The Bin man who was sacked for kicking the head off the Snowman.....

[TheQueef]

Would you have reported?
I'm not a fan of reporting for reporting sake so this has shocked me.
Just what outcome was expected by sending footage to his bosses?

YABU = he deserves to lose his job.
YANBU = it's batshit he kicked a snowman.

Soz if there has been a thread already.

Well he's certainly not a grafter now he's lost his job. So I guess that fits your pov.

Good. The job can go to a decent person. You can keep defending thugs if you want to though. 🤪

It is ridiculous. It was a bloody snowman, not someone's pet cat!!

But how would you feel if your 3yo proudly showed a crayon scribble 'artwork' that they'd done at nursery to a neighbour and the neighbour said "Goodness, that's a load of useless, talentless old crap - that one needs to go straight in the bin." Would you say it's fine because 'it's only a bit of old paper'?

As has been said, he doesn't sound like a natural charmer in any way, but it's the intention to deliberately upset a small child behind it. They'll happily (enough) take on board that snow can only stay in cold weather, so when the Sun comes out, it will dry it up and make it gradually disappear; but an adult kicking it to pieces just for the sake of destroying it?

There's another very interesting but very sad thread going now about unkind things that people did or said to young children which those erstwhile children - some of them now elderly - have never forgotten. Some of them might seem quite minor really, but it's the memories and thoughts of how, instead of encouraging and trying to make a small child happy, an adult deliberately did something needless for the sole purpose of upsetting a child and making their world sadder.

Going out of your way to try to make someone lose their livelihood is a far more despicable act than kicking a snowman.

What this boils down to is that some people absolutely need to feel that others, especially in service industries, are beneath them and at their mercy. It's a contemptible way to think.

Bollocks. If alan sugar had walked past and booted the head of the snowman and then come back for a few more kicks I guarantee you there would have been far more outrage than this received.

He actually didn't lose his job. He's not a permanent employee.

Thinking about it, if we had a temp who caused customer complaints, we wouldn't invite him or her back unless the complaints were really unreasonable. It's just too much trouble to have someone on the job who is going to behave in such a way that we have to fill in forms and placate annoyed customers, if they aren't otherwise a reasonable, hard working and valuable member of the team.

So although I disagree in principle with someone losing their job for doing this, that's not strictly what happened here.

You'd think if you were a temp, you'd realise you needed to behave properly to get invited back.

I would hope he's in a union and that his union absolutely wipes the floor with his employers.

Was he a wanker? sure. Can you be fired for being a wanker? nope, not usually

I think it was an overreaction. By all means give him a warning, but for a man to lose his livelihood in the middle of a pandemic when he's doing key work is ridiculous.

He kicked a snowman not a fucking baby.

You're representing the council whilst working. You are expected to follow a code of conduct.

If the council expects people to represent them then they should make them employees. Then when those employees fail to discharge their duties in a manner the council deems appropriate the council can have it out in an employment tribunal.

We've already had the argument that he's only a contractor. So how can he be expected to uphold standards of an organisation that apparently doesn't employ him?

@stripeyIIIIItscmsfkmf

Next time instead of reporting just rebuild the snowman but with a massive rock inside the head

Fantastic idea!

I've gone back and looked at the video, he doesn't just knock the head off, he then goes back and kicks the body in too. Maybe the next time they should build over a big concrete bollard too.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

Some members of the public are obviously bored, deprived of a sense of importance and taking action through moronic behaviour.

Do we have any actual journalism in this country anymore?

This is news. News so interesting that someone has started a thread to discuss it. So that's good journalism...

I can't say I massively feel sorry for him to be honest. There was absolutely no need for him to do what he did, and he did it in work time, in uniform, while working on a temp contract. As a result he has been told he won't be invited to work for them again. Anyone who does agency work knows its precarious, and while I think employment protections for agency workers should be better, I think you have to be spectacularly stupid to act the twat in public in such a precarious employment position. Him keeping his job is his own responsibility entirely. If it was that important, maybe he shouldn't have been dicking about while he was supposed to be working.

@davidsSchitt

"No, because a lot of people on the internet are up in arms about the fact he's lost his job.

I do think that'll come back to bite the complainer on the arse"

Nah. 3000 of his little Facebook mates have signed a petition. They're not "up in arms".

Why should they be intimidated and therefore keep quiet just because him and his ilk are the type to make sure it "bites them on the arse"?

Why should they be intimidated and therefore keep quiet just because him and his ilk are the type to make sure it "bites them on the arse"?

You're making things up now

I'm talking about people in general. I think they'll feel sorry for the fact he's lost his living.

