Ever seen the V8 commercial where people thwap someone on the forehead for not eating vegetables?
Well.... We went to Wendy's ealier today and I order my double burger combo.. I'm a picky eater.. so I order it with no pickles, tomatoes, or onions.

...then...

::THWAP::

THE CASHIER THWAPPED ME!

Just like the commercial...I stood there stunned for a minute...staring at her...got my food...and walked away.
That was the first time I was completely dumbfounded, I had NO clue how to react to it...

That's my random thwap story, thanks for listening.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Whaaaat? Cashiers are allowed to hit their customers now?? Man, that almost makes me wish I was still working in the food service industry.

No, I've never had an experience like that in a restaurant. That cashier has got a case of the Crazies.

I would have punched her.

It's a perfectly legitimate response to physical assault.

She could plead insanity, or coercion. Not that those vegetables are worth much in a vegetable sense anyway, but a little is better than nothing. As a long-standing lover of all things vegetable* I conclude you deserved it.

That said, I would have just stood there and laughed. That's the most awesome thing I've heard of happening someone for a while.

*Note: Except V8. I drink it, and I'm starting to like it somehow, but I'll never love it. That stuff is just nasty. V8 Splash stuff is good (at least I think that's the fruit-juice-like one) haven't tried Fusion.

I don't care what she pleads. I don't like people I know touching me. Knuckle sandwiches all around when you get assaulted.

That said, I would find it dreadfully amusing if it happened to others.

I dislike being touched as well, but I'd be fine with a momentary "thwap" to the head.

I don't like people I don't know sitting within two seats of me. Touching my face/head is a big no-no.

I would've said, "I just don't drink V8. Or eat veggies. So no point in whacking me in the head, chick." And walked away.

That's just me. XD

My friend Jimmie - that's not his real name, we just call him that. - does the V8 Thwap to me whenever he gets the chance; he finally quit last month though, after I did it to him and popped a lens out of his glasses. XD

I would of pulled out my police badge and say.

"You just assaulted a police stripper!"

I would've just "thwaped" her in the head as well and say, "Now how do you feel? Next time I'll just call your superviser." Personally, if someone has a habit of not liking something on their sandwich, then no one should try to put them down because of it. Everyone is different damn it!

what on earth is a "thwap"?

quick slap with your palm.

That's insane!
I would have lost it.

Its cool if you know the person - but who in their right mind hits a stranger that did nothing to warrant it.

Wow...

It's the sound it makes when somebody smacks you. Usually on the forehead or the back of the head.



I have to add... a naked burger with no tomatoes, pickles or onions is just... sad.

That's hilarious!
I'm sure I've had one of those dumbfounded moments, but for the life of me I can't remember one.

Mr. Sunshine has spoken!

Agreed, but I've never heard someone describe a burger as 'naked' that's just silly.

Yes, and just like the sun, you shouldn't touch me.


Oh?

Is it wearing clothes?

Is it? The place I used to work for called burgers that had everything on them "fully dressed", so I assume a burger with nothing would be "naked".

Naked! Naked, I say!

But feel free to THWAP me if you don't agree.

Aw now I've been around long enough to know you're just a little ball of happiness, but I'm just poking fun 'atcha.

True, they do call them that.
You have convinced me, patties alone on buns shall be henceforth known as naked!
But that still doesn't make it not sound weird.

I'm not much of a 'thwap' person, more like a 'poke' or a 'nogginbonk' if I'm feeling frisky,

It's true. I am filled to the brim with love and measured respect for my fellow man.


I should hope so.

If you're going around looking at buns and patties with nothing on and not calling them naked, I don't agree with your lifestyle choices.

At McDonald's, Smiles are Free.

At Wendy's, you get Thwaps for Free.

And that becomes an awkward sentence from the mouths of children who pronounce 'th' as 'f'.

I am on the cashiers side on this one, I don't drink V8 but I eat vegetables. I find it hilarious that someone has actually done that and those saying you would react violently are full of yourselves. You wouldn't react violently, you would just complain about it online.

well i said somthing stupid and my sister thwaped me in the head so right after see did i said
"i could have had a v8"

You're right, to a degree. It would range from a shove (accompanied with an expletive) to simply throwing my drink at their workstation as I left.

