SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
An apparently obnoxious restaurant employee in Vancouver BC has filed a human rights complaint claiming that he has been discriminated against because he's "too French." CBC News reports that Guillaume Rey has filed a complaint at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against Milestones Restaurant and its parent company, Cara Operations, where he worked as a waiter from October 2015 to August 2016. Rey says his co-workers misinterpreted his "direct, honest and professional" French personality.
Although Rey was reportedly well-liked by customers, on several occasions he was disciplined and warned about how he treated his colleagues, which the restaurant described as "combative and aggressive." Rey was fired for violating the company's Respect in the Workplace policy.
Rey might want to look closely at another recent decision, in which the Human Rights Tribunal decided that a local "'Brash, loud and obnoxious gay male' doesn't have right to (send) rude emails" to his local city council.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @12:58AM (57 children)
I don't know about the rest of you, but I and many of my friends are sick of idiots like this "sensitive" waiter who whine because "life isn't fair".
Guess what, Sensitive Waiter : Life isn't fair for ANYONE.
Grow up, shut up, and make the best of your life, and quit your bitching.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:12AM (21 children)
I've traveled all over the world, and in my experience, French Canadians can be some of the most annoying people you will ever meet.
That "I am French, so you must tolerate me being an asshole" stuff doesn't play well among people who are not French ( what a surprise, right ? ).
Your often hear that German tourists are the worst, but in my opinion the French Canadians are in a class by themselves in terms of people who behave in a manner which is guaranteed to piss off even mellow easygoing people.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:21AM (11 children)
French salespeople need to learn to be polite and deferential with people looking to spend money.
Anglo-Saxons need to grow some thicker skin and not get offended because most of the countries touching the Med have a much more direct and in-your-face culture.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:41AM (7 children)
French salespeople need to learn to be polite and deferential with people looking to spend money.
According to TFS, this guy was well-liked by customers. It was only his thin-skinned coworkers who didn't like him.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:49AM (5 children)
I read it, but I've spend enough time with French salespeople to be confused as to whether I should believe it.
I even dated a girl who decided she would never live in France because of the way many assholes treated her non-French-speaking Barely-English-speaking parents, in tourist areas.
I guess he is the proverbial exception, and should instantly get Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur.
My statement still stands, for way too many French and Anglo-Saxons.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday March 27 2018, @08:02AM (4 children)
Try to live in USA or UK and tell me the way you are treated if you are a Barely-English-speaking, let alone a non-English-speaking.
I have a friend that went to London and with his strong Spanish accent asked a middle-age woman "To the Coven Garden?". The woman answered "In English, Please" and turned around. That is unthinkable in Spain, everybody tries to understand and help those who try to communicate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:14PM (2 children)
We're not all assholes. I work in a University and had a student who was obviously Spanish (Not Central or South American) come to me for some computer help. He asked me in the best way he could. Luckily, I speak a little Spanish. After I helped him, he thanked me for responding in such a clear and "enunciated" manner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)
I wonder why you felt it necessary to include that parenthetical remark. Would you have acted differently if it had been a Central or South American?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:23PM
Probably because of the "speak a little Spanish" part.
If you speak Catalan or Castellano, you ain't speaking no American dialect.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:39PM
In the US? With just a little english, you'll be just fine, maybe a little headache trying to make yourself understood, but I doubt you'd encounter any rudeness. If you can't speak english at all, you will have some difficulty unless you stick to places staffed with speakers of your language (which, for spanish at least, are relatively common, and a high percentage of the population also knows some spanish). Customer service, and helping those in need are a big part of US culture, excepting the north-east, which has a much more abrasive tendency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:34PM
(Score: 1) by snmygos on Tuesday March 27 2018, @05:28AM
If you have read the article, you can see he is "direct" with staff, not customers.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:38PM
People who are "too French" need a safe space where they are protected.
This is especially true of French salespeople.
I would go so far as putting all salespeople of any nationality into a safe space where they cannot interact with other non-salespeople. And I would include French or non-French advertisers in my definition of salespeople who need a safe space.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @08:04PM
Anglosaxons used to have a pretty in your face culture too. That is, an axe in your face, so we can take your stuff and burn down your home. The mediterranean folks should feel free to continue exercising their culture in everyone's faces provided they intend to show the same tolerance for the old Germanic ways.