@Brunt0n

Nah not feeling any sympathy for this guy

“Last July he was slapped with a 12-month community order, 120 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 for attacking a barman and headbutting two police officers in a drunken rage.”

Sounds like he’s got issues

See this should mean he wasn't hired in the first place.

My house is near a pub and a secondary school, so the snowmen on my drive rarely last long. The dc get upset, I tell them whoever knocked over/trampled/put a dog poo on top of the snowman (yes, this happened once) are being mean and it's not a nice thing to do, but the snowman would have melted anyway and we have a photo to remember it by. The dc continue to be upset for a short time, then they forget about it.

I don't think spending time taking photos of dc with 'dead' snowmen and tracking down and seeking retribution from the destroyers of snowmen adds a lot to anyones life.

I read, and I know this is to be treated with caution, that he had a conviction for an offence related to not just a snowman but a human.

This might seem like a stretch, but victims of 'banter' i.e. sexual harassment who report a colleague or other employee for it are also frequently blamed for making a fuss over nothing and not caring if he loses his job and can't provide for his family because of it. Of course, it was never his fault for knowingly deciding to risk his job by behaving badly, unprofessionally and/or abusively in the first place, was it....

So how can he be expected to uphold standards of an organisation that apparently doesn't employ him?

But he could just uphold standards of a normal decent adult. Most people don’t need to be told not to do this sort of stuff once they are old enough to get a job. I mean, how many adults do you see kicking down snowmen that have very likely been made by kids. Totally bizarre than so many people are fighting his corner.

Too many people seem to think that once you have a job, it belongs to you, almost regardless of how well you do the job. This man wasn't representing his employer well, and from the sound of it, probably has some anger problems, out at least isn't very mature. I wouldn't be surprised if they've had problems with him before and were happy to have an excuse to let him go.

Again, this isn't the only job in the world. He can find another, and maybe this experience will teach him to value the next job enough that he will keep it.

Nearly 4,300 signatures now so it's not just his 'Little Facebook mates' signing it.

www.change.org/p/herefordshire-council-give-the-binman-his-job-back?redirect=false&use_react=false

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

This might seem like a stretch, but victims of 'banter' i.e. sexual harassment who report a colleague or other employee for it are also frequently blamed for making a fuss over nothing and not caring if he loses his job and can't provide for his family because of it. Of course, it was never his fault for knowingly deciding to risk his job by behaving badly, unprofessionally and/or abusively in the first place, was it....

Perhaps if those people were sexually harassing snow, you might have a point.

Next time instead of reporting just rebuild the snowman but with a massive rock inside the head.

Now you're talking Can you still buy mantraps? (Joking, before anyone flames me for suggesting maiming such a devoted, hardworking young father.)

Agency work is precarious and he has learnt a valuable lesson here.

If I had an agency worker on my team who deliberately did something that unneccessairly upset a customer or member of the public I would ask the agency to replace them and no amount of signatures would change that.

@Feathersinthehead

Depends what other random stuff he’d destroy just because it was there. Snowman? Garden gnome? Christmas decorations? Car wing mirror? Smashing things just because you can isn’t a reasonable attitude.

This

You can clearly see from the footage that that snowman was in an impossible position and there was utterly no way of avoiding it. As he said, it was "in his way". No doubt the barman etc from the incident in the pub was also "in his way".

Quite apart from the fact that he wasn't sacked - he wasn't an employee of the Council, so they didn't sack him, they simply told the agency they didn't want him - I suspect that the truth of the matter is that there is a lot more going on than we know about. If the agency want to keep him on and send him elsewhere, then that is up to them. Although I doubt they will be keen to send someone with a very recent criminal record for violence anywhere.

Which, I am guessing, is actually the reason why he was not wanted back by the Council. This and/or other incidents have probably brought to their attention the previous conviction from the summer when he attacked a barman, pub clients and the police. Nice chap. The salt of the earth. Not somebody I would employ. And certainly not in a public facing role. I wonder what he would do if it was a person and not a snowman in his way...?

"You're making things up now

I'm talking about people in general. I think they'll feel sorry for the fact he's lost his living."

What am I making up?!

I don't think they'll give two shits after the things he's saying about them on social media.

He's got what was coming to him, he'll have to grow up and act appropriately when at work in the future. If he stays out of prison long enough.

If you watch the video, he kicks the head off the snowman and then it looks like a supervisor runs over to have a word. He then goes back and kicks the shit out of it repeatedly. It might have been the supervisor that reported him and then this video came out.
But yes the sad face dailymail photo is typical.

Don’t act like a complete aggressive ballbag at work in public and you won’t suffer the consequences of your own actions.