Which is ridiculous - why should the customer do something which the cashier is being paid to do? That's like saying a customer in a hotel should do the laundry himself/herself since the maid/housekeeping felt like putting her feet up and smoking a cigarette instead of doing her job.

Ridiculous.

It would amount to plenty, if enough customers complained.

Yes, and thats what they'd do - and if the restuarant didnt care, they'd eventually find all their customers did the same thing and that joint would close very shortly.

That much I agree upon.

And why should I do any of this? Do you have any logical reason to give me here other than talk about Muslim girls crying?

Please expound on your theory.

How do you know they aren't, for starters? How do you know those cashiers did not get reprimanded?

LOL, no, completely unintentional.

I agree, some, or probably many know, but there are those that probably don't. But I also fully agree with your point that if the cashier objects to plain ole pork, then they should be aware of the other stuff they are checking out which likely contains pork or pork related ingredients.

I guess if it was happening in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, and the customers were predominantly Muslim, then yes, sackign those cashiers would cause a stink and cause the store to lose business, but was this the case here (predominantly Muslim clientiele, or neighborhood)?

Further, it doesnt make sense ... if it was that much of a problem with the locals, the supermarket shouldn't be selling pork anyway (and the rest of the stuff that you mentioned in your first post like cheese etc).

Yes, I was saying if they ordered beef. That is to say, let's say a Muslim person orders beef and a Hindu cashier refuses to check it out (or ring it up, whatever) due to religious beliefs. By Solletica's line of reasoning, the customer shouldn't complain since a)one should respect the Hindu's religious preferences and b) hey, min wage workers have a right to listen to music and not do their jobs according to her! and just go to a different restaurant or just check out the food himself/herself.

I think I'll remember this one when I go to a massage estabilishment and the girls are too tired or otherwise don't feel like massaging. No problem, I'll just pay and by Solletica's logic, just massage myself.

Yes, they have every right to complain ... I brought this up after hearing Solletica's absurd argument about customers getting somethign other than what they asked for, and not complaing over it, instead "being happy with what they got".

Talk about living in an utopian world and distancing oneself from reality (Solletica's statement)!

It isn't really my style to make waves. I waited patiently in the other line and then went to a different store after that.

__________________
"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

So, your contention is that, if I hire someone to clerk for six dollars per hour, they will provide shitty service, no matter what? Is there some sort of "shitty service union" that I'm not aware of? Your premise is that I'd have to pay more to my employees to get them to provide better service, which is silly. I could pay the same wage as my competitors and be more demanding. Consider that most of the people working these jobs are living hand to mouth and can't really afford to lose the jobs once they're hired. So, I simply tell them that they're going to greet each customer with a smile, or they're fired. Most will do it because the opportunity cost for them is prohibitive - going out and interviewing at other companies to slack off a bit more and frown for the same wage is not worth slightly improving their performance. You seem to be forgetting that the employer, rather than the clerk, holds all of the face cards.



Okay, let's play a numbers game. Let's assume that your amusing premise of "better wages results in better service" is accurate. So, let's say that I have to pay 6 dollars per hour to get a surly employee who sucks, but, by upgrading to 7 dollars per hour, I get a smiley and efficient employee. So, I'm out $12 per day for this "upgrade" (generously assuming 12 hour work days). Now, let's say that the shitty employee turns off a modest two customers per day with his bad service. And, let's say the average tab per customer in my store is $10. Well, I've already made $8.00 per day per shitty employee, even with this very conservative estimate.

The point is that, even if we assume your premise that you have to give employees raises to get them to smile, the cost of the marginally increased salary for menial labor is negligible. It probably takes three customers to pay the employee's wage for a day. I mean, did you actually think this through?

Really? My competitors would be pissed at me for succeeding? I think that you should alert Wharton and tell them that you have a new model of business practice!

Well, let's see. I drove around my neighborhood tonight and noticed that there are grocery stores with significantly different levels of service. For instance, Dominicks is generally the worst in terms of service. Their employees are mostly morons, their selection is crappy, but they have rock bottom prices. If I go to Jewel, I deal with friendlier, more competent employees, I get a decent selection, but the prices are a bit higher. If I go to Sunset, the employees practically wipe my ass (there is actually a guy who unloads your cart onto the conveyor, the checkout guy, a bagger, a dude who carries the groceries out to your car, and a valet). The selection, produce, and meat are fantastic, but I pay out the ass. So, in my specific neighborhood with people of my specific income level, there are grocery stores with vastly different qualities of service. And, I found this to be true when I lived in the heart of Chicago and when I lived in Pittsburgh. So yes, I think that you're making things up.

And since your fairy tale isn't the case, we can assume the contrapositive - I am correct.

Well, first, I do apologize for making you nervous enough with your "arguments" that you felt the need to giggle (I don't like to make anyone uncomfortable). And secondly, for someone who uses the word "cite" in all caps, you put words in my mouth pretty freely. What I said was that the employer found a resolution to the "issue" that didn't need to result in anyone being fired. The employer likely knows that he could find comparable employees, on average, to the ones working for him. Now, the fact that a few employees won't ring up a particular product is a knock on them, but perhaps he has other employees that scratch their nuts in front of customers. Who knows? The question isn't how good people are at waving infrared scanners over barcodes - the question is how their actions affect profits.



Yes, I'm so inventive. Listening to me one would think that you had repeatedly extolled, in this thread, the virtues of Muslim workers, stating that they were superior to other workers.



Well, let's see originally where I said that those cashiers should be fired...

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Hmm... not there, in my "original" post. There I only said that refusing to perform their duties may be grounds for termination. Of course, I also said that if it were my store, I would fire them only if I couldn't find a reasonable alternative.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

There? No, no mention that the employees should be fired.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

There... no.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

There? Wait, no - that was just me pointing out a silly argument of yours.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

There? No... shit, I'm having a lot of trouble finding what you call my "original position".

