Would you have gone to the management and complained?
vinlyn
Colorado...for now Veteran
A few minutes ago I was shopping in my local grocery store -- one of the nation's major chains -- and when I got to the checkout counter, the gentleman ahead of me mentioned to the cashier how much prices were skyrocketing (which, of course, they aren't). And the cashier responded with, "Well, you're so right. It's just another sign that the predictions in the Book Of Revelations are all coming true and some of us will be swept up in the rapture in the very near future..."
As those of you who read some of my posts probably remember, I'm a Buddhist/Christian. But I'm also somewhat of a secularist. Part of me wanted to march over to the manager and report the cashier, while another part of me wanted to be compassionate toward her and not possibly get her fired. I opted for the latter.
Any thoughts?
Comments
Hiya vinlyn,
I would've had to be listening very closely to the cashier's response, in terms of facial expression, voice and inflections to figure out if he was being facetious or whatev.....Although we humans are a suggestible bunch, I don't think I would've made much of it, but perhaps the cashier's attempts to respond with enough 'interest' to keep the line moving, or something like that.
I have to admit, my mind would be wandering about stuff going on in my own life to pay much attention to any line conversations.
One of those times when people show the worst of themselves. Prostelytizing mixed in with a little customer relations. LOL That is likely going to drive some customers away. I wonder if a word to the lady would have helped. As for myself, I just let that stuff slide and don't give it another thought. That would probably damage business though, so I am likely wrong to do that.
Yeah. Leave it be.
If you don't like that kind of talk, you picked the wrong town to live in.
she wouldn't have been fired. You could have said something, but what would that have accomplished, satisfaction of some sense of outrage? You can't undo what was said and as long as you live where you do, you are very likely to hear it again and again.
If you prefer a more secular environment to do your grocery shopping, move to Denver or Boulder.
Or grow a thicker skin.
I'd have chuckled to myself over how silly it was. If anything it would be for the customer they were serving to respond to that. It's certainly not the kind of thing I'd report anyone for, any more than I'd report someone who said they think the Earth is 6,000 years old (unless it was a Science teacher addressing students).
So long as the cashier/clerk wasn't being offensive or trying to offend, it doesn't seem like a reportable offense (or any offense, other than to rationality itself).
Vin, it's just friendly banter. It just happened to take a religious turn. But it's not like she was a state employee and was failing to keep church and state separate. You have no reasonable grounds for complaint. Besides, you don't know if it was intended as sarcasm, or not.
What bugs me is when graduation ceremonies from state universities have the university chaplain speak or lead a prayer. That is WAY out of line. I still wish I'd complained when that happened at my graduation. I don't understand how they can get away with that.
end rant.
Is inflation covered by the book of revelations? I guess she could get away with it because of the high percentage of fundamentalists in the area.
Up here a comment like that would only be taken as a joke in that situation. Mostly the Christians here keep those conversations to themselves.
95% of the population would politely laugh it off.
For my part, I certainly wouldn't have complained and tried to get them in trouble for something so trivial as having a religious belief I don't share and expressing it to someone else. I might complain, however, if they said something I felt was extremely offensive (e.g., overtly racist, sexist, etc.), or if they badgered me with their beliefs.
"Free Speech" was she in violation ?
My wife and I were working a craft show in rural Colorado some years back. I woman came in the booth and started asking questions about the prayer flags we were selling. Conversation led to basic Buddhism. Another woman came thouugh and interupted us, saying that if the Buddha would have lived at the time of Jesus he would have followed him. The interuption was more annoying than what she said, but it was still a little annoying.
I agree with the "Let it go" people, because you don't want to be the cause of someone getting fired who might desperately need that minimum wage, part time, no benefits job. People under stress and struggling tend to retreat into their religion. We take refuge in Buddha. She takes refuge in Christ. She wasn't insisting you agree with her before selling you the merchandise.
Thus far, the consensus seems to be to "let it go".
Somehow I am feeling criticized, even though I did "let it go", other than asking for other viewpoints.