Not only should this bullshit not be legally protected, it probably shouldn't be particularly tolerated when it clashes with the dominant culture. It's one thing to let people in from across the world, it's another to suggest that they can treat the society like it's theirs to dispose of as they see fit. "When in Rome" comes to mind...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:15AM (5 children)
In my experience, Americans can be some of the most annoying people you will ever meet.
They are well known to be proud to be be assholes, and are often ignorant about everything except the town they grew up in.
Case in point: Canada is a big country - the french people in Quebec are known as the "Americans of the North", where the ones from Eastern Canada are quite nicer IMHO.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by SpockLogic on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:40AM (3 children)
Quebec would be a wonderful place if it wasn't full of French Canadians.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:58AM
Spock is dead, that does not bode well for your "logic".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:38PM
And the U.S. would be great if it wasn't full of Americans.
See how this works dipshits?
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:40PM
I don't come here to read prejudicial comments like yours.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:44PM
Hmm:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=quebec+americans+of+the+north [google.ca] 6 results
https://www.google.ca/search?q=quebecois+americans+of+the+north [google.ca] 4 results
I can't find a lot of support for your assertion.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aclarke on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:38PM
The person in the article appears to be French, not French Canadian.
(Score: 2) by dw861 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:21AM
The waiter is not French Canadian (ie, Quebecois). He is French, from France. If he were from Quebec, the CBC would not have continually referred to him as "French".
Had you actually read the article, you would have learned that it goes on to describe a group that assists European Francophones integrate into Canadian society.
Glad to see that you don't let your lack of knowledge of the facts get in the way of expressing your thoughts, however.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:53AM
Germans are only the worst for restaurants because they actually expect staff to get paid. You see, in Germany, if you get a bill for €17.25 in a restaurant, many would just "round up" to €18 as a tip. €20 would be extremely generous. Anything more is completely unheard of.
So yes, Germans are some of the worst tippers around but generally friendly.
(Score: 5, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:20AM (5 children)
A thrashing's inappropriate here. What he deserves is a proper frogging.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:36AM
That was a ribbiting comment.
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Tuesday March 27 2018, @12:35PM (3 children)
Q: I say, waiter, have you got frogs' legs?
A: Oui, Monsieur.
Q: Well, then, hop over to the bar and fetch us a drink!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 27 2018, @05:54PM
A "wee man"? Or small? Or euphemistically "tiny handed"?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by gtomorrow on Tuesday March 27 2018, @08:35PM (1 child)
I LOVE THAT JOKE!!!!
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday March 27 2018, @09:06PM
You can thank Mrs Turgid.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @02:58AM (4 children)
Or else what?
Like it or not, bitching is protected under the right to free speech.
You don't need to listen to him, but then again you can't stop him bitching.
Just sayin'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:30AM (2 children)
" ...you can't stop him bitching."
*
*
Ahh, but you are not necessarily correct, grasshopper.
Quick story :
Years ago I was confronted at a popular beach on Cape Hatteras by a guy who wanted to park his car right next to my car, despite the fact that I was engaged in setting up sailing gear in that empty spot and there were 20+ other empty parking spots within 50 yards. Now, this character pulls up and says : "You must move your stuff, I want to park there !". The guy had Quebec license plates. I may indeed have moved for him if he had asked nicely, but his rudeness meant there was no way I was moving. So I told the guy : "I was here first, I am NOT moving, and you need to find some other parking spot".
So then the guy gets out of his car and starts to get aggressive and starts yelling at me. At this point I said : "Listen, asshole, if you push this, I will kick your ass and you will find yourself in jail in a country that is not yours, because I have witnesses and you don't"
That shut him up and he left immediately. The point of this story is that if you have a pair of balls between your legs, you absolutely CAN shut people up when they are acting like jerks. Maybe you're a coward, but I was damned if I was going to be pushed around in my own country by some asshole who was a guest in my country. So not only did I succeed in shutting that fucker up, I sent him down the road with his tail between his legs. You are free to judge my actions if you like, just be aware that I do not give the slightest fuck what you think. I'd do the same thing again in a heartbeat. I am a friendly guy, but no one pushes me around, unless they have a badge and a gun.
.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:37AM
But I'm not necessary wrong. You may be able to stop some of them but:
- you'll not be able to stop all of them - e.g. some decades ago, the average Joe would consider "gay rights activists" bitchers. They, as a group, still had the right to free speech.
