On 15/06/2013 11:52 AM, George Leppla wrote:
>
> I've met more than my share of nasty customers when I was working retail
> (and in a restaurant) but nothing like that woman. I did once
> physically grab a customer and quick walk him out the front door into
> the waiting arms of the local cops who were just arriving... but that
> guy had hit one of my employees.
>
> The cop shop was right across the street from the store so we never got
> too involved when customers got out of hand... just called the gendarmes
> and let them handle it.


It was bad enough in a law enforcement position. You can't expect most
to be thrilled about having to deal with you but as long as you act
professionally people tend to show some respect. Occasionally, you run
into some real assholes. The pen can be mightier than the mouth. An
officer has a lot of discretionary powers and a lot of times people are
given a warning. I used to check for seat belts once in a while. They
are required by law, and it can be a difficult charge to prosecute
because even though you clearly saw that the person was not wearing it,
they will insist in court that they were. I think people should wear
them, not just because of the law but because they save lives. I usually
gave warnings and stressed the importance of wearing them. But what do
you do with a belligerent jerk who says "I don't wear and you can't make
me." ? Obviously, a warning is not going to do much, so you lay the
charge.

Every once in a while I would run into a really belligerent jerk. A
quick check of their driver record usually showed previous incidents of
attitude adjustment charges, where there had been multiple charges laid
for the sorts of things that charges aren't usually laid. like failing
to produce registration, fail to produce insurance, fail to wear
seatbelt.... fail to sign license in ink. Not only did they get a
battery of attitude adjustment charges, but those guys often had
multiple cases of that.



I never lost any sleep over the encounters I had with idiots like that.I
just figured that if it got really expensive for that person to act that
way, they might smarten up and behave the next time.

In some cases it worked. I once warned a driver about not having a log
book but charged him for not having done a pre trip inspection, for
which the fine was about half. He freaked. I could have given him an AA
charge(s) on the spot but didn't. Instead, I faxed the information to
our safety auditors. They went into the company and did an audit on that
driver and he ended up with a bunch of hours of work charges. He
realized that it was his behaviour that had triggered the audit and he
apologized.