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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Ocado boycott after support of Primesight action

999 replies

PerverseConverse · 25/09/2018 21:59

On discovering today that Ocado are continuing to use Primesight after they removed Standing For Women's billboard, thereby showing they have no respect for women or our rights, I have emailed them to tell them that I will no longer shop with them as they support misogyny. I'm just wondering how many others have done the same and hoping this thread gets picked up by twitter and/or the press.

OP posts:
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FrankUnderwoodsWife · 27/09/2018 20:11

Cancelled my smartpass and will no longer be shopping with them, and told them why. We Spend £1000 pm on food etc, and have been customers since 2010
Going to give my business to waitrose. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
I hope this really hurts their p&l and their shareholders demand an explanation of their (in)actions

Turph · 27/09/2018 20:12

I'm not buying this. Preferring to telephone everyone personally means that they want to get out of issuing a public statement on the public tweets they put out there. There's not a chance I'm using them again.
Scenario one: they really are a team of customer service pros, and they decided women are less likely to be strident when talking to a poor beleaguered customer service operative on the phone, so the personal calls are intentional
Scenario two: they're unprofessional, a work experience kid wrote the tweets, and they're so thoughtful that they all decided personal calls were warranted because they are individually genuinely sorry for upsetting anyone.
Scenario three: nobody in Ocado PR is used to this kind of onslaught (they should hire the people who tweet for Southern Rail maybe?) Maybe the work experience kid wrote the tweets, maybe the board approved them. Most likely the decision was made somewhere in the middle. Not being used to huge damage limitation exercises, this is all off the hoof hence the delay.
I'm going with #3 with a soupçon of #1 - I think the personal phone calls were designed to "soften up" the complainants...

breastfeedingclownfish · 27/09/2018 20:13

Really looking forward to their Q4 figures.

frogintheTyne · 27/09/2018 20:35

Scenario one: they really are a team of customer service pros, and they decided women are less likely to be strident when talking to a poor beleaguered customer service operative on the phone, so the personal calls are intentional

This for sure.

Ive been on these Dealing with Difficult Situations training days too.

Ali1cedowntherabbithole · 27/09/2018 20:43

It’s just occurred to me that (I think) Waitrose are a significant shareholder of Ocado. Does anyone know if it’s possible to find out who the institional shareholders are?

Would it be worth engaging with them too?

LaPufalina · 27/09/2018 20:57

Alice pretty sure Waitrose sold their stake!

LuggsaysNotaWomen · 27/09/2018 20:59

Oh scenario one with bells on.

It’s contemptuous and manipulative in the highest order. Silly little women; get sweet little Millie on the blower to them explaining how nice and kind everybody at Ocado are and how it’s all a silly misunderstanding. Nobody wants to upset sweet little Millie after all - do you?

AsAProfessionalFekko · 27/09/2018 21:01

Sweet Millie might be monster Mike. You never know these days.

Ereshkigal · 27/09/2018 21:03

I'm going with #3 with a soupçon of #1 - I think the personal phone calls were designed to "soften up" the complainants...

As someone who has worked in comms/PR I agree.

Needmoresleep · 27/09/2018 21:04

Turph, I wonder if following the President's Club expose they decided to bring in some woke diversity consultants to ensure Ocado retained a caring/sharing image. Unfortunately these consultants forgot to point out that the law talks about sex rather than gender, and that women were not that keen on having their statutory protections shared with a whole Noah's Arc of diversity: transgender, transsexual, gender-queer (GQ), gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, crossdresser, genderless, agender, nongender, third gender, two-spirit, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman,trans masculine, trans feminine and neutrois.

Presumably like Credit Suisse they thought that, say accepting that a man might turn up in a dress a couple of days a week to demonstrate his feminine side was mildly amusing, and showed how tolerant they were.

So women: adult humale females, no longer exist. Indeed the very definition is hate speech and something that super-woke Ocado went out of their way to confirm they would not tolerate.

Well sorry. Women consider themselves women, and are not convinced by the man in a dress or some of his gender diversity chums. They want current single sex spaces to remain protected. They dont like the idea of boys/Presidents club misogynists, along with their nasty Doctor friend, using their power to take these spaces from them.

Christmas is coming, turkey orders are being prepared. If Ocado want our custom the least they should do is admit they got it wrong. Stonewalls own figures suggest that significantly fewer than 20% of the population believe in gender self ID. They can then get together with their billboard pals and give Posie a new poster.

Adult human female from adult human male.

And perhaps throw a bit of their advertising budget MN's way.

TheMostBeautifulDogInTheWorld · 27/09/2018 21:05

Hurrah for peaktransed Millie.

I cannot BELIEVE that thirty six hours after this shitstorm started, Ocado think the best way to deal with it is to email women, and PHONE THEM UP, to tell them that sex discrimination is the one thing their corporate policies aren't interested in.

Ereshkigal · 27/09/2018 21:06

Turph, I wonder if following the President's Club expose they decided to bring in some woke diversity consultants to ensure Ocado retained a caring/sharing image. Unfortunately these consultants forgot to point out that the law talks about sex rather than gender

Ooh yes that sounds all too plausible.