- you'll not be able to stop every one of them, not everyone will be intimidated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:33PM
Not always. It did not work during the debates. And despite what you say, it was not enough for Hillary to win.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:49AM
> Or else what?
or else you get fired by your boss. it's sad you don't know what the first amendment is 7th grader. next question.
> you can't stop him bitching
and no one tried to stop anyone from bitching. they just disallowed his bitching on private property. did you even read the summary?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:00AM (19 children)
FTFY
Nitpicking, I know... but there are enough people in this world for which life is more than fair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:01AM (1 child)
WTF is "more than fair"? Fairness is like equality. More than fair is unfair.
Nitpicking, I know.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:41AM
They life is more than fair means their material capacity to respond to average challenges in life is above the average of the other people.
Of course, this will be seen as unfair by the other people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:15AM (16 children)
"...but there are enough people in this world for which life is more than fair."
-
-
I am going to guess you are relatively young in age, because an older person would know such a statement is nearly always true only in a narrow frame of reference.
In plain language, unpleasant things come to most everyone, sooner or later.
Don't believe me ? Here's an example : Steve Jobs who started Apple. Whatever you think of the guy, he had a pretty nice life for a while. And then pancreatic cancer stepped in. And nothing could save Steve Jobs, despite the brilliance of his mind and the hugeness of his fortune.
Some people do seem to have distinct advantages at certain times of their lives, but when their whole lives are considered, sooner or later, unpleasant things happen. Sometimes those unpleasant things are quite unpleasant indeed. Life can be a great equalizer. And we don't really know the whole story until it has
all unfolded. So be careful who you envy, and think twice before you allow yourself the luxury of feeling guilty because your life has been easy. Sooner or later
your life will not be easy - mark my words.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:30AM (11 children)
I am going to guess you are relatively young in age, because an older person would know that the fairness of life isn't assessed by the unpleasant things to come sooner or later to almost anyone, but their capacity to respond to these unpleasant things when comparing with the rest of people.
The pleasant or unpleasant things the life brings are associated with luck (or fate).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:47AM (10 children)
You utterly missed the point. Jobs was in the end unable to respond any more effectively than a poor person, because he ended up dead. Jobs was in the end no better off than a person living at poverty level would have been. You must be mentally deficient if you cannot grasp the point, because it is as obvious as it gets.
By the way, Mister Knowitall, the First Amendment does NOT protect speech when that speech occurs in a workplace.
The First Amendment protects citizens from having their speech controlled by the GOVERNMENT. The First Amendment does NOT protect free speech in a restaurant, or most any other workplace setting. By the way, I am an attorney, and you are not, because if you were you never would have made the remark
about free speech being protected, since what you wrote was erroneous at a level which would get you laughed out of a classroom in first-year law school.
You are a good example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You imagine yourself to be a lot smarter than you in fact are. You need to spend more time reading and learning, and less time posting misinformation, son.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @05:11AM
You utterly missed the point: there are events in this life nobody can fend or avoid or fight back.
Those aren't part of the fairness of life, those are part of luck/fate.
When you consider the fairness of life, it's about the capacity to deal problems which an average person would be able to deal with the average material support that s/he has available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:14AM
[compiling]
By the way, mister Knowitall lawyer, you realize that his "bitching" takes place outside his workspace, more precisely in a court of law which was asked to determine if his sacking was or was not discriminatory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday March 27 2018, @01:05PM (6 children)
The First Amendment also doesn't apply to people who aren't American, and aren't in the United States. Why bring that into this conversation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @04:20PM
It doesn't even apply to most American people. It only applies to congress:
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:32PM (4 children)
Canada has the right to free expression, perhaps not as strong as the US as we're not allowed child porn, can be shut up for national security reasons, not allowed to talk about bombs in places like airports and free speech zones might be legal, whereas in America all those things are unconstitutional by my reading of the 1st amendment.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:49PM (3 children)
Sure, but in Canada it's not called the "First Amendment". Hence my point.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday March 28 2018, @12:30AM (2 children)
True but the 1st has entered English (and perhaps other languages) as a synonym for free speech. A Canadian is more likely to associate the 1st amendment with free speech then section 2 of the charter.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday March 28 2018, @09:02PM (1 child)
I look at that differently. Someone who doesn't understand that American law doesn't apply outside the United States (yeah, extraordinary rendition, world police, but I don't mean that) might use "First Amendment" outside its correct context, but I have a hard time imagining people who pass a certain bar of understanding using it in the context you've described.
