The Empathy Punishment
grubstreet.com
grubstreet.com
In my 12 years working in a similar role for minimum wage, I described it as, 90% of people are pretty benign, 8% are mildly annoying, and that last 1-2% is filled with a broad spectrum of assholes that ruin it for everyone else.
The area I worked was very wealthy and the only way I can describe it is these types of people, for one reason or another, are having a bad day and you’re the last thing they’re dealing with. They don’t seem to see workers as human beings, so they use that as an outlet for whatever they’re dealing with.
The reason this punishment isn’t effective is you’re just going to shame them, not teach them empathy. She’s going to work with a bunch of people she sees as “beneath” her. She’s not trying to support herself with a minimum wage job and all the extra stress that comes with, and she’s not working 70 hours a week (like the manager in the article was). You can even hear in this woman’s interview that she’s only barely ashamed of what happened, and seems to see the action as somewhat justified/heroic.
60 hours of mandated therapy would likely be more effective, but I admire the goal here.
I doubt she sees them as beneath her.
You’re making the same flawed assumption the judge did, that working one of these jobs at one point in your life gives you some kind of magical empathy. It clearly does not.
But if she has previously worked in a service job it seems unlikely that she sees people working service jobs as beneath her in principle. If anything she probably sees them as near-peers and is acting out of a warped sense of social competition.
One thing I’ve noticed: some people lose all empathy for their former selves. Like all of it. It’s like there is no continuity between the two persons. Maybe they were fat and lost weight, or were a young adult and had to work in a fast food chain. Well immediately when they are out of that predicament they just roll their eyes at how unworthy/dumb their former selves are.
As a direct consequence they are rubbish at feeling sympathy for other people that are also in that situation. It’s like their own experience has been emotionally discarded.
35 years on my brother has been that top boss for awhile. And now, you see, the world is a meritocracy: both those who have everything and those who have nothing are getting what they deserve. What a great way to salve any remaining pangs of conscience over being on top and not needing to worry about those with nothing.
On the other hand, if the bans start coming and everyone enacts a zero tolerance setup for abusive customers, they'll realise their mistake soon enough when half the town doesn't let them shop there. Companies just need to put their workers first, and realise that assholes are not valuable customers.
That's where people that get shit on, go to shit on other people.
I used to want to go down there, and go postal.
There's a site that has stories (I suspect not all are true), about this kind of behavior: https://notalwaysright.com/newest/
One was in a “rougher” area. One was in some nicer suburbs.
I always found it ironic, but the people in the suburbs used to drive me absolutely insane.
Forgot my wallet, complaining, arguing about what road they were on after they asked me, driving over product on the sidewalk, etc.
The other location people generally got in, paid and said have a nice day, and got out.
I know what you mean, but I'm not sure I see the irony. "Rough area" and suburbs don't have exact meanings, but in my experience, for what I think is being described as rough areas, interacting with other people, including new people, is seen as good, important, even necessary, and not as "friction". In nicer suburbs, interactions with new people may be rarer & more transactional.
How you treat someone you don't regularly interact with is an extension of this.
I know people who treat their family members kind of like that, so I don't think it's so much a case of not seeing the workers (specifically) as human beings. I think the behavior is probably more about thinking of some person as being "safe" to take anger out on: that could be a low status stranger or someone close who won't/can't dump them.
> You can even hear in this woman’s interview that she’s only barely ashamed of what happened, and seems to see the action as somewhat justified/heroic.
> 60 hours of mandated therapy would likely be more effective, but I admire the goal here.
Doesn't therapy only work if the client wants to change? So that probably wouldn't be effective either, at least not by itself.
So maybe jail time with good-faith engagement with the therapy as a condition of release? The jail's there to make the person hit rock bottom, disabuse them any thoughts of superiority, and hopefully put them in a position to want to fix themselves. Then the therapy is there to give them the tools to do that.
I thought about this and think you're right and getting at what I was trying to say - they're in a position of power over the worker, and they know it, so in a sense that means they're "beneath" the abuser - and you're absolutely right, the fact that the worker cannot fight back at all is a factor in these types of cowardly attacks.
One of the worst things I wish I could stop doing is any time I see abusive behavior out in the wild towards a low wage service worker, I flip my shit on the abusive person, because it is so infuriating to me as someone who has been in the worker's shoes that they cannot do a single effing thing about it or get fired. The reaction is typically shock from the person being abusive, but I hate the fact I'm unable to control myself because eventually I'll get stabbed over it or something stupid, and it's not worth it.
It feels really good though.
I was dead for two days and my respect for these people has risen tremendously. Most people were nice, but just a few were super nasty. It also took huge toll on my body, my pulse was up all the time.
So for me, it totally “worked” to see things from a different perspective.
Sure I've had low moments in my career as a programmer, but I don't really feel harmed by those experiences.
I worked less than half a year in retail in a very wealthy town, and I still find myself thinking about some of the ridiculously entitled people I had to interact with. I feel like it permanently changed me.
In an emergency, you want doctors who are used to making decisions under stress and who are aware of their impaired decision making abilities when tired. This is a rite of passage that means in a true emergency where they have to be making good decisions without adequate resources they can do so. You see a similar tactic when training military recruits.
