Stupid corporation news story: jobs.aol/articles/2013/10/18/heroic-walmart-worker-fired/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D393631 Walmart Worker Fired After Helping Woman Under Attack In Parking Lot 30-year old Kristopher Oswald acted when he saw a woman being beaten Oct 18th 2013, America Online. By Dan Fastenberg You just never know when you are going to stumble onto a situation that requires you to step in and help a person in need. So if you are on a break from work, and see a man beating up a woman in your company parking lot, the noble thing to do is stand up for her. Its the choice 30-year-old Kristopher Oswald made earlier this week during his overnight shift stocking pet food at a Walmart store in the southern Michigan town of Hartland. After seeing a man ambush a woman, Oswald intervened and diverted the mans attention until the police arrived. But as a result of making that choice, Detroit TV station WXYZ reported, Oswald was fired. Oswald is a recent hire of the retail behemoth, having begun his job about seven weeks ago. His freshly minted status as a Walmart staffer means that he was not yet considered a full-time employee. But the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer still said that Oswald was subject to a company policy forbidding employees to intervene in such situations, according to the news site Opposing Views. And so Oswald was let go. No one was more baffled by the dismissal than Oswald himself. I never expected all of this. And the least I expected was to not have a job, he told WXYZ. ABC News Radio quoted a Walmart spokesperson as saying that Oswald violated the companys workplace violence policy, which bans such actions as the tackling of a shoplifter or assaulting a fellow employee. We had to make a tough decision, one that we dont take lightly, and hes no longer with the company, Walmart rep Ashley Hardie told The Associated Press. Oswald says that even though he was let go, he would make the same choice if he had to do it again. I am always going to act the right way and do the right thing even after all this, ABC News Radio quoted him as saying. Twitter users are rallying to Oswalds side. Walmart: Give Kristopher Oswald back his job, tweeted Paula Reed. Some are going further. Twitter user Christian Jimmy declared, My family and I are boycotting your store for the firing of Kristopher Oswald. For Oswald, it would have been easy to have avoided the confrontation altogether. The incident reportedly occurred at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday as Oswald was sitting in his car during a break from his overnight shift. When Oswald first noticed a man and woman tussling, he thought they may have just been horsing around, but he decided to check out the situation anyway, he said. After asking the woman if she needed help, the man got angry and began punching Oswald, he said. The woman has not been identified. The former Walmart staffer said that he was next able to pin down the man, but two other men soon appeared on the scene to help out the assailant. The police did arrive shortly thereafter, but not before the man who Oswald originally confronted had escaped. ~~~~~ Steinhauers questions and comments: Wal-mart: How much do you spend on advertising, some of which is to purely to promote you as a nice company? Then you have this employee policy that gurantees a lot of bad publicity. To the Board of Directors, how much are share holders paying you to screw up? What does the woman who was attacked have to say? Was this a stranger robbing her? Was it an intense arguement between her and her husband, boy friend, or brother? If it was a domestic dispute, intervening was still the right thing to to. But it would be nice to know the full set of facts when judging Wal-Marts decision. According to the TV news story the woman was a Wal-Mart customer. So Wal-mart fired Kristopher Patton for rescuing a customer who was being assaulted in the Wal-Mart parking lot? (The TV news story accompanied the text article that appeared on America OnLine.) Kristopher Patton Oswald, you now have something to add to your resume, confirmed by the news media, to help you get a job with an employer you can be proud to work for. And that employer can have positive publicity for hiring you, compared to the negative publicity Wal-marts policy made for itself. If you want a career in retailing, this makes you a stand out job applicant, for an employer who thinks like you, and most people reading the news story about Wal-Mart firing you. Wal-Mart may have done you a big favor, while shooting itself in the foot. I wish there was a way to measure the amount of sales Wal-mart loses because of its decision, and compared to what Wal-mart fears it would lose in a law suit from the attacker. Clearly Wal-marts decision was based on dollars, not morality. Any reader who owns Wal-Mart stock, please attend the next annual share owners meeting, and ask the Board of Directors who are running for re-election about this incident and Wal-Mart policy. The news media covering the meeting will love it. For those (now former) Wal-Mart customers who still have a receipt at home, like many stores does it have an E-mail address where you can give Wal-Mart feedback about your shopping experience? What a convenient way to let Wal-Mart know you will no longer shop there, with proof of the dollars in future sales Wal-Mart is losing due to its amoral policy. And if you think Wal-mart is a safer place to shop because of its unwillingness to have its employees defend it, do you still think it is safe, now that it is well known by criminals as cowardly Wal-Mart? Clearly the phrase America Strong does not include Wal-Mart, and other businesses with the same policy. For all shop lifters reading this, you did notice that Wal-mart has a policy to NOT confront you. Clearly it is safer to shop lift or rob Wal-mart than a Mom and Pop store where the owner might shoot you. (The Wal-mart probably has more money too.) If I had children, I would encourage them to consider Kristopher Oswald a positive role model and members of Wal-Marts policy setting Board of Directors as bad role models, on the matter of being responsible citizens. And if I were a Wal-mart employee, this policy would dissuade me from thinking of myself as a PROUD Wal-mart employee. Wal-mart will defend itself by (truthfully) stating its non-confrontational policy is intended to protect employees and customers from criminals. But when its policy is known to criminals, employees and customers can be at greater risk, from a cowardly criminal with a gun, who is attracted to Wal-mart because of its do not resist policy. Then when the first time criminal gets to Wal-mart, he/she is nervous, and unintentionally shoots someone, then gets scared and shoots more. There are no guarantees on corporate policy to resist, or not resist. My personal shopping preference is to patronize merchants that are not known to be an easy target for robbers. And remember, if this news report is accurate, the crime here was not a robbery of the store. This was a non-Wal-mart related assault in the stores parking lot. The Wal-mart employee was helping a fellow human being. Wal-mart fired the employee for that.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 20:18:13 +0000