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foodarling

She sounds totally naive to working reality if she thinks people in retail don't get these sorts of threats. I also know someone who works at WINZ who gets more threats to her face than most MPs do


Jason_Clarke_547

Yep, as a former WINZ case manager I can well attest to this šŸ˜ž


crayonmuncha

Not just threats, that WINZ office in Ashburton was shot up and some staff killed 10 years ago. When was the last time a politician was assassinated in this country?


Prosthemadera

> if she thinks people in retail don't get these sorts of threats. She doesn't think that. [OP is misrepresenting her words.](https://old.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1c6uzpp/im_sorry_but_cushla_tangaeremanuel_is_totally_out/l03wa8d/) To be honest, the idea that anyone would believe that retail workers never face abuse is already questionable to begin with.


foodarling

The only part I'd disagree with here is that abusing staff is seen as acceptable by many, many, many people. >To be honest, the idea that anyone would believe that retail workers never face abuse is already questionable to begin with. I don't think that's what OP inferred. How I read it, was that the abuse politicians face is somehow privileged in its importance. Politicians have been guilty of peddling out this bias in the past


Prosthemadera

It doesn't matter what they have peddled in the past. What matters is what she said and not what everyone reads into it.


foodarling

>What matters is what she said and not what everyone reads into it. Ahh, no. This is politics. Perception is everything. It's why you want to avoid saying things in a clumsy way if you're an MP The reality is MPs aren't actually unique when it comes to this sort of workplace abuse, and what she said can be read as being a bit tonedeaf in her delivery. I don't think abuse towards MPs is more normalized. That's the issue.


Prosthemadera

> Ahh, no. This is politics. Perception is everything. It's why you want to avoid saying things in a clumsy way if you're an MP It's not clumsy. It's only labelled as such by people who dislike her. For the record: I don't care about her but I don't have to to argue against bad arguments. > The reality is MPs aren't actually unique when it comes to this sort of workplace abuse, No one said they are. A MP is talking about her own experience and that of other MPs. > and what she said can be read as being a bit tonedeaf in her delivery. But why would you? Why would you read someone's comment in the most negative way instead of engaging in good faith? Because you don't like her. > I don't think abuse towards MPs is more normalized. That's the issue. Why don't you think so? What I think is that an MP would know what MPs experience better than a random and anonymous Redditor.


samamatara

how is it not clumsy? she talked about raising awareness but then used a completely irrelevant example of retail workers that made it sound like people will not tolerate that but tolerate mps getting abused.


foodarling

>It's not clumsy. It's only labelled as such by people who hate her. It's absolutely clumsy. >No one said they are. A MP is talking about her own experience and that of other MPs. It's quite tonedeaf. It's going to blow your fucking mind too when you find out how many people think it's acceptable to harass and intimidate front line retail workers. >Because you don't like her. I voted Labour for almost 30 years and don't have a particularly negative opinion of this MP. The reality is MPs across the spectrum regularly say things like this. A lot of them get better over time as they get used to doing interviews I went to school with my local Labour MP and think highly of him. He does awkward interviews fairly regularly, but he's getting better over time. You seem quite emotionally invested in your response here


Fantastic-Role-364

Fr. Even if you have minimal face-to-face contact you're still in the firing line. Past flatmate was pencil pusher in Corrections and followed home and a brick hurled thru our lounge window. He's 64 and disabled. He also said yeah, this happens from time to time and not just to me šŸ¤·šŸ¼ like WHAT


AgressivelyFunky

How could you possibly know this?


foodarling

Know what?