People are weird.
Honestly I do not understand the problem? I feel like I am missing something vital here which might have to do with culture?
What was the problem? Why would you want to report the cashier in the first place?
What did the cashier do wrong?
Victor
Sometimes I don't understand the people on THIS forum at all. How many rants do we have about Christians (in general) pushing their beliefs on others.
Then I give a specific example of a fundamentalist Christian pushing her beliefs on others, and it seems to have no significance.
Is this a little like the vast majority of people who complain about Congress (in general), but keep voting their own congressman back into office?
There has been such a negative reaction to the Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A cases, where the company owners pushed a religious viewpoint upon employees and customers, but here you have an employee "on the clock" pushing her own personal religious agenda, and that seems to be okay.
I thought the principle -- remember those -- was that people shouldn't push their religion on other people.
People on this forum have complained about fundamentalists knocking on their door, but it's okay to have to listen the shit when you buy a loaf of bread.
@vinlyn why didn't you just have a private word with her, voicing your concerns ?
Had she ever said similar things to customers when you've been in the shop before ?
Well ok I think I understand that in part at least. Just to be clear. Those rants were not mine and I do not turn away people at the door really and I do think you did the right thing!
People are pretty secular in Sweden. I think they rank higher that most in that regard?
But I do not think anybody here would more than shrug at such a comment. Not that everybody like that kind of talk. And they do turn away people at the door, but they wouldn't mind it more or less coming from a cashier or a preacher.
In any case it would be considered a serious act of discrimination to fire someone on account of their belief here. The employer would get sued. Not so in the USA?
Personally I think the Jehovas make a strong case for their belief in the End of days and if you are so convinced why should you not be able to express your conviction? Anywhere at anytime?
And why is that pushing your views on others? Is there not a big difference between a employer that makes it clear that you have to have some kind of religious beliefs to "fit in" compared to a cashier making smalltalk?
Total understanding refuses to surface clearly. Sorry if I upset you. No criticism intended just trying to figure it out.
Staring to feel like Spock. I will just stop now and beam away from this planet.
/Victor
I don't see this as a case of belief-pushing.
This is just a cashier voicing their beliefs/opinions.
It may be inappropriate for other reasons, but it's not pushing beliefs or proselytizing.
People seem to change on a dime sometimes after what seems like a century of sameness. We can never predict these things and how people will react to x, y or z.
If I may gently say so @vinlyn, this is YOUR issue, and I do NOT mean a single teensy bit of negative judgment toward 'you' or a criticism of how you conclude what you do.
Sometimes, or maybe most of the time? the source of the 'weirdness' is not outside you at all, but unrecognized within. You sometimes come across as hypervigilant, defensive, and your response post illustrates that. No big deal at all, you'd be doing what I do, we do, we all do this every day. As buddhists THAT will become part of mindfulness, at least that's how I see it
.
I personally do not see a 'connection' between the cashier's brainwashed ramblings and some kind of 'broken rule' or agreement. If I'd been standing in line, I'd have felt a bit disgusted and VERY primed to change the damned subject! But to report her for 'pushing her religion' on a client? I suppose if she'd refused to give him his change unless he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior on the spot . . . or if she held up the line proselytizing each person trying to get their milk and go home.
Drawing similarities with Hobby Lo bby, for one, doesn't work because their ruling or whatever impacted directly and limited directly, in black and white, ENFORCING their religious views upon the employees. The cashier was definitely over stepping her bounds but created no such 'effect' on the customer. If I were here manager and overheard her? I'd have to tell her to knock it off, it's inappropriate and potentially offensive to the customers of this big chain market. If I got feedback from a customer complaining of this, I'd have a talk with her too. I don't see anything WRONG with sending a note to her manager at all, heck if I was standing there experiencing what you did I would wonder exactly the same as you, I think. We'd complain if she wore a see through shirt and her nipples popped out. It's inappropriate.
