More importantly it sounds like a cushy life working for Tesco. Let their employees take note.
"We don’t have a specific policy and take a pragmatic approach if a colleague raises concerns about a job they have been asked to do"
So, it you're paid to do a job, and don't fancy doing it, that's OK by Tesco.
Where has this half his customers figure come from.
It came from me.
You are a checkout operator. An average of perhaps one customer every five minutes goes through your till. At busy times there may be up to 10 people queueing if it is a baskets queue, 5 if it is a trolleys queue.
So you hold everyone up while you go through each basket and trolley to make sure there is no alcohol or pork products in. Only an awful lot of them have. (Half was a guess, but I think it was a reasonable one; probably more than half buy alcohol later in the day, fewer in the mornings.) Or it could be prawns perhaps, or some other non-halal food. So you hold the queue up while you check for non-halal items; you would have to check before doing anything else or they would have started unloading their stuff, and you are stuffed. Quickly spotting that a lot of baskets or trolleys have non-halal food or drink, you tell all those people to re-queue at the check out tills. They all trot off like lambs; no one complains; no colleague asks what on earth you think you are doing. Until ONE DAY a customer makes a fuss and complains.
Or...not. He has in fact been uneventfully processing customer after customer and taking no notice of what is in their basket or trolley.
Tesco are in thrall to a troublemaker and would rather piss off customers than challenge an idiot bent on stirring up trouble.
The assistant should be sacked. For the future it should be in contracts that they will not impose their religious beliefs on customers. A shop is there to serve people not support. Thr whim of a fanatic.
Either you know a lot more than is in the newspapers or you are doing an awful lot of projection here.
You are a checkout operator. An average of perhaps one customer every five minutes goes through your till. At busy times there may be up to 10 people queueing if it is a baskets queue, 5 if it is a trolleys queue.
So you hold everyone up while you go through each basket and trolley to make sure there is no alcohol or pork products in. Only an awful lot of them have. (Half was a guess, but I think it was a reasonable one; probably more than half buy alcohol later in the day, fewer in the mornings.) Or it could be prawns perhaps, or some other non-halal food. So you hold the queue up while you check for non-halal items; you would have to check before doing anything else or they would have started unloading their stuff, and you are stuffed. Quickly spotting that a lot of baskets or trolleys have non-halal food or drink, you tell all those people to re-queue at the check out tills. They all trot off like lambs; no one complains; no colleague asks what on earth you think you are doing. Until ONE DAY a customer makes a fuss and complains.
Or...not. He has in fact been uneventfully processing customer after customer and taking no notice of what is in their basket or trolley.
Either you know a lot more than is in the newspapers or you are doing an awful lot of projection here.
Which he obviously can. He has got through his training and induction, including dealing with umpteen bottles of alcohol and packets of ham and bacon.
I love that you say this in this post with no hint of irony.
I love that you say this in this post with no hint of irony.
I'm not being awkward. I am trying to see what could actually have happened. The scenario I suggested sounds incredibly improbable to me. People don't like checkout staff refusing to serve them, and colleagues would not like seeing one of their team refusing to serve people. So I am finding it genuinely hard to believe that this shop had a checkout operator who refused to serve a high percentage of his customers, and nothing happened until one customer mysteriously protested.
The only half-probable scenario to me was the one I suggested earlier, whereby he refused to touch the ham and alcohol and she refused to do it for him.
But please feel free to say what you think is the most likely scenario that fits.
Context is everything. I know exactly what pragmatic means, thank you
"We don’t have a specific policy and take a pragmatic* approach if a colleague raises concerns about a job they have been asked to do"
In this instance - they don't have a specific policy and the sensible* thing was to do nothing and apologise to the c/m yet suport the member of staff..
*pragmatic - adjective - dealing with things sensibly and realistically
I can only repaet. If you don't want to do something, that's OK, Tesco will support you.