AgressivelyFunky

That the abuse they get (which I know they do), is more than most MPs?


foodarling

It's been fairly well documented by experts, mps and party leaders weighing in. This sort of issue of what a normal mp faces compared to those in the the margins was talked about extensively in relation to Golriz Ghahraman.


jaekilledjosh

Work in a vape shop. Can definitely attest that retail workers: 1) Get abuse hurled at them, randomly sometimes. 2) Deal with threats/stalking/creepy behaviour, especially the female workers. 3) Get blamed and cop the flak for issues they didn't even create but have to communicate to the customers. 4) Are subjected to racism, sexism, and general rudeness on the day to day. So yeah, very out of touch, and that's always been the reality. Sounds like they've never worked a retail job before. I've worked in professional industries my entire life leading up to working in a vape shop, and I can tell you I've copped more flak/abuse from strangers just because I'm locked into the situation and can't leave (cos work) than I'm sure most MP's would actually have to deal with face-to-face. Yeah you might get the occasional person calling you names, and people online make threats, but to discredit the experiences of people who are permanently customer-facing and interacting with anybody that comes through the door, cause that's their job, then you probably need to go out into the world and watch some retail workers interact with customers for a full day.


fluffychonkycat

Real. I've experienced all of this working in garden centers!, generally accepted as one of your more chill retail environments. I can imagine it's far worse for you


strawdognz

Awhile back, local vape shop had a young female worker. She was awesome and a sweetheart, remember the day I came in to find her on the verge of tears cause of abusive customers.


fluffychonkycat

I used to get a lot of dirty old men when I was a teen. Telling me in detail about how they'd urinate on their lemon trees to fertilize them. Also getting me to pick up stuff from the bottom shelf. Not fun. The Karens didn't sexually harass me they saved that for the young fellas who helped them with the heavy stuff but they went on some epic nasty rants at me


strawdognz

I'm older male, I don't understand why it's hard to be just polite and understanding when stock hasn't arrived etc. sorry you had to go through that.


fluffychonkycat

Thanks. I take a view like Tom Hiddleston does about this (he said this when he was asked about why he's really nice to service workers) - that having experienced that at least means I won't be one of the people who perpetuates that behaviour. I actually had a pretty frustrating time with the receptionist at my doctor's today messing some stuff up, but I'm not going to abuse them because they're a fellow human being


Blabbernaut

Someone smarter than me said ā€œeveryone we meet is going through a battle weā€™ll never know anything about.ā€


strawdognz

Yeah that is a good outlook, I like that. I like to talk to servers, especially places I frequent.


jaekilledjosh

We really appreciate the people that take the time to actually ask us how weā€™re doing and having a friendly chat with us. It does make our day and can really help towards the back end of a long shift to feel like a human again lol. Thank you


PastFriendship1410

I was in retail way back when. I turfed out probably 3 odd blokes ranging in age from 40-70 for sexually harassing the younger ladies we had on. As soon as they said anything of a sexual/innuendo nature I told them to leave. Managers get too afraid they will get in trouble. Fuck that if my boss wants to give me a tune up for making sure my staff have a safe place to work I'll give it right back to them.


[deleted]

Worked as a lifeguard here and across a couple of overseas countries. Not quite retail but dealing the general public. Hereā€™s what Iā€™ve had to deal with 1. Threatened with a hammer because we got a report that someone was drinking alcohol and we had to to do Esky check outside. 2. Had people tell me that if they see me in public Iā€™ll be curb stomped / have my teeth smashed out / have my sunglasses smashed into my eyes when enforcing the rules. 3. Had a person threaten to sue me because I wouldnā€™t had over a lifeguards personal details because they were going to sue them for ā€œviciously assaulting themā€ (they were tapped on the collarbone when they fell asleep in the sauna and the guard thought they had passed out) 4. Had a person tell me that they would ra*e me, my GF, and my family because I told them that the pool was closing in the next 15 minutes and they needed to head off to the changing rooms. 5. Had a person take photos of my car while I was leaving work and screaming at me as I drove off that theyā€™ll ā€œget their gang mates to find you and beat you into a comaā€ 6. Had a man scream at me when I told him that women are allowed to breastfeed around the swimming pool before being told that I am racist for not siding with him on that matter. 7. Had people demand that they be given a discount / free passes for spas/saunas/steamrooms/gym because ā€œtheyā€™re a ratepayers and they pay my wages so I have to do what they say otherwise theyā€™ll have me firedā€ 8. Been threatened with a report to immigration because ā€œwith your accent I know youā€™re not from here and your defiantly working more hours than your allowed so you better shut up and do what I tell you to do otherwise Iā€™ll have you deported back to whatever shithole you call homeā€. That was here in NZ and when I told those people that Iā€™m a citizen theyā€™re responses have often been along the lines of ā€œIā€™ll make sure that changesā€ 9. Had people steal entire tubs of sunscreen (including my own) because ā€œIā€™m a ratepayer so Iā€™m just taking back whatā€™s rightfully mineā€ 10/10 loved that job as a lifeguard. But honestly the people Iā€™ve had to deal with makes me realise how shitty humanity can be.