I do try to avoid closed-fist violence.

My bs detector is still going off verbose. I'd be willing to bet that if you got thwaped on the head with no fore sight of this happening you would either complain or have the same reaction as the OP. If it happened to me I would laugh my ass off and say something to the extent of, "I guess I deserved that."

I know it may hit too close to home for some of you but I admire V8 for coming out with an original and funny add campaign. Instead of one of those generic "inspirational" adds all the other health food adds use.

And a burger king you get to give thwaps for free.

Given that I would known about the V8 shtick that's probably what I would have done too. But since I havn't heard of it 'till now I would have probably said something more along the lines of: "Gee I usually don't get that until after I've asked for their number."

It depends on my mood. If I was in a good mood, I'd consider my options and probably just throw a drink. If I was in a bad mood and the service was poor, I'd shove.

Keeping in mind that I only ever walk in if I am dining in and I only ever dine in with friends or family. I play to an audience.

...

No, just no. You aren't the type.

yah i probobly would to

I've never had a dumbfounded moment that I can recall but I have had a waiter tell me what I was eating for dinner. That was a pretty strange moment.

Hey, you don't believe it, you don't believe it.

I will say that I think there's a huge and unforgivable lack of professionalism being displayed by the thwapper. I'm a lazy and generally incompetent-through-apathy employee and as such don't work. If I wanted to be employed, I would have to leave my crap behind. One of the very few things I hate more than anything are the people who don't do their job without some degree of efficiency and professionalism. Fast food is one of the worst for it since most people don't respect the job but it's a loathesome behaviour.

To be perfectly honest, I would prefer some random stranger on the street to punch me in the jaw than have a repeat of Kudos' experience. At least the stranger wouldn't have been payed for assaulting me.

Wow you really have your panties in a knot over this one. Lighten up, it is a minimum wage job mostly done by kids in school, immigrants (adjusting to a new culture) and failures. Having worked at eating establishment for years I can say with authority, you should pray that the worst you get is a thwap on the head because it can be much worse especially if you are a bad customer.

It's a contempt I have for paying incompetence across the board. The incident in question isn't so much a real issue as it is the attitude it springs from.

I don't expect or particularly ask for people to be bright and cheerful and happy to serve. They are employed to serve a function. People who work in retail are payed to sell you stuff, people who work as stockists are payed to move boxes, people who work in fast food are payed to give you your order and get you gone so the next person can come through. Having been a terrible employee (who was very rightly fired) and having watched unforgivably stupid (as in, nothing wrong with their brain, it's just not applied) have continued employment undermines the very fabric that underpins out society.

Goes against the grain of capitalism.

Not in any spiritually fulfilling manner, you know, not lusting after possessions or working a job because you enjoy it. It's a trend towards sloth that, since these peoples employment is conditional upon them doing their jobs, ought not stand. But my views have been somewhat shaped by my being fired from my last job. It wasn't so much that I was fired (I would have fired me long before then, I really didn't do the job I was getting payed for) but more that for all my incompetence, I watched a lot of people being as bad as I was who weren't fired just because nobody there really took the assembly of the stuff seriously (I "carried" boxes, they assembled certain pieces of medical equipment).

It's odd knowing that there are more than a few ambulances in my country who will have to use a second penthrox on somebody in a car accident because a bunch of incompetents couldn't be fucked actually doing the job right.

No, it goes with Capitalism perfectly. The food service industry is an undesirable job that pays minimum wages, in a capitalist society only the lowest common denominator would take that job because they do not qualify for anything else. Since we pay them minimum wage and considering the demographics that accept this wage, they are only expected to do the bear minimal the job requires, serving the food in accordance to health regulations and taking people's money is minimum. The only way you can expect better service is if you raise the standards for the job and the wages which would leave millions of people jobless which goes against Capitalism.

This happened to me. I was being a smart ass that night and asked the waitress what it was I was eating that night. And she told me. And I ate it. Girl had good taste.

I just realised I made this sound lifethreatening.

