Tripe, of course, is intestine. Usually cow's intestine. Was that an intetional pun, PJ?

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No, that was your logic--the idea of staying around and complaining about not getting what you want instead of circumventing the restriction to get what you want.

I advocated that customers who are unable to get their pork scanned by a cashier scan it themselves, find somenoe else to scan it, or go to a different store.

It was the other posters that said the customer should stand his/her ground and complain (which would, of course, amount to nothing).

Similary, in the case of the non-beef eating customer, he could go to a different restaurant.

Incidentally, just as not all Muslims abstain from pork, not all Hindus abstain from beef.

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Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

Sorry, never said that. Bad quote.

I was referring specifically to a fast food joint during a busy lunch hour.

I never said anything about customers not complaining if, say, they were to go to a steakhouse and had their order messed up.

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Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

In the instance of these cashiers not ringing up pork products, no one is barring you from buying pork.

All you have to do is ask the cashier politely if you can scan the product yourself, OR ask another cashier in a nearby line if you can have it scanned there once the currect customer in line has been rung up. It's a no-brainer.

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Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

Right

But if the store owners knew what they were doing, and it made sense to let them go, why wouldn't they?

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Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

As you amuse me with your irrelevant semantics, you continue to ignore the notion that these stores are not working in collusion. It is completely and totally in the best interests of Kwiki-Mart to provide better service than Stop-O-Mart to gain an advantage over the competition. Since the only thing distinguishing the stores from one another besides physical location (their products are generally the same) is the quality and efficiency of service. We're not talking about OPEC and price fixing here - the stores have no possible tacit motivation to agree on a shitty level of service. If you put me in an area where all the nearby stores treated their customers rudely and forced them to wait, I promise you that my store with efficient and courteous service would make money hand-over-fist.


Most likely because the loss of business caused by the flap wasn't enough, in the opinion of the manager, to justify the turnover expense, marginal as it may be. Or, maybe the manager's just a softie. Who knows? Something tells me it isn't because of the far-superior clerking skills of the particular employee.


You didn't say that. It is my impression from your often worshipful tone of them in your posts.



My position has not changed at all. The decision as to whether to fire the employees are not is purely a business one (or at least it should be). If their antics are costing the store more in business than their value as employees, then they should be fired. If not, then there's no reason to fire them. It isn't my store, and I frankly don't care at all whether these people keep their jobs.





Well, you know the common customer service phrase - "The clerk is always right. No soup for you!!!" It would be awful to "screw up some kid's day" by asking for the product for which you gave him money. (As an aside, you claim to have no derision for sales clerks, but your posts indicate that you clearly think of them as invalids incapable of performing basic tasks to the tune of a 90% rate of incorrectness).


People who want to, as you put it...


Tell you what... instead of playing semantical hop-scotch (though you are amusing to me), why don't you do this: state your "point" in this thread in some sort of thesis form. Up until now you've seemed content to quibble over minutiae and make outlandish and unintuitive claims about how economics work. So, instead of that, why don't you state your point here explicitly?

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"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

hey, some do!

There are some people who ask if food is haram at various functions, including desserts.

It is pretty well known that rennet is used in most cheeses - I think its usually from cow stomachs, and gelatine is usually from horse or cow hooves, (so both are more of an issue for Hindus - which reminds me - devout hindus should not consume medical treatments in capsule form) BUT was the animal slaughtered in the halal way?

For most Muslims non Halal meat is an issue. When we had barbeques for my women's group, it was just easier to order halal meat as you can't have both halal and non halal meats cooking tgether ...

People - if they want to be consistent - wouldn't just be objecting to pork at the checkout.

If thats what they are doing, they need a bit of an education because if they GENUINELY have a problem with handling these products (for whatever reason) then they would working in the wrong place in a supermarket. Full stop. not just the checkout.

I'd be going with this. IF this is happening, its happening in a place where the majority of customers subscribe to the same beliefs, and sacking these people would create more of a stink than restructuring the way they do things.

I wonder what they ordered?

If they ordered the beef, then its their problem. If they received something other than their order, then they have every right to complain - and they probably would - regardless of religious belief.

And how are they going to provide better service? To do that, they'd have to hire better employees, and to hire better employees means paying them more. And here's the clincher. . .

If the additional revenue acquired from providing better service exceeds the additional costs incurred from the extra wage, then and only then does it make sense for the store to higher better help.

Otherwise, the store will lose money by hiring better employees (because MR-MC for the increase wage < 0). And I suspect that's the case with these stores that have these no-pork scanning cashiers working for them. These stores likely couldn't find anyone better who'd work for the existing wage supplied to the cashiers, and the owners knew that raising wages would cut their profits, so. . .

The situation, btw, is no different with convenience stores.

No, chances are you'd make less money because the increased revenue due to more customers coming in would not be enough to offset the higher wages you're paying out (to get the better service).

Not only that--the owners of the other stores in the area would get pissed off at you for dragging the profit level down (below the optimum point), and all of you would end up losing.

If you don't believe me, if you think I'm making all this up, drive around and look at reality. In a specific neighborhood--with a specific average income level--every single store of the same type is going to offer nearly the exact same quality of service and exact same types of goods.

OTOH, if your viewpoint were correct, the above would not be the case.

You're saying that the employer knows he/she could get easily better employees for the same wage, but chooses instead to retain the ones he has?

That makes sense

You made it up

Then your position clearly has changed because originally you said those cashiers should be fired simply because they weren't doing what you considered to be their jobs, i. e. they weren't ringing up pork products.

Now you're saying their firing should be solely at the discretion of their employers, who likely (because they're not being fired) don't find it in their best financial interest to can them.

Sure you do, or else you wouldn't be complaining about them being there.

It's not the customer service phrase. It's the the way the world is phrase. Customer service is a dream in fast food joints.

And the kids working at McD's, BK, etc. are perfectly capable of never messing up an order, but, given what they're paid, they have no incentive to always make it right. They can do what they're doing--mess up--and never be fired, so. . .

So you're claim that I think of them as "invalids" is another incorrect assumption on your part; I believe they're slouching has nothing to do with ability; rather, it has to do with them knowing better than to be exploited.

If you have an issue with anything I've said, bring it up, and I'll refute it

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Life only becomes meaningful at its extremes

-- S

It seems that way to me too. However, it's interesting to read the various responses to this story.

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

You should have complained to the manager, the girl was only doing what she had been told to do. Managers are paid to cop it, the checkout chicks aren't!

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

Trailblazer, it isn't intestine. It is the lining of the cow's stomach.

I have been a life-long eater of tripe. Although, now I think of it not lately. It was expensive last time I bought it. Probably some fancy celebrity chef has worked out a new way to cook it!

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

This is why I support employment at will based on contract (or freedom of contracts).

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Little known fact #46: Every definition of a given word in a dictionary is used equally as often.

Little known fact #53: Your testicles serve only one purpose: to reproduce. Every other function is a complete accident.

Little known fact #65: Because the human body does not prepare for death, humans never die.

What if working is against my religion? Do I get to receive a paycheck while doing nothing, and if they try to fire me or refuse to hire me I can whine DISCRIMINATION!!!!

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Little known fact #46: Every definition of a given word in a dictionary is used equally as often.

Little known fact #53: Your testicles serve only one purpose: to reproduce. Every other function is a complete accident.

Little known fact #65: Because the human body does not prepare for death, humans never die.