While Jenny was at the checkout of our local Tesco supermarket, waiting to have her shopping totted up, she overheard a woman ahead of her voicing her opinions on immigration.
The woman was being very anti-immigrant, so Jenny was prompted to voice a more pro-immigrant opinion.
At this, the cashier refused to deal with Jenny's shopping and said she would have to be attended to by another cashier - which she was.
But what are things coming to if a supermarket cashier can refuse to deal with you because she doesn't like your opinions?
I've never seen that before, and I wonder if Tesco staff are actually allowed to refuse service to a customer, or whether the cashier was acting improperly.
Jenny has emailed Tesco's chief executive, Ken Murphy, to complain. His reply will be interesting.
Please keep us updated as to whether you get a reply. That cashier was bang out of order.
ReplyDeleteAnd well done, Jenny!
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Ms Scarlet: I will certainly provide an update if Tesco bothers to respond.
DeleteHello Nick,
ReplyDeleteThat is indeed a strange situation and we very much admire Jenny for standing her ground.
You touch upon here something that we have considered for a while and that is the lack of proper debate these days. It should be possible, we argue, that adults can hold a perfectly civilised conversation whilst maintaining very different viewpoints. It should not break down into insults or walking off, merely debate and the opportunity to hear out an alternative but still valid argument. Perhaps social media which selects for us those images and posts which resonate with our own preferences has something to do with this?
Jane and Lance: I absolutely agree. Why do so many disagreements nowadays turn into bitter slanging matches - or even threats of violence - rather than a good-tempered exchange of views? I think social media is very much to blame with its tendency to reinforce a particular opinion rather than challenging it.
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