Two minutes silence and refusing to serve customer

[BalugaBelle]

At work today I was on the checkout (large retail store) and the silence was announced over a tannoy.

A woman (on the phone) came up to the checkout during the silence, so I shushed her. Motioned to poppies next to till!

She then said, "I'm going to miss my train, please continue serving me!"

I refused, shook my head and sat silently for the two minutes.

At the end I put her items through, she moaned at me and called me rude and petty and then went on her merry way.

So was I being unreasonable to respect the two minutes silence, even if it meant a customer was unhappy at me doing so?

I know good customer service is needed but surely the two minutes silence takes priority? She clearly had no respect!

Quite frankly I didn't give a damn about her train, I was paying my respects as was everyone else in the shop. It was literally almost silent apart from young children (understandable) and general noise, i.e., heating making noises!

The customer's right to not observe the 2 minutes silence does not trump the OP's right to observe it.

Well if you join the army you obviously want to see conflict. I don't understand why civilians seem surprised by that.

All these people who are so ardent that if you don't observe the silence you are scum...I'd love to get inside their mind during a silence and see what they're actually thinking about.

noglory.org/index.php/articles/71-do-those-who-flaunt-the-poppy-on-their-lapels-know-that-they-mock-the-war-dead

noglory.org/index.php/articles/538-how-britain-exploits-the-dead-of-the-first-world-war-to-promote-militarism-today

noglory.org/index.php/articles/75-this-year-i-will-wear-a-poppy-for-the-last-time-says-91-year-old-veteran

I appreciate that everyone has a different take on this. I would also like to say that I absolutely remember and respect those poor men who were forced to fight until the end. But I just cannot get on board with the poppy movement and what it has come to represent. Maybe we should all just agree to disagree. FWIW I would not deliberately interrupt a 2 min silence myself even though I don't agree with it. These three articles (albeit from an anti-war website) offer quite a lot of food for thought.

WildBluebelles actually due to various human rights cases it's not that hard to get out the forces these days. Especially if you can prove you have a valid civilian job offer to go to. I was able to get out pretty fast (2013) when offered the job I do now. Having said that mine was a highly technical trade so there was a small return of service period post phase 2 training. But my training was 1.5 yrs and cost I can only imagine hurendous sums of money. So probably fair as there are a lot of civilain head hunters looking to nab ex forces people trained in my former technical trade. A lot of my mates still do the same work but for civilian contract all over the world. The main difference is they get paid a lot more and far less bull shit.

larrygrylls

Hilarious that pseudo lawyers keep saying the silence ‘isn’t a legal requirenent’. Nor is serving someone a legal requirement, especially not within a set period of time.

^^ This
The shop announced they were going to honour the silence and did. The woman didn't want to - fine. It basically boils down to lack of respect for a shop assistant because she's a shop assistant, the customer and a lot on this thread seem to think that the shop owner/manager and the people working in the shop are lesser somehow and their decision to respect the silence is null and void because they are in that industry. That's the root of the issue.

The Armistice Day silence is a relatively new thing - 1997. It wasn't around when I was young - I'm 50. Remembrance Sunday was the big event with the silence. My dad was in the army and we always had to go to Remembrance Sunday events (there was nothing for Armistice Day). We certainly didn't stop what we were doing at school or work for a silence for Armistice Day, etc. I find two days with two silences slightly peculiar (yes, they are memorials for slightly different things). The idea of people stopping what they are doing on a random day of the week (not a Sunday) seems odd to me, and I can't quite get used to it. But I've spent some of the last few years abroad, so maybe I'm out of touch.

Wouldn't it be more respectful to have five minutes where we actually talk about the dead, discuss their sacrifices?
I do think there's a lot of virtue signalling goes on about this. A pp talked about "revelling in my smugness"

It doesn't matter why the OP wanted to do it. She might have been the smuggest most self satisfied person on the planet - it doesn't matter.

The OP wanted to observe the silence and that should be respected. Just because she works in a shop doesn't mean she gives up all her rights!

Wouldn't it be more respectful to have five minutes where we actually talk about the dead, discuss their sacrifices?