I honestly believe -- just my opinion -- you are generating the 'weird' sense you are getting. There's more to it for you, obviously. Something in there seeing things in a certain way that results in 'weird'. It's no big deal at all except to put it out here on us, which robs you of the opportunity to go deeper into your own workings
.
True @vinlyn "Everybody's somebody's weirdo!"
@ vinlyn
While it seems to have hit a nerve with you, I suspect most of us would simply be in a quandary as to how we missed that biblical reference that rising grocery prices was the precursor to the coming rapture.
and.... compassion would perhaps be seeing that the cashier either already had a loaded plate full of problems
or
has discovered a novel way to have a complaining customer choose a different line up next time.
I had a similar quandary at work recently. Someone I work with is very verbally aggressive and has made hollow threats of violence against co-workers in my presence but behind their backs. I found it offensive and told him so.
While tempted to take it further with his manager or HR I decided against it once my initial annoyance had passed.
@Hamsaka, I agree with most of what you said. Your post is well thought out.
@vinlyn: Is there the empty chance that the cashier was simply being ironic?
Perhaps that's her chosen response to stump customers who complain to her about things which are beyond her power to solve.
I think a reaction on your part would have been justified if she had addressed herself directly to you.
Otherwise, if you felt like having a word with anyone, I would have had it with the girl, not with her employer.
In circumstances like this, I like to apply the socratic method and question the person in their beliefs till they realize by themselves the logic of their propositions.
In this case I would have asked something in the lines of: "Really? Where exactly in the Book of Revelations? How could you deduce from this phrase that some of us will be swept up in the rapture? Who of us exactly? Why not the others? Who said that?"
I think it may be a cultural thing, too.
No shop assistant in this country would ever verbalise something like that, openly. Unless they worked in a shop dealing specifically with religious products....
I would have let it go, too. I live in a small town, and sometimes there are some bizarre conversations that happen between cashiers and customers. I usually assume strange things I hear are the result of people who are familiar with each other and they feel ok saying something like that. Sometimes people are joking and it doesn't come across that way.
For me, those types of things when they happen invite me to look at my perceptions and why they are what they are. I find it interesting to do that. It's exceedingly rare for me to complain about a customer service or restaurant worker. It would have to be something obviously and intentionally really offensive for me to complain. I can't even remember the last time I did so.
@federica is right I couldn't imagine a shop assistant in the UK making a statement like that. Conversation in the UK would probably run if the shop assistant is are you watching the match (soccer) tonight.
I've got two friends who are devout Christians one would never dream of proselytizing and even lets me meditate in his spare room when I'm round his flat. He also shows an interest in my Buddhist beliefs and Dharma books.
The other tries to make me watch fundamentalist preachers on American Christian channels on TV and feels its his duty to convert me. I haven't seen him in two years.
Well if that's how you feel, .........
You have no idea ...... ;-)
You're making a big deal out of something, that when taken with the area you live in, is probably commonplace to the point of banality. Colorado Springs and the surrounding area is HEAVILY Christian - big box campus, bible thumping, fundamentalist - type Christians. To overhear a checkout clerk talking Bible with another customer, strikes me as the norm.
Personally, I don't much care for that kinda scene, which is why I moved to Denver 15 years ago. The last time I spent any real time there was about a year ago, and was enough time to order and eat a couple waffles at Waffle House.
I really hate it down there.
But I also hate the idea of expecting others to live up to my expectations of behavior in their town. Better to shine it on. If I don't like what happens at the checkout, I don't have to spend my money. I don't shop at Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a either and we just stopped going to Burger King. Also, if I think the problem lies with the town, on a community level, I don't have to go there or live there.
Considering you personal POV, I scratch my head when wondering what someone like you is doing in a town like that.
I guess it would have been okay if she had said, "Are you going to watch the Christians being fed to the lions on television tonight?"
Personally, I don't much care for that kinda scene, which is why I moved to Denver 15 years ago. The last time I spent any real time there was about a year ago, and was enough time to order and eat a couple waffles at Waffle House.