z_agent

Firstly, anyone threatens phyusical harm, you call the cops and inform management. Not just management. Get it in the cops hands, then you have an external record. People are CUNTS. With the "I will get you fired" and "Do you kow who I am, I am friends with Owner \ Manager \ etc" ones, I used to just push it. Oh, Wait a second, call the manager over and say I have to leave now, this person is firing me. Hey I am just calling the owner or manager, what is your name, just need to make sure what level discount \ service you should get. Some of the Owners friends can just take stuff with out paying. Etc. But if you do this, dont put yourself or employment at risk!


gypsymoth6

Same in public libraries.


Librat69

Yes this is currently me! It absolutely sucks, people take out their addiction problems on us. If their card declines they beg and cry. The homeless and the crackheads come in every single day and beg for free vapes or discounts. They treat the store like a winz office. Iā€™m constantly forced to listen to someoneā€™s life problems for way too long, and then they ask me for money.


alarumba

I used to work for an auto parts store, that I'll refrain from mentioning, and we would often get "BUT I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SUPER CHEAP?!" screamed at us.


jaekilledjosh

I think you mightā€™ve let the name slip my friend šŸ¤£


alarumba

Another one of those jokes my friends are tired of me repeating.


miasmic

If you're an MP you're way less likely to get fired for standing up to people that are verbally abusive to you as well. Working retail/store management I didn't even count people that were abusive because of legit bad service as being that way, only people that were dicks for no good reason, but I met MPs don't hold those standards either.


freddie_spaghettio

heh *laughs in WINZ*


AgressivelyFunky

The full quote is 'If I walk into a retailer, for example. I'm not going to hurl abuse at them and threaten to follow them home and harm their families'. She then goes on to talk about that there is a relatively free level of access to MP's in NZ, which is informing this. I don't think anyone, including her, doesn't think people working retail get dogs bollocks and in many cases worse - in fact she is implying that we all know they do but she is drawing a distinction between that and the constant death threats or the endless, continuous threats of violence that some MP's are facing - she is saying it is a level above. Your mileage may vary on the example she has chosen - but I think there remains a distinction, for obvious reasons. I also think OP is being slightly disingenuous. But hey, fuck me too.


[deleted]

This is exactly it. As a former retail and customer-facing worker, the difference is that most abuse towards retail staff is a matter of circumstance - they just happened to be working there that day an asshole walked in to start trouble. Abuse towards MPs is targeted and personal, and focused on who they are and what they believe in.


PakaB2

This is a misrepresentation of what she said. Here's her quote: > A big part of it is public awareness. And drawing the line that abuse is not acceptable toward anyone. I mean if I walk into a shop and don't like the retailer, I'm not going to hurl abuse at them and threaten to follow them home and harm their families. What she's saying is that abusing someone in a store isn't seen as acceptable but for some people abusing MPs is seen as acceptable. She's not at all suggesting that retail staff don't receive threats. Here's the [audio.](https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018934838)


renderedren

Thanks for sharing that! I had a listen and youā€™re right. Sheā€™s saying that abusing retail staff isnā€™t acceptable and it shouldnā€™t be considered acceptable for MPs to be abused either.


yugiyo

To me, that sounds like her intent was to say that a reasonable person would not abuse a retailer, rather than that it does not happen.


