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

[woman2womanmeetswomanparrish]

Fantsatstic news, Christina Dalcher has sucessfully managed to get this TRA fired from their job at Waterstones for X comment.

https://x.com/TillyLovesBooks/status/1810337926850445453?t=WABH0ieBQdnUtaQL5FVlyQ&s=19

I agree with this. The tweeness booksellers aspire aspire to can be a little nauseating. Books are great, I have lots of them, but so is a dairy milk. If Tilly and others treated bookselling as a regular retail assistant job instead of some special sparkly ascended plane none of this would have happened.

Vox is a really good book though imo!

For many bookshops though it's all about asperational living, the coffee table book has become an asscesory for a room like a cushion, rug or scented candle. You are right about the tweeness though, the effort that goes into book covers, especially womens popular fiction (aka chick lit) with its swirly font writing, bold colours and montage graphics is a bit nauseating. I am an avid reader, mostly travel writing, history and politics. I will confess that I am quite proud of my bookshelf and I have actually read about 95% of its content and still use them for reference. I guess it is a feature of the room of sorts, if only accidental..

Ach, Rufus, you’re so sweet - how could anyone be miffed with someone behaving so adorably 😍

womens popular fiction (aka chick lit) with its swirly font writing, bold colours and montage graphics is a bit nauseating

Horses for courses. It probably signifies to a certain readership that this book is in their wheelhouse, and you probably look for different visual clues.The bright colours seem superficial, and maybe that's a clue as to what lies inside the cover.

You can be fired instantly for gross misconduct, which this very clearly is. It was also breach of contract, which can also lead to instant dismissal.

WaterstonesHelp Twitter account has spoken:

We have received some messages about an employee who has been dismissed. This was on the grounds of contravening Waterstones policies and has nothing to do with transgender rights.

https://x.com/WstonesHelp/status/1810657183920427208

Every room in my house has at least 2 full bookshelves, and I still agree with this. There is nothing inherently sacred about a book as an object. It's the contents that count. There's nothing wrong with getting rid of a book because you think it's bad, there's everything wrong with preventing others from obtaining information or perspectives simply because you don't like the consequences of it.

No different to the bright red military font machine gun and cross hairs imagery for 'Andy I'm Dead Hard McNab' books titled Executive Death Zone or Ultimate Trigger Point or similar..

Certainly not in Brighton!

Am I reading the same thread?

Ultimately Waterstones have decided this person was in breach of contract and bringing the company into disrepute and potentially harming their sales / business.

Imagine this was about any other subject and the suggestion was that you shut out others and then talked about destroying property?

How is it, we always get this tone policing and how 'women have double standards' when a) that's not a reflection of the thread b) no one gives a shit about the comments regarding vandalism of property and ruining the careers of others in an industry which should be focused on encouraging free speech.

Why is it always women who are wrong and somehow have to be held to higher standards than anyone else??!

The biggest enemy of knowledge sharing is the very concept of shutting down of ideas. It's crucial to publishing and book selling.

Yes maybe they should have been given a warning or talked to. But we also don't know whether this has previously happened before - it could well have done in the past.

Ultimately Waterstones needs to be focused on selling books. Not promoting the political ideas over and above another.

Is it appropriate to take your politics to work and to impose them on others? Employers should really be being neutral and having zero tolerance for those who who don't respect differences of opinion and instead encourage the harassment of another. It's not that hard.

Well, I’m not sure that “women looking out for women” is a complete definition of feminism.

An employee is entitled to her own views about gender - of course.
She should not be sacked for her beliefs.

This one is an influencer on social media - so her attempts to manipulate her audence (with tears for herself and her point of view) shouldn't be all that surprising.

However, breaking her employer's rules - being rude to her employer's client do sound like sacking offences.

I don't really want to celebrate someone's downfall (even if self-inflicted and even if her response is unattractively whiney)

However, I can celebrate Waterstone's protection of an actual author and her work. (She too is entitled to her own opinion and should not be silenced or banned for it.)

Look at the way this all escalates... there is now a man on twitter inciting people to go along and smash up Waterstones windows - someone with a history of doing this 'allegedly'... our world has gone mad. Once upon a time an employer would be sacked for something such as this and quite rightly. Now the world and his dog get involved publicly and dickheads start inciting violence against bookshops. Waterstones were some of the only shops unscathed during the riots in London in 2011

Yes, this is a very disturbed individual.

Weird to see advice on "juice snacks" in the middle of an incitement to criminal damage.

In a sippy cup with a fucking rainbow unicorn on it.

They are mentally arrested children.

The company closed and opened under another name. But the prosecutor managed to eek it out so I could get my legal dues before maternity "leave". It was all a bit horrible tbh.

I see Waterstones have clarified she was fired for her conduct not trans issues.

Waterstones sound like they're trying to damage control. Fear of the 'be kind' brigade.

I don't think so. They are just stating a fact in the face of lies being spread about them.

I don't disagree, my post was poorly worded, but I think they're trying to stop false rumours from spreading.

Waterstones won't be able to expand on the reasons they sacked an employee, that would be a breach of privacy.

Its so sad that for some people violence is the only percieved solution.

https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/TillyLovesBooks

It would appear Tilly has an association with this organisation.

This is what the New Stateman says about the bookshop.org
‘The biggest fear among those I spoke to is that Bookshop.org is not denting Amazon’s sales, but that it is instead attracting customers who usually shop on the high street – whether at a chain such as Waterstones, Blackwells or Foyles, or at an independent.’

So many be this is the reason?

She also gets money for ‘links’ which she talks about in her Instagram because people have been offering her money. Despite saying she is having ‘the worst bout of covid yet’ she went to a chalet in France and walking around outside with no discussion on if she is avoiding people at all. Bizarre how no one mentions it other than ‘poor you’ comments. She is very keen to show the supportive comments from people with big followings. Also, if this is her having a bad bout of covid, I would refer her to several newly disabled people I know who would beg to differ.

Thats just two google clicks that took me five mins to read through. The instagram has more of the same woe. I am not going to google more. It’s too annoying.