Him refusing to serve the lady (not knowing her religion) because of his religion is very different to you refusing to serve a Muslim because you know he's a Muslim.
I know you think they are the same, but they really cannot be, legally.
He didn't know her religion. She might be an atheist. Either way, he refused to serve because of his beliefs, not hers.
I'm not saying it's 'right' in an equal world, but it's not illegal in the same way as it would be for you to refuse to serve somebody because they are a Muslim.
I really don't think there's as much of a distinction as you are making out. If I refused to serve someone halal because I'm Jewish (I'm not, btw), it's still discrimination. The customer is receiving unfavourable treatment because of their difference in religion, since in this example I'd serve a Jew wanting to buy kosher.
Context is everything. I know exactly what pragmatic means, thank you
"We don’t have a specific policy and take a pragmatic* approach if a colleague raises concerns about a job they have been asked to do"
In this instance - they don't have a specific policy and the sensible* thing was to do nothing and apologise to the c/m yet suport the member of staff..
*pragmatic - adjective - dealing with things sensibly and realistically
I can only repaet. If you don't want to do something, that's OK, Tesco will support you.
How do you know they've "done nothing"?
What did they speak to the employee about? Did they give him a verbal warning? Have they alerted him to disciplinary action being taken? Had the temporary manager given his approval prior to it happening? What action have Tesco taken against the manager?
You're making a sweeping generalisation that if someone "doesn't fancy doing their job, that's okay by Tesco", and you're doing it on the basis of one newspaper report about one incident which pretty much gives one side of the story.
So, if someone paid to stack shelves decides one day that he doesn't fancy doing it, are you suggesting that Tesco would be okay with that, or are you just exaggerating ?
Though that has nothing to do with it.
No the guy should probably not be sacked.
He is lucky he works for Tesco. If it was a small independent shop he likely would be.
Here's another thought, say every one in a shop were Muslim and did that.
Heres another thought, say all the staff were Muslim and all refused what use would the shop be.
You misunderstood. I meant religions convictions about not selling Halal meat to Muslims.
If you really do hold sincere religious beliefs that Muslims shouldn't buy halal meat then fair enough, I'm sure that would stand up in a court of law.
There is no need to bring racism into this discussion. It's entirely irrelevant.
Meh, I beg to differ.
There are certainly ulterior, divisive motives here. It smacks of Islamaphobia on the Daily Mails part - which to me is no different to being prejudiced toward somebody because of something like the colour of their skin.
Yup. Not believing this for a second. On the very, very, VERY rare occasion (once in my life) the cashier at a till in Morrisons didn't want to serve alcohol to me for religious reasons, she got her colleague and the issue was sorted within seconds. I do not believe for a second this girl just refused to sell her certain products and didn't try to rectify the situation.......
You haven't. It was a bit of an assumption on the basis that no part of Christianity, or any other religion that I know about takes issue with Muslims eating Halal (or Jews eating Kosher for that matter).
Again, if you have these odd individual religious beliefs then fair enough I suppose but they aren't shared by your church.
Comments
It's no surprise why it's the worst supermarket of them all and their sales figures are down:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/04/tesco-suffers-worst-sales-in-decades
Wouldn't have stopped him serving the ham. Or, as is usual practice, calling for a colleague to take over.
That's not what "pragmatic" means.
Unless they are any other colour than white cos' thats racist.
You are a checkout operator. An average of perhaps one customer every five minutes goes through your till. At busy times there may be up to 10 people queueing if it is a baskets queue, 5 if it is a trolleys queue.
So you hold everyone up while you go through each basket and trolley to make sure there is no alcohol or pork products in. Only an awful lot of them have. (Half was a guess, but I think it was a reasonable one; probably more than half buy alcohol later in the day, fewer in the mornings.) Or it could be prawns perhaps, or some other non-halal food. So you hold the queue up while you check for non-halal items; you would have to check before doing anything else or they would have started unloading their stuff, and you are stuffed. Quickly spotting that a lot of baskets or trolleys have non-halal food or drink, you tell all those people to re-queue at the check out tills. They all trot off like lambs; no one complains; no colleague asks what on earth you think you are doing. Until ONE DAY a customer makes a fuss and complains.