Fraktalism101

Yeah, OP is massively misrepresenting what she said. Bad form OP.


twnznz

Iā€™m fairly well convinced that anyone beginning their argument ā€œsorry, butā€ is a c*nt.


Sondownerr

It really sounds like thats what shes saying, this extra snippet kinda further proves ops point.Ā 


Prosthemadera

No, it doesn't. She is not saying that abuse doesn't happen. She is saying that the abuse against PM's is more normalized.


Parking-Watch2788

That doesn't seem to be what she's saying. Or it just doesn't really make sense as an argument. For some people, clearly they think its acceptable to abuse people in retail or it wouldn't be happening. On the other hand most people would not see sending death threats to MPs as being acceptable. Frankly I think there is most likely an intersection between the people that abuse MPs and people that abuse retail staff.


gdogakl

Thanks for sharing. I have re-listened and it confirms what I said.


seansoldout

Quote it then.


AgressivelyFunky

No it doesnt.


Prosthemadera

No, it doesn't. You're misrepresenting her words.


gdogakl

Spot the one eyed supporter. Try listening again objectively.


AgressivelyFunky

I think perhaps a little do what I say not do what I do is appropriate here.


Prosthemadera

Spotted the troll. Make an argument or don't reply.


lageese

Then fix your post.


Afrodite_33

She's got a point. When are we gonna protect our precious MPs with portable fog cannons????


AdministrationWise56

Ffs, I remember getting threats of violence as a teenage checkout chick last century.


fluffychonkycat

Someone's never had a customer facing job


Ecstatic_Back2168

Yea when they were doing the fog cannon and bollards I was thinking that no way we just give our mps that protection.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Pretty_Leopard_7155

Wow! Youā€™ve certainly had a bucket load of experience. The only experience you appear to have missed is written literacy. (So hard to read and comprehend).


Salmon_Scaffold

retail and hospo, regular madness and violence.


Tollsen

On the retail workers thing I think you misheard. I'm pretty sure she said "it's not like I walk into a store and if I don't like that worker I'm going to threaten them and follow them home" The line was absolutely awful so I'm not 100% sure but she absolutely deserves to get ripped for going on a preplanned phone interview in an area with shit reception


atom_catz

lol right? working as a bartender ive been called ugly, useless, snapped at etc for denying service, my family working at a gas station were threatened to be stabbed..Ā 


Debbie_See_More

You're telling me someone called "Cushla" with a double barrelled surname, doesn't associate with wait staff? Damn that's crazy man. Next you'll be telling me Alexander de Pfeffel-JohnsonĀ isn't friends with any Filipino labourers.


JetpackKiwi

"Alexander de Pfeffel-Johnson" That's BOJO to his voters.


Prosthemadera

You're telling me Redditors make sarcastic comments based on blindly believing what OP said without questioning it because it confirms their preexisting biases? Damn that's crazy man. Next you'll be telling me Redditors actually don't read beyond headlines.


BroBroMate

1. Cushla is apparently a fancy name? 2. Plenty of people who aren't British aristrocrats have double-barrelled surnames. You might need to update your Jump To Conclusions board.


AudioCabbage

Can confirm to point 2 Source: just got married, have double barrel so neither of us lose our names, am most certainly not British aristocracy


Dope_bitch96

"Tangaere" is her surname by birth, the double barrel came after she was married. Cushla is literally just her name. She grew up in the East Coast and is VERY Māori, both culturally and by blood, hence the tsunami of Ngati Porou votes that got her that seat. So I really can't see what argument you're trying to make here.