SpannerInTheWorks · 27/09/2018 21:06

I spent 20 minutes explaining to her that by saying this she was falling down on the side of misogyny: I explained the attack on women’s rights, Posie’s motivation, Dr Horrids reputation and pointed her to yesterdays Sky news interview. By the time she got off the call she had promised to go and read Janice Turner, watch the video and read more

Brava Working

AbsintheFriends · 27/09/2018 21:15

Ocado, here's a suggestion. Get on the phone to primesight. Organise a poster with the dictionary definition of apology ('regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure') Get Millie to send out vouchers to every woman on your list. Lots of vouchers.

Turph · 27/09/2018 21:20

Turph, I wonder if following the President's Club expose they decided to bring in some woke diversity consultants to ensure Ocado retained a caring/sharing image
I doubt it. They kept schtum then and got by, they are trying the same thing now.
Most companies don't bother with all the woke stuff in real life. HR will clobber you with it if you step out of line, so it's more a tool than anything. Fall out of favour and someone unearths an off-campus joke you forwarded by work email, that kind of thing.
I mean, you couldn't say TWANW out loud because it might bring the company into disrepute. But does anyone who works there give a monkey's about trans people? No of course not. It's just a corporate game to play. Greener than thou, woker than thou, cooler than thou, etc.
We always tend to overestimate the professionalism of those who we assume are professional. It's why the original reality TV, the fly on the wall documentary, was so popular. People were fascinated to learn the pros were just people.
Ocado are way out of their depth on this. You think they hired the sharpest social media gurus to maintain a Twitter account for an online supermarket? Like I said, they've probably never had this much antagonism and they don't know how to engage.
Scenario four: the phone calls were the idea of a well-meaning but desperate call centre manager who has had fuck all backing from HQ on what to say.

Turph · 27/09/2018 21:21

Off-colour not off-campus!

Procrastinator1 · 27/09/2018 21:22

Would the president's club dinner been as well attended if they only had trans women as waitresses? We could ask that man from Ocado and then ask him about the definition of woman.

Coldallthetime · 27/09/2018 21:27

Spot-on @Turph. In my grumpy middle-age I swear big organisations are becoming collectively less intelligent and employimg people with very poor reasoning and analytical skills.

Ocado's management team are making this up as they go along and no-one there seems to have the wit to stand back and make a reasoned but bold decision to do the right thing.

And, the collective and intelligent wisdom on this thread is seeing right through it.

MotherofPearl · 27/09/2018 21:30

Delurking to say that Procrastinator!has it spot on.

Like many others on this thread, I've been a dedicated Ocado shopper for 10+ years, but now don't feel I can continue with them. As a first step I've emailed to ask them to explain themselves - though I'm not holding my breathe tbh. I must admit, it's going to be a wrench for me - Ocado has been so damned easy and convenient.

GladAllOver · 27/09/2018 21:52

It's quite something when a company loses loyal customers who would rather not leave but weren't given any choice due to the company's stupidity.
Way to go, Ocado!

Ocadodumped · 27/09/2018 21:52

wiccamum Thanks. I have only missed calls from Chelmsford and Swansea today so I guess they haven't called. They'd better do, I think £2000 in the last 90 days (I checked Shock ) should be enough for personal service but I'll pick them up on all the excellent points I've noted from here.

I really want this to go away, it really inconveniences me but know I can't just ignore it, I've got to LTB.

Turph · 27/09/2018 21:55

Coldallthetime
old vacancy Glassdoor doesn't have this salary listed without logging in. Software developers on £35k, senior software developer on £50k. Based in Hatfield so not that cheap to live around there.
So this (senior) PR job is what, £60k maybe?
And the customer service bods in the office on maybe £8ph?
Why risk your income being analytical? Thinking big? Nobody is making a fortune doing this job for Ocado. And unless they live local, why not just shop around for another job? The team don't earn enough to buy a flat, why would they put in that much effort?
I swear big organisations are becoming collectively less intelligent and employimg people with very poor reasoning and analytical skills.
Big organisations pay less and less and offer no advancement. There's no loyalty either way. With degree inflation there's even less chance of moving from the shop floor to the boardroom than ever before. Some poor sod with a woke degree from Goldsmith's that they'll be paying off until they're 35 will have bugger all chance of influencing policy on anything. Companies have deskilled everyone, demotivated everyone and defunded any training that isn't strictly necessary.
The board know how much they value the customer service team because they approve the budget for it. If they valued it, they'd have invested in it.
Smile sorry I know that was a derail Smile
Tl;Dr You pays peanuts, you gets monkeys

Cuntysnark · 27/09/2018 22:01

Tim Steiner (CE) dumped £50.7m shares (cashed them in) a month ago via a trust of which he is a beneficiary. And £20m in March. So doubt he gives much of a shit what happens... just sayin’

Statutory announcement to the stock exchange if you wish to google.

Turph · 27/09/2018 22:03

Just to add: my point is the boss gets £60k so Millie is on a lot less. Millie's boss isn't troubling the Sunday Times Rich List either. Millie's boss's boss might be the one on £60k. The actual representatives and their bosses probably are making things up as they go along because they're in an undervalued part of the business and until now nobody gave a shit.

TakeAbowRiks · 27/09/2018 22:06

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