Or...not. He has in fact been uneventfully processing customer after customer and taking no notice of what is in their basket or trolley.
Either you know a lot more than is in the newspapers or you are doing an awful lot of projection here.
Which he obviously can. He has got through his training and induction, including dealing with umpteen bottles of alcohol and packets of ham and bacon.
I love that you say this in this post with no hint of irony.
I'm not being awkward. I am trying to see what could actually have happened. The scenario I suggested sounds incredibly improbable to me. People don't like checkout staff refusing to serve them, and colleagues would not like seeing one of their team refusing to serve people. So I am finding it genuinely hard to believe that this shop had a checkout operator who refused to serve a high percentage of his customers, and nothing happened until one customer mysteriously protested.
The only half-probable scenario to me was the one I suggested earlier, whereby he refused to touch the ham and alcohol and she refused to do it for him.
But please feel free to say what you think is the most likely scenario that fits.
Context is everything. I know exactly what pragmatic means, thank you
"We don’t have a specific policy and take a pragmatic* approach if a colleague raises concerns about a job they have been asked to do"
In this instance - they don't have a specific policy and the sensible* thing was to do nothing and apologise to the c/m yet suport the member of staff..
*pragmatic - adjective - dealing with things sensibly and realistically
I can only repaet. If you don't want to do something, that's OK, Tesco will support you.
I think you succinctly summed up what the OP wanted to actually say.
I am of no opinion either way but just wanted to make sure that I pointed that out.
In the absence of any information to the contrary, it'd be rather foolish to ignore the information we do have in favour of baseless speculation.
Just how brutal and repressive a dictatorship would you like to live in? Are you aiming for Tibet style repression or the full North Korea?
I really don't think there's as much of a distinction as you are making out. If I refused to serve someone halal because I'm Jewish (I'm not, btw), it's still discrimination. The customer is receiving unfavourable treatment because of their difference in religion, since in this example I'd serve a Jew wanting to buy kosher.
There is no need to bring racism into this discussion. It's entirely irrelevant.
How do you know they've "done nothing"?
What did they speak to the employee about? Did they give him a verbal warning? Have they alerted him to disciplinary action being taken? Had the temporary manager given his approval prior to it happening? What action have Tesco taken against the manager?
You're making a sweeping generalisation that if someone "doesn't fancy doing their job, that's okay by Tesco", and you're doing it on the basis of one newspaper report about one incident which pretty much gives one side of the story.
So, if someone paid to stack shelves decides one day that he doesn't fancy doing it, are you suggesting that Tesco would be okay with that, or are you just exaggerating ?
The Daily Mail is baseless speculation with no other purpose in this incident than confirmation bias.
You misunderstood. I meant religions convictions about not selling Halal meat to Muslims.
If you really do hold sincere religious beliefs that Muslims shouldn't buy halal meat then fair enough, I'm sure that would stand up in a court of law.
Meh, I beg to differ.
There are certainly ulterior, divisive motives here. It smacks of Islamaphobia on the Daily Mails part - which to me is no different to being prejudiced toward somebody because of something like the colour of their skin.
Yup. Not believing this for a second. On the very, very, VERY rare occasion (once in my life) the cashier at a till in Morrisons didn't want to serve alcohol to me for religious reasons, she got her colleague and the issue was sorted within seconds. I do not believe for a second this girl just refused to sell her certain products and didn't try to rectify the situation.......
You haven't. It was a bit of an assumption on the basis that no part of Christianity, or any other religion that I know about takes issue with Muslims eating Halal (or Jews eating Kosher for that matter).
Again, if you have these odd individual religious beliefs then fair enough I suppose but they aren't shared by your church.