It's really not. It's just painkillers they use on site in car crashes and some other little stuff here and there like tests to measure the strength of an asthma attack.

But the people really are incompetent. I've watched them do two and a half boxes assembling the pieces backwards and rather than redo it (which their boss will pay for, stupidly), they simply spread it out over five boxes and put correctly done pieces on the top half.


Oh, the employees are easily explained.

I just think there are more than enough of the lowest common denominator that employers can afford some form of order being enforced. I've had people (mostly in bookstores, oddly) simply refuse to do part of their job because their boss wasn't around to force them and I'm usually far too lazy to follow that up. I know I fell into their ploy but it's so much more effort for no real benefit anyway. At least condescending the manager while I'm angry is funner.

Then again, the Australian food industry is very different to the American one. Nobody in my country really tips and the wages are a fair bit higher. It's not bad pay considering how easy the work is, usually, it's just that nobody wants to do it because it's menial and deals with (usually) fat morons all day.

But my dislike stands. These people are all extremely replaceable. At most, you're losing a few days of training time. There is little to no excuse for tolerating gross breaches of professional etiquette.

Firing someone over thwapping someone over the head? Yeah that would go over well. The people that are offended by getting thwapped over the head are fewer than people offended by firing someone over something that petty.

It legally constitutes an assault (and least it does here, although nobody would bother trying to prosecute it because any judge would laugh it out of court and the cops would probably end up being unpleasant to you) and is gross unprofessionalism.

The fact that people get pissy about incompetents losing their jobs for not doing them properly reflects a rather skewed view present in our society. It's a widely held view, I'll concede, but bowing to it because it's widely held is stupid and counterproductive.

I see no effective difference between the example and somebody playfully spitting on you. Just because it amused the person doing it is not justification for letting it go unpunished (or so I was told a couple of times in high school). If this was the only instance of unprofessional behaviour then I wouldn't recommend firing the spaz but a genuine reprimand should have been made at the very least.

Instead, I'm sure nothing was done. It probably wasn't even known by the manager and if it was it would have been ignored. After all, people aren't complaining. They also aren't complaining if you're spitting in their food without them knowing or if they don't know you never wash your hands after going to the toilet. Drop their food? Well, if it looks salvageable and they didn't see then it's fine. Especially if you dropped it before you cooked it.

And hey, if people are having their friends clock them out so they can leave fifteen minutes early, that's fine too. Sure, it's stealing, but it's only stealing like a couple of bucks, tops.

They're all the same thing.

Different degrees of severity but they're all unacceptable breaches of professional etiquette. Your janitor wants to talk to some people? That's fine, so long as they do their job in a timely fashion. When your janitor wants to hit a paying customer in the back of the head on clock, not so fine. Just because it was cute and "random" does not offer any defense for the inappropriateness of the gesture. This is not a gray area. This is not a place where there is room for a nuanced view. Employees are paid to do a job. They represent whatever institution they work for while they're working. In order to stay employed, they have to follow the rules of employment. Written and unwritten. Personally, I couldn't care less if the person I was buying a hotdog from was talking about the sexual violation of pig corpses but my not caring doesn't make that acceptable workplace behaviour.

I'm not a compromising man. There aren't many issues where I have any compulsion to make a stand at all, being honest, and all of this could have gone unsaid. Hell, you could have interpreted my mildly humuorous first response to this as the joke it was or you could have accepted at face value my assertion that this was a topic I had some strength of feeling on. We could probably have even let it rest at me expressing it touched on a couple of my personal idiosyncrasies. But we didn't so here we are.

Capitalist typically don't care if it is illegal unless someone takes action, here your ass would be laughed out of court and you would get your ass kicked by the companies organized crime affiliates if not killed. In context Mr. Shadow was thwapped over the head as a pop culture reference for ordering something considerably unhealthy. It is perfectly acceptable in my book and honestly I would love to see it made a common practice.

Your counter example is weak at best. If she was stealing from the company she would be fired, people actually care about and clocking out early wouldn't be stealing since they are payed on an hourly wage not salary. If she left early it would be money out of her pocket.

