I used to frequent nightclubs many years ago that was par for the course most nights, nobody got hurt nor thought much about it. Man up or get a job doing something else.

 

4 - An offence "to abuse someone" ? I mean, really ? Seriously ? And who gets to decide what abuse is ? Typical of this pathetic society we live in when anyone being upset is the ultimate sin. If you have a job dealing with the general public it's not all a bed of roses, you take the rough with the smooth. Man up (again), or go and get another job, how about a computer progammer working from home ? No risk of anyone "abusing you"  there.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Chekhov

[Jack Grey]

Shop workers are already covered by the law like everyone else

 

If someone puts their hands on you it's assualt

 

However it shouldn't be a crime to verberly abuse someone 

 

It's a dangerous road when people can be arrested for shouting at someone or swearing at them 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Jack Grey

[The_DADDY]

My days in retail are over thankfully. It can be a hazardous job. I was threatened with a knife myself whilst working retail. 

It wasn't particularly scary at the time and I got the idiot out of the shop but afterwards when I realised what could have happened I felt stupid for taking such a risk.

 

[Chekhov]

3 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

Shop workers are already covered by the law like everyone else

If someone puts their hands on you it's assault

However it shouldn't be a crime to verberly abuse someone 

It's a dangerous road when people can be arrested for calling shouting at someone or swearing at them 

I have upvoted your post Jack, but I would make a distinction between using moderate swearing about the situation, and hard core swearing about the person you are dealing with. There's  a big, nay massive, difference.

 

>>If someone puts their hands on you it's assault<<

 

I think assault is when someone gets hurt, simple, as.

Definition of assault :

 

make a physical attack on (implication : with the intention of causing hurt, maybe even injury).

Edited July 17, 2023 by Chekhov

[The_DADDY]

4 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

Shop workers are already covered by the law like everyone else

 

If someone puts their hands on you it's assualt

 

However it shouldn't be a crime to verberly abuse someone 

 

It's a dangerous road when people can be arrested for shouting at someone or swearing at them 

My bold. 

It depends what the verbal abuse is.

[Chekhov]

1 minute ago, The_DADDY said:

My bold. 

It depends what the verbal abuse is.

Examples ?

[The_DADDY]

9 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Examples ?

Example. Following a disabled person down the road shouting "Retard,Spacka,Spazzyboy/girl,etc"

Following a person of colour down the street shouting "N####, Wogwog, Monkeyboy/girl, etc"

 

I could probably think of a few more examples if I have a think..

 

Tagging @SFBeca in to make sure my examples are considered acceptable given the topic 👍

[Chekhov]

I can remember my first job as an HSS tool hire shop assistant manager in the mid late 80s.

We had hired out a power float (a machine for smoothing off concrete floors)  to a bloke who used us fairly regularly.

The customer had hired a load of workers (paying them all at Gawd knows how much per hour) and had to get the job done as it was holding up the site.

Our machine broke down.... And my manager told me we could not do anything about it as we had no fitter available nor a spare machine available which we could get there that day.

The customer was screaming down the phone at me using every word one could think off but I had great sympathy for him and never once thought about terminating the call, not like the cotton wool wazzocks in call centres these days. If you so much as raise your voice or say something mild (like "bloody hell") they threaten to terminate the call !

Then, he gets really upset and says "if you don't get this ******* machine changed in two hours I'm coming down there to lay you out" ! And this wasn't some meaningless handbags threat online, he knew who I was and where I worked, I was more than a bit concerned TBH because he was a big bloke !

My manager took the phone off me and said "you cannot talk to my staff like that". And that was the end of it, HSS even kept dealing with him, and, as it happens, I do not believe he ever caused any more trouble.

 

You can see why, after having gone through that, I think this is absolute cobblers. And the same goes for call centre staff getting "distressed" when a customer gets upset as a result of appalling service and uses really quite moderate language. They should get some empathy, for the customer, like I had all those years ago.

Man up, wimps.

 

11 hours ago, The_DADDY said:

Example. Following a disabled person down the road shouting "Retard,Spacka,Spazzyboy/girl,etc"

Following a person of colour down the street shouting "N####, Wogwog, Monkeyboy/girl, etc"

 

I could probably think of a few more examples if I have a think..

 

Tagging @SFBeca in to make sure my examples are considered acceptable given the topic 👍

I have never, in my life, heard anyone doing that TD.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Chekhov

[Jack Grey]

8 minutes ago, The_DADDY said:

Example. Following a disabled person down the road shouting "Retard,Spacka,Spazzyboy/girl,etc"

Following a person of colour down the street shouting "N####, Wogwog, Monkeyboy/girl, etc"

 

I could probably think of a few more examples if I have a think..

 

Tagging @SFBeca in to make sure my examples are considered acceptable given the topic 👍

So who decides what language is offensive?

 

The victim?

The government?

The police?

The courts?

Edited July 17, 2023 by Jack Grey

[The_DADDY]

6 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

 

I have never, in my life, heard anyone doing that TD.

The first one happened frequently to my son. We had to move house in the end such was the abuse he was given just for being 'different'.. A group of around 10 to 15 would follow him daily and make his life very difficult.. 

 

The w## one was abuse aimed at a former neighbour of ours admittedly it was a long time ago, maybe 10 or 15 years.  Daily verbal from the estates feral youths accompanied by graffiti and the occasional broken window.

2 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

So who decides what language is offensive?

 

The victim?

The government?

The police?

The courts?

You know that's a very fair question to which I'm not sure I have the answer. 

Edited July 17, 2023 by The_DADDY