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Ahhh... there it is. Oh, wait. No, it isn't.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Well, surely it's in one of these. Wait... no, it isn't. In fact, in #115, I said "If these clerks were doing this in my store, I would try to accommodate them, if possible. But, if I thought it were costing my business, I would fire them without a whiff of remorse."

God, I'm such a merciless, firing bastard. But... onward with our quest...

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Man, I'm stumped. If we can't find my "original position" in all of these posts, I just don't know where it could be.

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Good God, I'm just not finding it anywhere. I'm actually starting to panic. If I didn't know that you weren't just making things up, I might just come right out and say that I had never said what you attributed to me. But, let's keep going...

Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork
Muslim cashiers won't ring up pork

Well, now I'm just plum out of ammo. I sifted through all of those posts, and I couldn't find a single instance where I held the "original position" that you attributed to me. If I didn't know better, I might think that you had stuck your hand between your legs, reached into your butt, and pulled that straight out of your ass.

But, please do not let me be accused of saying anything so vulgar. I'm certain that you found a hidden post that I made that no one else can see. Now, you don't have to tell all of these fine posters reading about it, but can you PM me the link, just so I can be sufficiently humbled?

Well, once again, would you point me to that hidden post in which I lodge such a complaint? I'm sure that hidden post would be most revealing in this interchange

I would invite you to explain that to the mid/high level corporate managers who have multi-million dollar budgets to improve customer service. Walk into a Blockbuster and observe how the clerks trip over one another to say hello to you. Same thing in Radio Shack, Denny's by me, and some fast food joints. These people, making salaries that are virtually non-existent do this (and, as an aside, I worked at a Radio-Shack in my younger days, and we made less than $9 per hour burger flippers). Do you think that's an accident? Here's a hint - it isn't. They sit those people down, and force their stoned asses to watch a video about how to properly treat customers. Whether it's well executed or not, and whether you care or not, customer service at fast-food joints is a multi-billion dollar per year business.

Here we go again with "my pay isn't what I'm worth, so I'm going to give my employer the finger". That's absurd. I work as a software engineer, doing embedded systems programming, web design, and database development. Why couldn't I cop out to my boss by saying, "Given what I'm paid, I could forget about bugs in my software - I have no incentive always to make it right"? By your logic, shouldn't he nod and say - "Fair enough - I'm either going to bump your salary by 20K per year, or I'll expect you to come to work drunk and write garbage code"? After all, I have industry knowledge that couldn't be replaced within a year. Training someone to replace me would be exorbitantly expensive - much moreso than replacing a burger flipper... So, I should be able to make a demand like that?

Pish. If they knew better than "to be exploited", don't you think they would have followed your path to "earn more $ "? The fact is, most people jockeying registers who aren't teenagers need their jobs infinitely more than their employers need them. You seem to have this (actually, quite patronizing) impression that because they don't do something that requires as much skill as your job, they're content to sit back and say - "I'm a fuck-up. I'm getting paid to be a fuck-up. So, I might as well milk it by bilking my employer out of money and being a world-class fuck-up." Contrary to what you might think, most people with jobs like that, who aren't as fortunate as you, work their fucking asses off in the hopes of getting bumped from a $9 per hour clerk salary to a $12 per hour manager salary. And, they don't sit there and think - "well, as long as I'm a fucking prole, I might as well slack off." Most, if not all of them, want what you have. And, I find the fact that you consider them all to be united in laziness quite offensive.


I'm looking forward to it. Hearty debate is always fun. Cheers, and I hope the evening is treating you well

__________________
"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

I must say that I find the idea that people who earn low wages don't take pride in their jobs doesn't fit the reality I know.

And many people of faith (including many Muslims) also believe that taking pride in the work they do is a virtue.

Thank you for the "sanity check", daisy...

__________________
"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

sane is boring.

its a thread killer.

I was beginning to think it was me! You have no idea how many threads there are on my user panel where I am the last poster.

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

no. sane is boring.

picking a topical issue and flapping hysterically about it is pretty much the best way to keep threads going - or biting when someone else flaps around like a headless chook.

Mostly, the only time sanity doesn't kill threads is when you've upset the pan am paranoia platoon.

LOL, you should have left her as the last poster for a joke.

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

Many times I believe Americans will have to take back the country and start a new government.

But what makes you think that you're sane?

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Too late to edit - so I'll explain it a bit - I don't believe all Americans are like this at all - but there seems to be a set of people on both sides of politics who ... well, they remind me of these ladies I used to hear when I was a kid.

They used to stand around outside church, or they used to be down at the shop when I went shopping with my mother ... and you'd hear them talking.

If there was a whiff of a rumour somewhere ... it would become 'the topic', and there was always someone present to embellish it a bit more ... and before you knew it, it was HUGE.

I learnt a lot from this ... when I was small I figured this was an OK thing to do - but when I embellished things I got smacked for telling lies. That was one of the first lessons I learnt about adult hypocrisy.

I know that most of the time these rumours were just that, because my mother would talk to my father about them, and he would comment that we would find out sooner or later that someone had the wrong end of the story ... and sure enough ... thats usually what happened, once the truth was revealed.

A lot of posters on here remind me of those old gossips, honestly. Its not unique to America. Its not unique to conservatives - or liberals - but there's a lot of it here on USPO.

Big tough guys might not like being seen as gossipy old biddies - but thats what a lot of them look like to me.

Yes, the difference being they would be fired if it weren’t there pharmacy. The people that bring you this pass other pharmacists to get to the one that doesn’t just to challenge her.

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Only a liberal would know how hard it is to get a nicotine patch to stick to a monkey.