I really hate it down there.
But I also hate the idea of expecting others to live up to my expectations of behavior in their town. Better to shine it on. If I don't like what happens at the checkout, I don't have to spend my money. I don't shop at Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a either and we just stopped going to Burger King. Also, if I think the problem lies with the town, on a community level, I don't have to go there or live there.
Considering you personal POV, I scratch my head when wondering what someone like you is doing in a town like that.
Well, Chaz, actually in the past 4 and 1/2 years, it's the first inappropriate thing I've heard from anyone in Colorado Springs. Oh, I've heard people say things like, "May God bless you", but that's been about the extent of it, and hardly on the level of the Book Of Revelations and the Rapture. In that same time period, I've had knocks on my door twice by people "selling" something -- once it was 2 Mormon boys, and last week it was Avon.
Like you, I don't eat at Chick-fil-a. I shop at Hobby Lobby only as a last reasonable resort.
And, we do have a Thai Theravadan Buddhist temple here.
And, health permitting, my plan is to move to Phoenix next summer, although there are a number of reasons I am contemplating that.
Well, first of all, @vinlyn, the people responding on this thread aren't the same people as those who post threads ranting about Christians. And secondly, I didn't view the incident as someone "pushing" Christianity. It looks like others didn't, either. It was just a conversation, just passing the time at the cashier's. I didn't perceive anything aggressive about it. And we don't know if it was said in sarcasm, or not.
meh....
Ya know, you could've just said to the cashier when it was your turn, "I thought the last Rapture didn't work out...?" Then you would've found out if she'd been kidding or not, at least.
If my daughter was with me I would have shown her an example of how fear mongering can lead to absurd beliefs.
No, it was not said in sarcasm. I know what I saw.
I would have been the maniac in the queue, saying 'Hallelujah. I think I was ruptured last week.' and speaking in tongues and if required rolling on the floor . . . until the cashier called the management and some sense of decorum was restored . . .
Thank you for shopping with Jesus.
What fun you Americans have available at the checkout. . . :relieved:
If someone expresses their dislike of same-sex marriage or abortion and contraception because of their religious convictions, that's one thing. I don't have to like it or agree with it, but I don't think they should be punished for it, either. On the other hand, if someone's trying to pass legislation that specifically targets certain groups for especially unfavorable or unequal treatment under the law or restricting another's access to reproductive healthcare, that's quite another.
In addition, I'm not criticizing you, just responding to the OP as honestly as possible. I don't have an issue with someone who believes in the rapture and brings it up in conversation; but I do have an issue with someone who believes in the rapture and then tries to actively discriminate against gays or restrict a woman's access to reproductive healthcare.
I suppose that in this case, my idea of 'expressing' vs. 'pushing' differs from yours.
I pretty much agree, @Jason.
My annoyance here has to do with my belief that there is a time and place for most things. It's like the principal before me, when a student would be sent to the office for using "f---", would tell the student, "Adults never use that language", which, of course, was bullshit. I would tell the kid, "Hey, there's a time and place for almost everything. In school or church is not the place to be using such language. When you're out with your buddies just hanging around, perhaps that's different."
The supermarket chain is paying that clerk a salary do serve customers by ringing up their groceries. I doubt they are paying her to relay predictions based on the Bible and the Rapture. Meanwhile, I'm spending my money in their store with the sole intent of buying a few food items. I'm not there for a radical Sunday school lesson. In fact, as a person who doesn't believe in the Book Of Revelations or the Rapture, I don't want it doled out along with my eggplant. And, I'm the one paying for the service that store provides. Frankly to a non-Christian, being led into such conversations is generally offensive, and frankly, even in Colorado, not everyone is a white born-again Christian.
I get what you're saying, and I agree in general that there's time and place for everything. However, people aren't robots; and when dealing with people all day, we're bound to strike up conversations and, in doing so, potentially say things that some people might not want to hear. The question here is whether what they said was something worth getting punished for. From my perspective, I don't think it is. I think it's a little odd and out of place, but I don't find it offensive enough that I'd do something that might get them fired, so I'd follow your lead and not say anything.
