On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:31:08 -0800, gtr > wrote:


>
>We can only make judgements based on the obviously self-serving initial
>story, which ended with the angry old man ratting out the employee to
>the manager in the hopes of making this a "better world" or for
>appropriate "punishment to be meted out" or some other noble or
>vindictive rationale. I don't know which, nor care.
>

I'm getting old, but I was not angry. Shocked at abysmal behavior
would be a better narration..

Where we differ, you would have accepted the bad manners as being OK
and done nothing about it. Chances are, she has been doing this for
some time and would continue to do so and even more since no one ever
complained. Meantime, business could have fallen off as customers
went elsewhere in search of better service.

What is that old saying about "when good men do nothing"?


>But was the text message perhaps quite important? Would that conflict
>with the established logic of this story? "Your positive cancer test
>was in error." To which the adle-brained worker felt compelled send
>back blessings from God? Think of an average O'Henry short
>story--something like that. It's possible, isn't it?

Sure, but very unlikely at 6:25 AM. More likely was: wut time u off
wrk wanna chill

>
>Wage earners do have lives, after all. At least I think they have lives
>in the legal sense. Would the content of the text message matter before
>sentencing the convicted?

No, she should have not had the phone out to begin with or have looked
at it while completing a customer transaction. No way can it be
justified.

If the clerk gave me the change and went to the phone, I would not
care as long as no one was inconvenienced.

People try to justify al sorts of bad and even illegal behavior
because they are in a menial job. I knew a guy once that thought it
was OK for his daughter to steal cosmetics from the chain drugstore
she worked at because it was a big corporation and she made minimum
wage.