Having her friends clock her out while she left early was how that one went, meaning she was effectively stealing wage (I know a couple guys who do this but I can't really hold them accountable. Their boss knows and doesn't do anything more than bitch about it).

Referring to a weak counter example doesn't apply to my world view. I lump all the activities under the same banner and only the punishment changes from one to the other. I find the behaviour contemptible. I explained my view and wasn't doing a particularly big effort to convince you that the girl should be punished. The fact that you have an intuitive support of the arbitrary system of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour (because I'm relatively sure it would be a different story all around had she spat on the guy) means that you aren't likely to agree. I, however, have been given no reason (other than "it's pop culture") to suggest this is any different from a myriad of unacceptable behaviours.

Employees on a salary payment plan are paid for a certain amount of time. As long as they get their job done, it generally doesn't matter too much how long they work. Salaried employees often get stuck doing overtime because they won't get paid for it. What matters is that their job is done in a timely fashion, not that they work exactly the time they're paid for.

That doesn't apply to fast food cashier jobs since they need to be there from x to y and if they leave 15 minutes before y they have not met there obligations. Thats is why they are payed on an hourly bases not salary.

Ninja editor! I can't prove that but even if you didn't ninja edit your example is still a non sequitur since it completely contrasts the first example from the cause of the incident to those effected by it. The fact they are both bad work practices is not enough of a control.

You are right though, I do support more lenient work standards than you that is in the realm of opinion though as long as they are following the health code, take my money and give me my food I don't see what more you could ask for out of a minimum wage worker (I am considering relative minimal wages not legal in case you were wondering)

Back to the core debate, I went back through the thread and noticed you said it would be assault and legally actionable but in the same breath said you would be laughed out of court. That means it isn't legally actionable assault but instead technically assault but not actionable. Normally I wouldn't point something like that out but this is unarguably a valid distinction and it destroys your main argument.

I was addressing your statement saying salaried employees are stealing if they leave before their allotted work hours are fulfilled. So no, it doesn't have anything to do with cashier jobs.

I didn't edit it, you probably just misread it. It wasn't expressed very clearly and it was in the middle of other stuff.

And as far as I'm concerned, they're all within the same category. For a whole range of reasons, they're unacceptable workplace behaviour. My complaint doesn't really lie with her - like you said, she is minimum wage and maybe she doesn't care about her job. My problem is firstly with her employer who wouldn't do anything and then with society at large who excuse an unacceptable breach in the etiquette for nothing.

She didn't break the rules for any real reason. She has no excuse. She was bored and thought it was funny and made a pop culture reference that the customer didn't even know about until after the fact. She broke the rules. It's a simple matter. Instead, you all go with the emotional response (it was funny, nobody was hurt, no problem at all) but the truth is that she actually broke the law while doing it. And it's not even an arguable law. Standards of behaviour ought to be held when their compliance is part of the condition of their employment.

But they're not. And people explain away such incidents but wail about falling standards. I'm not asking for her to be cheerful or to go above and beyond the call of duty for a minimum wage. I'm asking for her to refrain from assaulting customers while she's working.


No, it doesn't affect my argument. It just explains why I don't seem to live by my ideals and have little to no respect for law enforcement and a bunch of other little things.

And the core of my argument wasn't that she had broken the law so she should be punished. It was that her actions were, without question, unacceptable. I don't think anybody is going to suggest that her behaviour should, at any stage, be made compulsory for other people to do. In the same breath as you'll agree that she probably shouldn't have done it, you'll laugh (mostly because it probably was funny and many of you will agree if she's attractive) and say that no harm came of it so there's no problem.

And that's wrong.

The consequences of an action are not to be considered in judging somebody for the action. You judge the means and the end separately because they are separate (but related) things. Her action was unacceptable. There were no adverse consequence. What are we left with? Some fucking unacceptable behaviour. This wasn't the action of some random person, she was employed and working at the time. Her employer should have taken her to task for this. What if something had gone wrong? One of them tripped, an eye got poked. Should she be punished if, by some freak accident, she blinded the guy in one eye? It's irrelevant what could have gone wrong. The possible consequences don't matter. The fact is that she needs to do her job and not act so unacceptably because, if nothing else, her employer is liable for her actions as an employee.