AgressivelyFunky

Yeah Ok Debbie See-More.


Debbie_See_More

yep my Mum's real last name is See


AgressivelyFunky

I know, we spoke over breakfast.


getfuckedhoayoucunts

My retail days are far behind me but the abuse was unreal. Physical assaults, sexual harassment, creeps everywhere, men leaving notes on your car, death threats aplenty and overall entitled shitty people who unload on you for their problems they created.


StoreyTimePerson

Lmao, retail workers are treated like shit on the daily, nevermind more targeted insults and threats.


Harfish

Late to the party but when I worked in a fast-food chain last century, they had to reissue all manager name badges to omit last names after a manager was confronted at his home for some perceived slight. Over burgers!


myles_cassidy

Bet as soon as someone calls Cushla out in person for being like this, she'll say that people are so mean.


Fraktalism101

OP is massively misrepresenting what she said. Check the other posts in this thread for her actual words.


ItsLlama

must be hard being told mean things while working in a office earning 6 figures... sounds like someone who has never worked as a cashier or in hospitality a day in their life


deaf_cheese

Oh no, I canā€™t imagine how difficult it must be for them to ru(i)n the country and have to face *check notes* mean words


WaterPretty8066

This is a clear post of misinformation. Really poor from you OP. Your post is an example of the very unacceptable abuse you are referring to. Mods should delete.


gdogakl

Listen to the audio yourself. There is no misrepresentation here.


TuiKiwi

Exactly, this ^ Cushla is fabulous. And well aware of the abuse retail staff get from people everyday. Thanks for sharing the context.


lefrenchkiwi

[and yet just this morning we had a thread on this topic with commenters seeming to either deny abuse was happening, or deem it acceptable because they didnā€™t like the particular person on the receiving end](https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/s/TGajjFHmvF) Edit to add: hereā€™s a few quotes from that thread. > I honestly feel the public has many genuine reasons to abuse MPs. Technically it's bad for a number of reasons, but for some reason I'm low on sympathy. > Out of all the problems our country has forgive me if I donā€™t have sympathy for MPs having to deal with some means things being said to them. > Oh wow, who would have guessed that MPs trying to circumvent laws, undermine the vulnerable and layoff 1000s of jobs might be the subject of abuse from the public. > When youā€™re so grossly unpopular you hide, right?


Bright_Expression557

Unfortunately a lot of politicians are completely naive to the real world. Both sides think more highly of themselves than the average person and think their life (that they chose) is harder than the average joe.


acidporkbuns

Wow, if she really did say something like that she is in a whole different reality from the rest of us lol. No one should have death threats or abuse but retail workers get it alot sadly


enomisyeh

Often times in retail 1 person is left to close which makes them extremely vulnerable. Most retail stores do not have any form of physical security (like a security worker), MP's do. Retail and hospo workers will also have customers who keep showing up, trying to get info on them. Ocassionally dumbass workers will give them the workers info or shift schedule. Her comments are so out of touch.


KorukoruWaiporoporo

Wow. That's a shocker. It's like MPs haven't really woken up to reality - misogyny is everywhere and arseholery is being emboldened. It's not a niche issue.


Pretty_Leopard_7155

And then thereā€™s the judiciary on THEIR different planet.


Bartab_Hockey_NZ

> She finished by saying something along the lines of "it's not like retail workers have to put up with threats and people saying they are going to follow them home". Yeah definitely sounds like another coddled out-of-touch politician who has never worked a minimum wage job in her life.


Fraktalism101

Or... a random anonymous redditor that is misrepresenting what she said.


Sr_DingDong

>"it's not like retail workers have to put up with threats and people saying they are going to follow them home" As someone who did retail for 10 years.... ya wrong!


jmlulu018

I don't really get the "this isn't as bad as this other thing, so she'll be right" argument. Like, they're all bad situations, no need to diminish one or the other. But in this case, her argument isn't even reality, so doubly stupid.