Waterstones come out as GC and fire TRA for social media post

She’s back pedalling. She wouldn’t have any of that author’s books.

Bookshops don’t have contracts with authors.
Bookshops buy copies of an author’s book through their publisher’s distributor.
They order on a credit account, pay for the books, then the copies belong to the bookshop, which they sell to the customer.

Otherwise, yes. Sounds like a case of bringing them into disrepute via the means of social media. Presumably they were all good with her use of social media (is good PR for them after all) until she used that platform to say something they didn’t like/ brought them into disrepute.

Re the thread title, none of this means Waterstones has declared a philosophical stance of being gender critical though.

Oh, wait -- this is what she now has to say about the situation:

"Just going to say one more thing before I switch off, aside from thank you to everyone who’s been so bloody kind. For the last time, the books were my own personal books, and I’ve never done anything but sell whichever books I was asked to in the shop."

I've only just realised she didn't say that she was going to throw away the books in her bookstore. In that case, no, not good. Companies shouldn't fire staff over implicature.

Yeah, exactly.

If a GC person has said "I'm going to rip up all trans positive books aimed at kids" on twitter they would have been fired. Would people be saying that waterstones is now transallied? Be serious.

Or Gerald Ratner saying
'We do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95,' he told the Institute of Directors event.
'People say: 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say: 'Because it's total crap.'
He added: 'We sold a pair of earrings for under £1, which is cheaper than a shrimp sandwich from Marks and Spencer, but probably wouldn't last as long.' It became known as 'doing a Ratner' and still serves as a warning for top chief executives to this day.

Link for anyone feeling a little nostalgic at hearing his name.
www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9505003/Gerald-Ratner-reeling-30-years-gaffe.html

I do think the other(?) person on X who is involved in the review and purchasing of books and the "TERFs don't send me books" message would be far more damaging to authors.

I agree @lechiffre55 - is that person also employed by Waterstones, do we know?

I'm guessing she's fallen foul of some "bringing the company into disrepute" or something. She's certainly admitting she has made a mistake so I doubt she'll try for unfair dismissal. Badly judged and naively not realising the rules apply to her, too, even if her post reads to me like a bit of empty, childish bluster. The kind of "oooh I hate you so much I'm gonna kill you" that kids shout in the playground. Still, she tied her social media to her employer so it's her own fault I'm afraid.

Yep. No one builds up a small library of books about a subject, or by authors they hate by accident. Especially not a person who works with books for a living. Ripping up her own books is just a feeble excuse. In reality she probably wouldn't have ripped up any books, just wanted to get her message out and prove what a good ally she was. Virtue signalling.

I do think the other(?) person on X who is involved in the review and purchasing of books and the "TERFs don't send me books" message would be far more damaging to authors.

The OP is just a foolish person who mouthed off without thinking and forked themself in the process. I don't think people should loose their jobs over this, a manager having a stern word should have been enough.
"You do realise we are in the book selling business right?"
"Yes...."
"Would YOU still like to be in the book selling business tomorrow?"

Actually having watched again, it's interesting that she says 'it's the first mistake I've ever made'.

I think the tears are genuine in the sense that she's one of patriarchy's Good Girls who has deeply internalised the #BeKind message and willed her way through massive cognitive dissonance in order to see terfs, not men, as the real threat.

Now she can't believe that she did everything she was told and she's still being cast out.

I think it’s implied - because she presumably wouldn’t buy the books as she dislikes the author, so the only access she would have would be the stock in the shop.

But I think it’s more about image. It doesn’t look good for an employee of a bookshop to talk about destroying books, especially when the bookshop presumably has a contract with the author their employee is slagging off. To use the clothing analogy again, it would be like a shop assistant at Next publicly saying that Lipsy dresses were shit and she was going to rip them up.

Also, we’ve only got her word for it that this was a first offence. We have no idea if she’s had warnings before.

I'm not a TwiX user and am no judge of these things, perhaps it means nothing, but she doesn't seem to have many likes compared to views.

@thestudio @Melroses @zibzibara The woman in question has a very large social media presence as a Bookstagrammer - having followed her at one point I'm pretty sure she mentions her employers. Even her Instagram bio says 'bookseller (and book lover)'.

The punishment was therefore - rightly - stricter compared to , say someone who doesn't have a very public association with their employers

Yeah.... I'm not buying the "she was talking about ripping up her own books line" which is doing the rounds on Twitter.

Firstly, CD is fairly well-know for her terfiness and no self-respecting TRA bookblogger would own her books.

Secondly, and this one is more tenuous because they have form for this sort of stupidity, saying you're going to rip up books that have already been bought and paid for isn't much of an act of activism.

At a guess, she just opened her mouth and let her belly rumble, and thought she was untouchable because that's the online bubble these sorts operate in.

It makes them just so much more upset when reality bites.

That is the worst fake crying I have ever seen.

Rufus got a deletion? That's mad.

If you are happily saying you will rip up books, and your job is to sell books, then what use are you really to a bloody book selling company?

There may be more to it than just that one tweet🤷‍♀️

Waterstones obviously aren't going to comment publicly on HR matters, but their side of the story might well be different.

there is every need to be so mardy (are you from the midlands-been ages since I heard "mardy'?) fucking sick of trans nutters thinking they can say and do anything they like and are amazed, amazed I tell you, when consequences occur.

Definitely “cry to distract”

Actually yes this is it too - they know in their hearts that they have been as bad if not worse, and the narcissist in them all thinks 'cry to distract'.

But I also think that the realisation of what cunts they are, however brief before they bounce back, wounds their ego, and they cry because they're ashamed.

I've been watching this on X for the past couple of hours. At the moment there are a lot of people complaining that "a GC author got a trans ally fired" (paraphrasing for brevity).

There are also people pointing out that the author didn't get anyone fired. Waterstones fired someone, presumably for being in breach of their social media policy.

What seems odd to me is that she has been fired for this. It seems more of a slapped wrist/apologise/don't do it again type of issue. So there is presumably something else going on - i.e. was she already on a final warning? Was there something about her response when Waterstones raised the issue with her that made it more serious? Etc etc etc

I would be high and dry if I lost my job, and I am in no way celebrating this woman losing hers.

I do think that more people need to understand that (1) calling someone a bigot is now less likely to result in them losing their job if all they are doing is saying that sex exists (and if they do lose their job, they will probably win their tribunal), and, (2) harassing someone, online or otherwise, may result in losing your own job, even if you are a vocal trans ally.

I think this is true - or rather, they are underdeveloped, childish in its first sense. There's a kind of Lord of the Flies-ness about them, the weepiness of the little ones combined with the vicious pitilessness of the older ones.

I think if you find the thread SEEN in publishing on MN it gives some background on how this all started ( I think). I don't know enough about this person but I guess she jumped on the let’s all be as nasty as possible about all those you authors who believe sex is real and important (as several in publishing did) and got caught out.

Hypocrites tends to be quite fragile.

Oh, but they are ALL this insanely hypocritcal.

I wonder if Waterstones had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her for a while. It's odd for someone to get fired just for tweeting something like that.

Like depending how you read it, it could be considered just a scathing retort, the type you see all the time on social media, rather than a genuine intention to destroy books.

Maybe there's more to this than we can see publicly?