Better yet, five minutes where people didn’t kill each other.

I’m afraid the 2 minute silence rather reminds me of FB, with people who post if you care about children with cancer you will repost this to your timeline.

Why? What will spamming my timeline with that kind of thing achieve?

I’m afraid the 2 minute silence rather reminds me of FB, with people who post if you care about children with cancer you will repost this to your timeline

I was going to say the same thing Butchy! It reminds me of those stupid FB statuses like 'I like it on the stairs' to 'raise awareness for breast cancer' or makeup free selfies. Just makes people feel they are doing something great when they are doing nothing. Those who have lived through it see it for what it is and find it insulting. Instead we have people laying into others for daring to speak during a specific time or for not wearing a red paper flower on TV. If every November, we had a public world commitment to peace and peaceful resolution of conflict, that would actually be learning something from WW1

I'm a bit ambivalent about armistice day, because I think we make a big show of remembrance but I wonder how much we have really learnt from the past.

However, people have so many different reasons for observing the two minutes' silence, and for some, those reasons may be deeply personal. They should absolutely have their wish to observe the silence respected, whether they are at work or not. And I'm usually the first to complain about poor customer service!

I was in town this morning and everyone did observe the silence. I found it really moving, despite my misgivings about some of the remembrance day stuff. So many innocent lives lost....

"we make a big show of remembrance but I wonder how much we have really learnt from the past."
Good point. I do observe the silence generally but find it very hard to think avbout something on command (I do though). I do think our respects could be paid in a much more meaningful way that shows we are learning lessons and won't repeat mistakes.

YANBU. We were told at work not to serve anyone and if anyone came up to the counter to point to the sign about the silence.

She was being exceptionally rude and selfish.

For example it means much more to me to read the ages of the 'men' who died. Many of them barely out of childhood. Yet when you think of soldiers you think of someone at their physical and mental peak, brave etc. I bet they were terrified.

See I would always be quiet and honour people’s wishes to be silent if I was in public and fwiw I actually think the OP was in the right and if she wanted to be be silent for the two minutes as her employer had said it was store policy to observe the silence then she was more than entitled to do so.

However I really do get quite pissed off when people say that people who don’t want to do the silence are ‘scum’. Seriously take your head out your arse and give it a wobble.

Good for you OP. The customer needed a lesson in respect and manners.

This is now on the DM

Sentimentallentil

See I would always be quiet and honour people’s wishes

A rather beautiful phrase - honouring other peoples wishes.

It's about honouring other peoples wishes. There are lots of arguments about different ways of remembering you might agree you might not. There are good arguments on both sides.

If we all honoured other peoples wishes in a quiet respectful way society may improve significantly.

This is now on the DM
Of course it is and they won't care if its genuine or just a load of made up seasonal nonsense.

This is now on the DM

You have to wonder if this is really how their “journos” pictured their lives turning out when they were 12.

Fuck off Daily Mail - you are not honouring my wish.

You are a bunch of lazy, scumbags who leech of other people.

Do not print my words. Do not use my ideas.

Thanks, daisypond for voicing my misgivings better than I could. I think the fact that I was already in my forties when it started has something to do with it. And the poppy wearing has also gone to extremes; in the old days you bought one and wore it on the lapel of your coat; now everyone on TV wears one on whatever outfit. The oddest example was Strictly where a contestant had one on the leotard they were practicing their dance in during the week!

if [Army] allowed people to leave freely, [the soldiers] probably would do so when told they were being shipped off to Basra.

That is quite an ignorant post.
You don't get it.
The soldiers are proud of what they do and want to serve.
They want to protect the innocent & defeat the bad guy & be brave enough to save each other's lives & restore peace.

I can't say there aren't naive soldiers who don't understand what they are signing up for, but they are a minority & tend not to last long. UK has a pretty generous welfare state, there are plenty of other options for disadvantaged youth.

Yanbu 2 minutes out of a year to show respect to the fallen is really not too much to ask. I witnessed people yesterday at a motorway services talking loudly and still shopping while others stopped to pay their respects. It made me so sad that they could not spare 2 minutes of their day.