There was a story that came across the transom when I still had my real-name Facebook account.
It seems that a cop noticed that the customer name section of his receipt said, "PIG," when picking up his lunch.
Said cop complained to the Fraternal Order of Police and they called up the business owner who fired the employee on the register.
I commented at my real-name Facebook account that sure was going to win the person who already hates cops over.
A meatspace friend (who works at the next county over's sheriff's department) excoriated me that I never had to worry that my food would be fucked with because of how I was dressed. And besides the person who did the PIG was prolly someone who got arrested for "didndunuffin" and was nursing that grudge for being busted.
OK.
Folks who knew me back when might remember that I was third generation biker. I was also a punker in the midwest in the late '80's.
I am certain my food order was adulterated more than once because of how I looked.
The difference is that the cops did not care, or if they did they supported the people who'd spit in my sandwich.
I've never been a "day person" and when you look different at 0300 you get extra attention from law enforcement.
I've been amazingly law abiding since I separated from The Army, and I DO hold a fucking grudge against law enforcement for all the time I spent waiting for them to discover there was no crime to associate with me. I was literally not doing anything when I was selected by law enforcement for attention.
But!
Siccing the FOP on a burger flipper to get them fired is exactly the wrong thing to do if you want that person to stop writing "PIG" on receipts. Even if they were holding a grudge from an earlier conviction, getting them fired will not ease that resentment.
Good work, officer unfriendly and your multi-million dollar bully organization.
You've cemented the hate and it might provoke a stronger response than an insult later.
Law enforcement needs a much thicker skin than they display of late.
I have not even touched on the idea that an agent of The State has demanded the speech of a citizen be restricted because it hurt their precious feelings.
Officer, you could go find a job doing something productive. Something where generations of assholes and bullies haven't created a general resentment from people who want nothing more than be left alone to be odd.
All good points. Perhaps the cop should pay less attention to what is written on his receipt so long as the food was okay, and just pay his tab and move on. Like you said, being sensitive is not a positive professional attribute for LEOs.
ReplyDeleteAgreed; when they push for special treatment and heavy handed punishment, it makes the problem worse, not better - they seem more and more clueless and divorced from reality as time goes by, which, again, makes the problem worse.
ReplyDeleteWould you want your employee(who takes in the money your business needs to survive) writing ‘pig’ on receipts?
ReplyDeleteIs ‘Fag’ acceptable? ‘Kike’?
If my employee did anything to denigrate my clientele, I would fire them on the spot.
Calling a cop a pig is not a racial slur. It doesn't rise to that level at all. It's not the same thing. Don't make a false equivalence and attempt to elevate insulting the police to the same proportions as bigotry.
DeleteFiring an employee for putting inappropriate things on the receipts is, and should be, between the employer and the employee. But, just maybe, a lesser level of response might change things more positively long term?
Somewhere in the archives is a post about worrying about retaining the business of the cops from an economic perspective. They're a very small market. If your business fails because the cops stop shopping there, you're already doomed.
The real point is that if you don the uniform, you're assuming the identity of every rat fuck prick who ever did a citizen wrong for no other reason than they could. Irregardless of what YOU did or do. This thin skinned, thin blue line bullshit where the worst of the worst in policing is protected from termination by their fellows and organizations like FOP are why people write PIG on receipts.
The cops need to fix that.
They (and you apparently) need to remember when they get insulted and demand that action be taken against someone who insulted them that they are The State demanding that someone's freedom of expression be curtailed. That's something The State is forbidden to do, in writing.
They sidestep this by calling in non-governmental orgs they control like FOP to do the deed, but it's still an infringement.
And I have no sympathy for them. Last I checked there's no draft for cops. Nobody forced them into the job. If they weren't aware of the antipathy towards them before taking the job, they're not very smart.
I've worked in restaurants, and if I'd insulted a customer, my ass would have been fired so fast it would have felt like light speed.
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