It's also quite frustrating the money is not there for the work put in and the personal sacrifice.
The situation is normalized in their heads, they lived it so long that they see it as normal.
And with military recruits, they are made to sleep a little so that they are easier to coerce and mold. Then not being able to think is a feature.
Personally I'm not a fan of that dichotomy. In my world view, government's reason d'etre is to protect the rights of all individuals within its jurisdiction. That means that the penal system, by extension, serves the same purpose. Within that framework, "punishment" and "rehabilitation" are both non-considerations. It's not really up to the state to be the daddy figure to make a criminal feel bad for doing a naughty, nor is it up the mommy figure to try and shape and mold the criminal into a productive member of society. It's up to the state to remove threats to life, liberty and property.
That doesn't mean that a first-offender should get a life sentence or anything. Of course not. And I'm not even necessarily opposed to the idea of the "forced empathy" remedy since I do think that the end-goal here aligns: which is to prevent this from happening again and given the judge's experiences with sending offenders to prison and her stated reason for offering this remedy, it might work. But do I care if this woman wants to improve herself? Not really. I'm far more concerned with her victim and preventing more.
I'm just offering my thoughts because I think it's an interesting discussion about the role of the penal system and appropriate remedies.
Someone working the counter at a fast food place already knows their job sucks and the worker in the article believed that working a job like hers was even harder [than jail].
> … It’s a tantalizing idea: If an angry passenger had to work a bumpy regional flight from Birmingham to Knoxville, would they stop being so mean to their flight attendants? Rehabilitation and accountability have long been goals of criminal-justice reformers seeking alternatives to incarceration,
> … The jury remains out on creative sentences and how effective they can be.
Looking at it through the lens of punishment is itself a kind of controversial view. I don’t have a horse in this race, but I’m glad people are trying out other ways of reducing bad behavior other than the ones we already know are just barely effective.
If you ever find yourself in this situation, it's better to post a sign or note to customers so they are aware of the situation. People generally aren't upset at waiting, as long as they are told before hand. What gets people upset is being deprived of their choice, and now they are "locked in" to receive some late, poorly made food, and to top it off can't even be refunded after they've already been violated.
Obviously, the woman was wrong but the judge in this case has shown he doesn't understand either.
What I gather from this story is that the offender feels no remorse. Oh the employee was much ruder! Oh she's not really that hurt! Woe is me! I wonder if she has learned anything, because people usually express their guilt when they feel it.
On the other hand, jail time for this? Isn't that a lot? Wouldn't paying damages or doing community service be more sensible here?
It's also sad to see how little the employer cared about any of it. It's no surprise that "no one wants to work anymore" when employers are this callous to their frontline employees.
It's just a sad story all around.
I guess some people will always see themselves as the hero even if it’s an extremely shameful incident.
No I think that if you physically assault someone that jail is very appropriate. Obviously there is a lot of context that should be taken into consideration: first time or repeat offender? Severity of the assault, including whether there were injuries. Aggravating factors such as whether it was hate-crime motivated etc. All of this stuff matters when deciding upon the appropriate remedy.
But I think that the role of government is to protect the rights of all people within its jurisdiction. It does that by removing the element of force from civil existence. I think there is a very healthy and important debate that should be ever ongoing about how to achieve this when people infringe upon the rights of others. But as a matter of principle, I'm completely fine removing people who would assault others from society. Whether it's for a "time out" in mild cases or indefinitely in extreme ones (with everything in between to cover case by case).
Perhaps a very public and embarrassing apology combined with damages would serve the same purpose at a lower cost. This woman missed a few days of work, and I'm sure she'd enjoy a nice vacation for her troubles.
I don't know if it's possible to change or mold other people, but even if it is I don't see that as being the proper role of a government.
But revenge or "punishment"? I think that presenting the issue as if those are the only two options (rehabilitation vs punishment) is incorrect and doesn't address the role of the penal system or of governance.
I think that the proper role of government is to protect the rights of all individuals within its jurisdiction. Consequently that means that the role of the penal system is the exact same. How the penal system achieves that, with respects to dealing with those who have infringed upon the rights of others, is a wide open discussion and one that should often be revisited. I'm opposed to the death penalty, for example, because the risk of human error and the consequences thereof are way too high. And I think that as long the system employs prisons, how we treat prisoners and how we determine sentences is of the utmost importance.
But I don't think the purpose should be to either seek vengeance or to try and "rehabilitate" criminals (assuming that's even possible). I think the main focus ought to be on achieving the purpose of governance: to create an environment of peace and liberty where the rights of individuals are recognized and protected. If you demonstrate that you are a threat to the rights of others, as proven beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt through the judicial system, then the purpose of the penal system in my opinion is to prevent you from continuing to be able to infringe upon the rights of others. Again, how it does that should be a never ending discussion and, depending on the severity of the crime, the ability to turn one's life around should be available. I certainly don't want to lock petty thieves up for life with no ability to put aside their criminal ways and become productive members of society should they so choose. I just think that the onus for making things right needs to be on the offender. That that's not what the system ought to be there for nor should it be the responsibility of the victims ("society", tax payers, as well as the direct victims etc.) to try and "impose" those very personal choices and actions on the offender.