This means she has to dress appropriately, usually in a uniform. Means she has to be careful what she says in the hearing of the customers, usually meaning no swearing or lewd discussion. Means she has to be courteous and professional, meaning no assaulting people. And all of this has to be done in addition to her job description.

This isn't going above and beyond. This isn't something that is changed by how much you are paid. It is the minimum an employer ought to expect from his employees. It is a series of standards that changes from job to job (bartender can say stuff a librarian can't, for example) but the simple fact is that she couldn't meet the minimum standards of employment for her job and should be reprimanded for her failure.

Enough little failures and she should be fired, just like anybody else.

I agree. You're paid to do a job, be there on time, stay until your shift is over, and behave in a professional manner (there are various levels of "professional" depending on the job, of course).

My company doesn't put up with immature crap from people who are old enough to know better. That kind of negative behavior affects every other person in the vicinity, and they don't tolerate it because it causes problems with both quality and customer satisfaction. It's literally bad for business.

Verbose. It wasn't random, it was a cultural reference and though not your standard of professional behavior it was hilarious, clearly nonviolent, and will have no repercussion. I fully support the action given the context and believe in the food industry shouldn't be held to the same professional standards of an android. It is not only unethical but bad for business since the professional standards you want to hold them too is mutually exclusive with warm personalities that support and maintain recurring customers.

Also, your posts are too damn long. You claim to be in collage, take some creative writing courses you need to learn how to use an economy of words.

What? It wasn't violent? It was violent, it wasn't particularly aggressive, but it was unarguably violent.

She hit a customer in the head, how isn't that violence?

This is a fair point but it's a different matter. If we're discussing how the world is, she did nothing wrong and it's not likely to impact on her career or person at all.

But I was discussing how the world ought to be. If the world actually held people to the standards they profess to have, she should get in trouble.


Hitting somebody on the head, no matter how softly, is a violent act.

And since when is something being a cultural reference an excuse for anything? Hell, by now, school shootings are a cultural reference in America. Doesn't excuse them any.


It's mutually exclusive with warm personalities that I expect them not to hit people? Or that I expect them to steer clear of controversial or taboo subjects while working?

It's fascinating to know that showing a form of self-restraint that keeps you obeying the law is the same professional standard of an android.


My hilarious comments based around the nature of your typo there aside, you don't get to play this game, Carcinogen.

If I don't explain myself in full and at length you attack my very abridged view and puff up with pride that you found the logical hole in a summary.

If I do explain myself in full and at length, you claim I need to learn how to use an economy of words and otherwise ignore the post.

Well, here's your economy.

She Did The Wrong Thing. That Behaviour Is Unacceptable From An Employee.

You've not offered a single claim to show that I'm wrong about that. You have tried to employ some rhetoric (and don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the rhetoric) by saying I'm demanding robotic levels of obedience by claiming that hitting people is wrong. You made some observations on why people don't work hard at shit jobs. You've also attacked a few holes in an analogy without addressing the point it was supposed to help illustrate.

What you haven't done is explain to me, on any level, why the fact she's a Free Spirit doing a Shit Job should mean it's okay for her to break from acceptable behaviour.

Thwapping violent? No way, as you agreed it is technically assault but not actionable, meaning it isn't a big deal according to the law, in this context. Its on the same level of violence as high five or a pat on the butt meaning it is negligible so it is not a violent act. Sure patting a stranger on the butt is wrong, but even with out consent a pat on the butt would be harassment not assault.

Same logic applies here I think it is the joke behind the thwap that has you seeing red, too close to home there verbose? What it would be if someone was looking to press charges is harassment since it could potentially be a very embarrassing for someone it is only assault by the most liberal definitions.

--------------------

I'll summarize my stance on it as well:

Lighten up, it was funny.

It was physical assault. Assault is the attempt to commit battery. Battery is "the unlawful application of force
to the person of another resulting in either bodily injury or an offensive touching".
Now, I don't know if the person involved suffered any bruising or pain, but I do know I would be incredibly offended if a stranger - esp. in the service industry - did that to me!
It may be funny on a commercial, but you need to differentiate between TV and real life.