Did you guys read all my posts or do you like to insult people for no reason? The article was poorly written and I originally made the mistake of thinking this was the butcher’s girlfriend. I know it is easy for some of you to hide behind your keyboards and say mean things to people you’ll never meet but I’m sure you wouldn’t say these things to people in real life if they were standing in front of you, right?
It was an honest mistake. If it makes any of you feel better, I’m an idiot for assuming it. Not that I believe that I’m an idiot, I’m just thinking maybe you’ll chill out and be satisfied if I say it. At no point was I being unreasonable or irrational. For some reason, some of you saw it to make sure that I was insulted or ‘humiliated.’ simply because you disagreed with an incorrect assumption I made. Well, I have a good reputation here for over 10 years, longer than most of you and feel entitled to an honest error once in awhile.
This is why I don’t fancy the Internet anymore. FR isn’t much different than the rest of cyberspace. Conversation has devolved, is so impersonal, people are ruder than ever and pop off without any warning at the slightest provocation. If we were all like this in real life we’d be gunning each other down in the streets. The Internet is a parody of itself. The Internet has become a wasteland of irrationality and boorishness.
I would have never treated any one of you the way some of you have treated me here for making a little mistake like I did. The funny thing is, I’m on your side too. For the most part, our positions on this aren’t much different and you know what? I wouldn’t have felt right insulting a fellow veteran freeper. I just don’t have it in me these days.
Now, with that said, for legal reasons, the store has to exercise caution. If you read the article, they say that are ‘two sides to every story.’ I am repeating what they said. I will cut Safeway a little slack here and I will not apologize for being skeptical of the media. It’s my default position.
Perhaps Safeway was wrong to cut off his pay, but they are not wrong to investigate and they are not wrong to separate the employee from the business. You’d be shocked what people might sue you for or what kind of retribution they could be seeking. (Or maybe not) I would think they would want to keep those kinds of threats away from their store. Safeway is in a difficult position. As a business owner that deals with difficult situations, I’m going to empathize with other businesses. You are free to disagree with me and I guess you are free to insult me too. I don’t really care. My positions on this are media skepticism, anti trial attorneys and pro-business (Capitalism) here. That’s pretty CONSERVATIVE and I would put my Conservative credentials against any of your views on any given day. I doubt you would be interested in doing that now, though, because some of you obviously think that making me feel bad for no reason is more important or something. Well, you win and I fail, I guess. It doesn’t matter. The Internet is pretty ridiculous and irrelevant to me, anyway.
When I first joined this forum in 1997, I used to post under my real name but when I saw that 99% of everybody else was under a pseudonym, I had my handle changed to SamAdams76. Remember, back at the time, many enemies of the then-current administration (Clinton) were dying under mysterious circumstances. The Internet was still relatively small in scale compared to what it is today and you didn't have to be overly paranoid to be concerned that you would be in danger simply for posting negative stories about the Clintons out on the Internet.
However, I think that if all of us had to post under our real names and our identities were known, we'd be much more civil to each other. The anonymity gives most of us a false bravado and that is why we are so quick to attack each other - when for the most part, we are all on the same side. Not sure anonymous screen names is a good thing anymore. If it was mandated by FR, I would be happy to flip my screen name back to my real name.
As a matter of fact I would say exactly what I said to you to your face. Reading the whole article would have cured you of any delusion that the girl was the Butcher's girl friend. Take your ribbing like a man and quit whining about it, you are only making yourself look petty.
PS, almost every FReeper has been where you are now, they misread an article and made a comment that seemed stupid on the surface, and usually was, and learned to read articles all the way through before commenting, at least some of us learned, and we were harassed unmercifully for it, some of it a lot worse than you recieved. As I said, take your standard FR ribbing like an adult.
” Safeway is in a difficult position.”
!) Sorry I ganged up on you about your mistake. The way the posts are logged, one has to read a lot of them to see that you were bombarded
2) Safeway isn’t in a difficult situation for any reason other than their “one size fits all” response. And that is probably due to some overpaid asshole “lawyer” whose main “job” is to keep the company from being sued ( as opposed to doing the right thing). They didn’t need to cut off the employee’s pay while they “investigated” that which the local police had done already. One of Safeway’s executives was a neighbor of mine ( in Danville, CA) until he passed away. He rose to be President from a store manager. He is probably turning in his grave over how this has been handled. Through their moronic “rules” they have managed to turn something that they could have touted as a positive into a public relations nightmare.
I sincerely apologize for the the insulting post. I knew that I was wrong when I hit the “post” button. Forgive me for my insensitivity lmr. God Bless you, my friend.