yes, I realise that - and basically the thrust of my posts on this thread has been the same - but perhaps a little too subtle.

It seems to me that an article like this is
1. made from a comment thats been blown out of all proportion, and
2. is only newsworthy because some people are like hens in a chickencoop who saw some movement way over in the distance and all get into a big flap about it.

if people said, "yeah? so what, I wouldn't shop at that store", or didn't go to the checkout with the girl who wears a headscarf (she'd have to if she took it all so seriously that she wouldn't handle packaged meat), or the guy whose namebadge said 'Ayoub' or 'Mohammed' or something, or ask the store owner to open another checkout it would die out eventually.

Also - if these Muslims are serious about not handling pig products - should you be telling them about the bacon stock cubes you bought for making soup? what about the bacon flavoured crackers or chips? Should you go through their checkouts with cheap icecream (which sometimes has pig fat in it)?

But why stop with pig products? what about your cheese? Is it made with rennet? Is your beef halal? Is there gelatine in your cheesecake?

If you've got Muslims refusing to serve you because of a bit of pork, they are NOT being consistent if they allow you through their checkouts with everything else.

Maybe they shouldn't even be stacking shelves?

If they really do feel this is an issue, they'd be worried about other things as well, and since there's no mention of this I'm inclined to think the only pork around here is that someone is telling porky pies.

its OK - I'm selective about my fences ....

I'm putting this sentence in so that I can post without it telling me my message is too short!

OH! and I forgot to put in those dreaded words that strike fear into those queueing on the checkout

PRICE CHECK ON....

__________________
Lucky is he (sic) who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil

This may be a bit of a moot point, but I doubt the majority of Muslims from any religion would equate ice cream, cheese etc with anything prohibited by Islam. Hell, I didnt even know that one about cheese and ice cream till you posted it, lol.

You're only partly correct. Just as employees have rights, employers have rights too.

One of those rights is to tell the employees: "Activity X is part of your job. If you don't do activity X, I'll fire you." Provided, of course, that Activity X is legal. This is how all successful businesses operate, and indeed it's how they must operate if they want to stay in business.

__________________

What planet do you live on? In an ideal world, it would work that way.

In the real world, most service-oriented businesses are oligopolies. They don't have to provide good service, because, where else you gonna go?

Grocery stores are geographic oligopolies/monopolies. No one wants to drive far away to pick up milk, steak, oatmeal, etc.

They must always visit the closest one to where they live.

Besides, a kid who is being payed min. wage or something close to that doesn't have much of an incentive to go above and beyond the call of duty. The Muslim cashiers know they're supposed to ring up pork products, but they know they don't have to, because they can get away with it. They're protected by their low wages (it would cost the store more to hire and retrain someone else), and also by the potential negative PR a store would get from nearby Muslim neighborhoods.

Fast food is a perfect example of how a business can be very succesful and yet provide lousy service. In McDonald's for instance, if you order doing a busy lunch hour, the chances your order will correct is about 10%. But who in their right mind is going to complain about the incorrect order? McD's knows that, and so do their employees.

__________________
Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

Care to back up this statistic?

They are. It they weren't doing the bare minimum required of them, they'd be fired, and they're not.

__________________
Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

We have been over this before. They aren't being fired because their boss is incompetent, or for some reason doesn't want to fire them - it's got zilch to do with the fact that they weren't doing their jobs - it's clear to anyone they weren't.

Your idea about oligopolies implies collusion between the competing stores, and it also implies that they collude to cater to the whims of menial laborers, both of which makes your inquiry as to trailblazer's planet ironically entertaining.

Also to consider is the fact that an employee working for peanuts is completely expendable, as the cost to train another one is virtually nil (due to the easiness of the job and the fact that $6 per hour for productive work versus unproductive work really doesn't matter much). If you doubt this, see what the turnover is in most retail stores and fast food joints compared to the turnover of skilled laborers. You seem to be making an argument that low wage employees can get away with doing a shitty job because they're too valuable and because their competing employers work in collusion to screw their customers and keep their menial laborers happy.

That's patently absurd, to the point of comedy.

And by the way, just about anyone who orders two cheeseburgers and gets a salad is going to complain, and the employee who keeps doing that is likely not long for the job, your obvious derision for fast food employees notwithstanding.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Matt is saying he's OK w/reducing the Muslim checkout girl to tears so he can walk out the store with "I got my pork! I'm a proud 'merkin! HELL YEAH!!!"

__________________
Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

He didn't appear to say anything of the sort, but building a strawman with which to argue certainly does help detract from the deficiencies of your arguments. "See - anyone who argues with me likes to make helpless girls cry, and so they're wrong!"

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Really ...

If the cashier is reduced to tears by checking out my groceries, then it's just tough sh**, the way I see it ...

What if not getting your pork rung up reduces you to tears? Then who's the bully in the situation?

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

The cashier, I guess ...

Anyway, I'll be direct - Solletica's line of reasoning throughout this thread has been absolutely ludicrious IMO. I was simply responding in a similar style to his/her comment about a Muslim girl "being reduced to tears" because Allah forbid, she has to do a job she's being paid to do.

Absolute nonsense.