Maybe it's the same argument as for people who mean "figuratively" when they mean "literally".
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Thursday March 29 2018, @01:11AM
The average Canadian is really bombarded by American media and is probably more aware of American law then Canadian. Of course, with any thought, they'd agree that the 1st doesn't apply to us. I also wouldn't be surprised if more Canadians can quote the 1st then section 2 and don't realize that section 2 is actually more inclusive then the 1st.
Text of section 2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @09:26PM
Wow! Trump's consigliere, Michael Cohen, posting right here on SoylentNews! We've made it, Soylentils!!!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:16AM (1 child)
Like Trump, Jobs thought that he knew everything about everything.
Jobs had the means and the connections to jump the queue and see any specialist on the planet.
He could have gotten the best care available.
Instead, he decided to treat himself by eating nuts & berries and meditating.
...and WRT Jobs' end, sometimes I'm almost convinced that karma is a real thing.
The dude was a total douchebag.
Steve Jobs didn't know which end of a soldering iron to hold until Woz showed him which end is up.
If it wasn't for Woz's brilliant engineering skills, Jobs would have never progressed beyond doing manual labor stuff around the Bay Area.
So, how did he repay Woz? He cheated his best friend. [google.com]
...then there's the matter of his daughter. [google.com]
I'm reminded of the scene in "The Color of Money".
Eddie Felson: You're some piece of work. You're also a natural character.
Vincent Lauria: I've been telling her that. I got natural character.
Eddie Felson: That's not what I said, kid. I said you -are- a natural character. You're an incredible flake.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:04PM
Yes, that.
Back in the 80's and 90's I was a card carrying Apple fanboy.
At some point in the 90's I got hold of a book called "The Mac Bathroom Reader". [amazon.com]
It really made me do a double take. My biggest takeaway was how big of a prick Steve Jobs actually was. I had no idea. None.
Thinking about it, I connected some dots. The reason Jobs was stripped of power, and then left Apple on his own, was because he wouldn't let the Mac move forward. No you cannot add more memory. No color! No slots. No expansion! Etc. Geez, what a prick. His "ideal vision" of an appliance computer. (Closely realized a decade later in the first iMacs of the late 1990s. Nothing like what is branded "iMac" today.)
So he left Apple. Formed
NeVRNeXT. And what did is new computer have? Everything that he wouldn't let the Mac have! Color. Gobs of memory. Etc.OS X was when I parted ways with Apple. I didn't hate them. Thought fondly of them. But there was this new thing I started playing with in summer 1999 called Linux. Have been using it ever since. I didn't despise Apple until they decided they needed to sue whichever Android manufacturer was the most successful in any given year. Using patents that were ridiculous. Then I felt I was seeing Steve Jobs true colors at long last.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:22PM
Your two arguments aren't actually mutually exclusive. You missed part of the Venn diagram.
1. Unpleasant things happen to (most) everyone.
2. For some people in this world, life is fair.
3. Therefore, some people deserve unpleasant things.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:53AM
Well, that may or may not be true; we won't know, because rather than make any sensible attempts at fighting the cancer, he decided to starve himself and live on absurdly stringent vegan diets accelerating the rate at which the cancer took him down. There's no cure for stubborn stupidity.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:07AM (2 children)
Problem is he's filed the complaint with a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. He'll probably win. Imagine a group of government-appointed rabid ultra-SJWs, and you've got most of the Canadian HRT's.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 27 2018, @06:07PM
It's a good thing they're all in Canada. America is safe.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @09:44PM
Now imagine a whole nation of SJWs, where the people who use "SJW" as a pejorative term are a vanishingly small minority, and you have got Canada, or, for that matter, the United States. SJWs are like 97% of the population. Everyone is in favor of social justice, except for the Loony fringe, which in Canada is composed of mostly actual Loons [wikipedia.org]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:20AM
Fart at France: https://youtu.be/n9PMD8fcvAk [youtu.be]
This whining waiter is the kind of subhuman that has been pecking away at the normality of society the past 40 years. Enough already!