A 16-year-old British youth was charged with harassing a local McDonald's employees for her Pagan beliefs, and convicted of "religious aggravation" in a Colchester court. Prosecutor Simon Newell said the boy repeatedly went into the restaurant where a young women who identifies as Pagan works, and harassed her verbally over a period of two months.
Newell said, "[The defendant] was soon made aware of the effect it was having by the victim and senior staff. He knew this was unacceptable and then continued. He accepted in interview he did it to annoy her."
In addition to a restraining order, and possible community service, the boy's parents are imposing a curfew of their own on their son - as well they should. While I definitely applaud the local authorities for taking this seriously, and for recognizing Paganism as a valid belief system, I've got to wonder - where was the victim's store manager? His or her job includes protecting employees from abuse, and if this kid engaged in a repeating pattern of coming in and harassing an employee, at some point, someone should have stepped up and said, "Hey, kid, you are not welcome here any longer."
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Newell said, "[The defendant] was soon made aware of the effect it was having by the victim and senior staff. He knew this was unacceptable and then continued. He accepted in interview he did it to annoy her."
In addition to a restraining order, and possible community service, the boy's parents are imposing a curfew of their own on their son - as well they should. While I definitely applaud the local authorities for taking this seriously, and for recognizing Paganism as a valid belief system, I've got to wonder - where was the victim's store manager? His or her job includes protecting employees from abuse, and if this kid engaged in a repeating pattern of coming in and harassing an employee, at some point, someone should have stepped up and said, "Hey, kid, you are not welcome here any longer."
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Read the article again. It seems management stepped in when it went on for 2 weeks and called the police. While 2 weeks seems like a long time, it definitely made a case for harrassment. This kid needs to get a life if he has nothing to do but hang out at McDonald’s.
Mags It was 2 months.
But I applaud the parents in this one. Too many parents leave discipline to the state. Bravo to this lads parents for stepping up
Mags (1), it was from December 24 to the end of February. That’s two months, not two weeks.
I stand by my question of why management didn’t intervene sooner and put a stop to this.
patti
I have to agree where were the supervisors?
First off The manager should fired by corp and If that was my child who was treated like that I would not only sue the manager and I would sue the parents. Parents need to be aware of what the hell kids are doing when not in school,NO excuses. I was treated the same way when I was a couier driver. This worker called me a broom flying B….. I took that for 6 months.Then one sunny day I walked in to drop off my boxes and again he called me that in front of 5 employees. I put my boxes down and I grab his hand and told him I have always been called a good witch,but you just made me a very bad witch,careful I’m going to drop a house on you so keep your eyes open you never know when something might hit you from the sky. Have a great day jerk. As I was leaving the depot people started clapping. You see sometimes speaking in a soft voice with a smile on your face makes one very confused of your actions.Bless it be.
It’s a sad situation, but managers without backbones are a common problem in customer service fields. Some are caught between a rock and a hard place: corporate tells them to keep the customers happy, while the employees need someone to back them up.
It is unfortunate that many managers are afraid to throw out or ban people because they are afraid of complaints being made to the company. Many higher level types in the head offices have never actually worked with customers, so they have no idea the kind of abuse to which employees are regularly subjected; they don’t back up their employees, but kowtow to even the most ridiculous, often fallacious, complaints with the idea that somehow they are preserving a customer relationship that doesn’t actually exist, as the biggest complainers are often scammers.
This is unfortunate. If the child had been complaining repetitively of food problems, “the customer is always right” would hold water just fine. Poke holes in it with the religious needle which doesn’t even go near the product being sold in the first place and you have a classic example of “keep your book off your samdwich and drink your soda, not the ink in your book”.
The store manager should have responded far sooner than two months. In defense of the manager, it may be that the Pagan employee chose not to speak up about the abuse for fear of either being reprimanded for arguing needlessly with a customer (seen it), or possibly canned over “hexing the food” or some other such crap. The manager may have known nothing until they’d witnessed it first-hand.
Oh dear, I feel bad for the employee all over again. If the store manager was unaware of the abuse, it makes you wonder what sort of people the employee works with.
~Mary
Even I wonder why management didn’t stand up. Even my management team at work, who I know is dominantly Christian and…uncomfortable with my religious beliefs, has stood up for me when I was being harassed by a customer about them. Even though many of them would rather I attend church and have invited me to church functions a few times they all would do something to make sure I wasn’t harassed, by other staff and by customers.
It’s a shame Pagans have to deal with so much ignorance. I was fired from my last job because someone saw the pentacle I usually keep under my shirt. Word of it got to management and I was soon fired. Now I’m in a Union shop (UAW) and protected so on May 2nd (International Pagan Coming Out Day) I was able to wear my tasteful witchy garb with pride that included that same pentacle.
I’m glad something was finally done about this for she needn’t take that abuse from this bashing british buger boy. Sorry, I just couldn’t pass up the alliteration.
Peace, love and all that make you warm and fuzzy,
Trent.