................
Yeah, I was unclear in your op if it sounded like they were being facetious or serious when they said it.
In that case, I still think you did the right thing by not reporting the clerk. Sometimes people are bursting to share what they feel strongly about, and are ready to pounce on any sliver of a moment to do so.......we all have incredible pressures that we can barely cope with, at times.
I figure if it didn't hold up the line, that's all I'd care about.
Perhaps I missed it, but I was surprised that no one suggested that she may know the man from church or socially.
I was rolling pennies at a small convenience store recently (as soon as I found out they would take $5 worth of them) and in the time it took me to do so, three people commented to the clerk that they didn't see him in church that last Sunday. It could have been a similar situation. Regardless, there is nothing beneficial that I can see in contending.
The rapture... Come on, lol!
It's just so... Silly.
People say the darndest things...
If you want nothing but the truth listen to the wind .
Well, this is the first time you've clarified that, in spite of posts by several people posting doubts about what was intended by the cashier's comment. So this is helpful. But I still don't see why this would be so annoying. It was a random conversation, a random response. I doubt that cashier made a point of proselytizing her beliefs to every customer who struck up a conversation with her. (If it were a chronic thing with her, you'd be justified in making a complaint, and asking the supervisor to stop the behavior.)
It seems like you're clinging to this annoyance. Your reaction is a bit overblown. Let it go, and watch your equanimity grow.
The clinging began after reading comments here.
Thank you, @Zombiegirl. That's along the plan of action I have decided upon.
I can see where you are coming from Vinlyn, but yes, I think it is best to leave it be. Freedom of speech is a good thing.
I remember, 20 minutes after the planes hit the towers on 9/11, going into a store where the staff were Muslim. One of them said the Americans were to blame for it. I nearly jumped over the counter to thump him, but I managed (with difficulty) to drag myself away.
The following day I went back into the store and was so pleased when the same member of staff apologized for what he'd said.
I was pleased that on that occasion I had behaved in such a way. Alas, I wish I could say that I always managed to hold my tongue, but I certainly don't - and it invariably causes more trouble than it solves.
Now that I'd have complained about.
I have to agree with @vinlyn on his views on answers to this thread. Usually religious beliefs are eagerly devoured on this forum. I'm somewhat mystified to the reaction myself. I'm also surprised that people are making out vin didn't clarify in his OP. It was pretty clear the cashier was being serious and fully believed in what they were saying.
What is it about vin's post that has pissed in everyone's pocket? I'm genuinely stumped.
@dhammachick Don't look at me, I'm a full atheist+Skeptic and think the cashier's views are the most ridiculous thing.
I just don't believe they were "pushing" their views on people. They were just expressing their beliefs, perhaps inappropriate for the milieu but not punish-worthy (and I wouldn't report this singular instance). If the cashier had told the customer that they were going to hell or wouldn't be raptured unless they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour, talking about them instead of his/herself, it would be crossing that line.
Wanting to keep people from pushing their beliefs, and wanting those beliefs to never be said in public, are two different urges people can have. I subscribe to the former and not the latter... I am not an anti-theist.
I usually agree with @vinlyn because we share so much in common, but that's my honest appraisal.
I can only speak for myself @dhammachick but when I read the OP I thought "so what?" and wondered why she would even contemplate complaining to management.
I guess others may have felt the same way (although may not have presented it entirely skillfully).
Again, the people who in the past have devoured X-ian religious beliefs are not here. Those posting here are the more equanimous members. And nobody's pissed, are they? They're just saying, hey, it's not a big deal. Some even found it humorous. I'm not sure why it is a big deal. And no, it wasn't clear the cashier was serious, that's why people wondered. Is asking for clarification, being pissed? It's just fact-gathering.
Why are some people perceiving the responses as being posted in anger?
Where is our "confused" emoticon? lol