Sunday, December 19, 2010

What the Hell is Up With People Violating Federal Law or Playing God When They're Just Customer Service Reps???

I just saw this blog post in a community I watch that reminded me of What Would You Do come to life. For those who don't know of it, there's an ABC Primetime TV show segment of 20/20 in America called What Would You Do? & it's a hidden camera situation show that creates scenarios to see how real people react to particular situations.

This particular post reminded me of episodes they've done where the waiter refused service to drag queens or gay couples with children. Guess what my take on that kind of thing is: do your damn job & leave your beliefs out of it! If you work in a service industry, your job is to serve.

It is NOT your job to preach at people, attempt to convert them to your viewpoint or do anything else aside from providing equally competent (ideally good) service that everyone else who walks through the door gets. If you want to preach at people or be a bigot, do it at YOUR church or on your OWN time.

Don't do it on your employer's time! Lawyers are required under ethics rules to simply turn down a case if they have philosophical differences on racial or gender matters. This is what I'd do if some waiter or other service person asked me to defend them in a situation like this; I have no sympathy for minimum wage service people who want to play missionary.

I worked in retail for 7 years, including in the lingerie/sleepwear department of JcPenney. If any man had asked me about lingerie at our store in a larger size, I would never have pried into his reasons or purposes for such questions; I'd simply answer them & do the job I got paid to do. One of my co-workers told me about such a situation happening to her: there was no tirade or discussion about the morality of cross dressing.

And stuff like this? Or this?

Let me break it down for you, retards: this is 2010!!! NOT 1950. We have a little thing called "civil rights." The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the early '60s that restaurants far away from major interstates can not even have segregated seating since that indeed affects interstate commerce, something the federal government has every right to control if certain states want to allow open bigotry.

If this didn't happen, you'd still have segregated bathrooms in the Deep South if Prom Night in Mississippi is any indication of current racial attitudes down there.

Apparently that's a foreign concept to Mr. Navarro, employee of Con Edison. If I were the Con Edison management, I would fire this man in an instant. Not only is he breaking NY state law, he apparently missed his calling to work with the Westboro Baptist Cult folk. You want to protest against gay people? Maybe you should join them. Spare me any talk of "Oh, this person has a family & they need a job": there's thousands of unemployed people in NYC right now who I'm sure could do this job much better and for half the salary being paid to this low life. I'm quite certain those Westboro cult folk would take care of him & his family very nicely considering they're about as beloved in America as Adolf Hitler.

I also know of a club in Manhattan that is apparently racist (the Continental) & based on what I've read about their practices, I'd never go there either. In fact, you'd better hope I don't see discrimination happening b/c I will get in your face. If you're some little underling, your boss will know about it & you'll probably get fired for exposing the company to potential big money, high publicity lawsuits. If you're the owner, I will probably call you an idiot to your face.

And if you're an actor who's doing this sort of thing??? You'll definitely not move up in your career if I see such a display since I'll tell everyone I know about it. So will anyone else in the business since no film company, no producer, no big shot needs the legal liability coming with hiring a bigot (discriminating against gay people DOES, in fact, make you a bigot). Not to mention pissing off any other minority in the business who may have worked with the big shots for years & established themselves far more than your little discriminating butt ever will.

If you're the victim, I will walk up & pull the lawyer card on the bitchy server, customer service rep, whomever. My spouse & I will also leave without paying + bigot, you'll be lucky if you simply get no tip & don't have to call the cops for your own protection. To give you an idea of my capacity for asserting myself, I read this story a few days ago & realized I'd do the exact same thing if I were in that situation.

In fact, my husband would love to see this Mr. Navarro fired considering that we as the customers of a business have every right not to bankroll homophobia, racial discrimination or anything else we find offensive. Having a bigot on your payroll, in my book, is indeed bankrolling discrimination. It's a reason I'll never give money to my undergrad: I'm not bankrolling a racist fraternity that they continue to allow on that campus.

Now I know there are racists, religious zealots, whatever who have jobs. Keep your beliefs to yourself (not let it enter your working life) & it won't be an issue. Once you do, however, it becomes your employer's and your customers' issue. If you can't evolve or at least keep your bigotry in check, I suggest moving to your own island or starting your own cult with like minded people in a distant land. For God's sake, don't live in a major city filled with people who are different from you.

And personally, I'd love to bomb those cesspools of bigots in an attempt to clean out the gene pool but that's a different story.

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