A man named Hugh Robinson from the TUC is currently on the radio claiming that attacks on emergency services staff are on the rise, and that this is a Terrible Thing. This would in itself be worthy, except for Mr Robinson’s idiocy.
He seems to be claiming that ‘being rude to people in call centres’ is badness comparable to ‘beating up ambulancemen’. No: if you’re going to claim that being rude on the phone while you’re anonymous (so no danger of it spilling over to anything scary in real life) is in any way comparable to actual violence, you can fuck right off.
Or alternatively, we could arrange for one person to be rude to Mr Robinson over an anonymous phone link, for another person to break his arms and legs, and *then* ask him whether he thinks the two are comparable…
Presumably he’s talking about shouting abuse at people who work in 999 call centres rather than doing technical support for fucking useless Sony Vaios[1]? Still not as bad as throwing stones at fire engines, but rather closer to the "deserving the birch" end of the spectrum than the "clearly understandable".
[1]The Sony Vaio is a fine computer but its technical support people are in my experience a god damned disgrace.
Quite right, Dan. If the 999 staff piss you off, write about it in your blog. If Jamie is right, and I’m sure he is, is abuse all that surprising?
I heard that report this morning. It didn’t say what kind of call centres they were. Telesales cold-callers? They deserve rudeness from their "customers". I get wage slaves from these places calling me up once every couple of days trying to get me to upgrade my mobile phone. I say a polite "no thank you" several times, but when they continue jabbering away at me, a terse "I SAID NO, YOU IDIOT" generally does the trick. I’ve yet to swear at them, but it’s only a matter of time.
You. Outside. Now.
In unrelated news, EUrabia in action, in Belgium
Birching chavs? EUrabia? Will dsquared be guest blogging on Conservative Commentary sometime soon?
Follow the link … it’s a story about some Iranians who were having lunch with the speaker of the Belgian parliament. Their diplomats asked "out of respect for our Islamic beliefs, could you ensure that no alcohol is served" and received the reply "well we’d better schedule the meeting for the next morning then because this is Belgium and I am fucked if I’m not having a beer with my lunch".
Belgium is a great country.
As Mick Hartley points out, there’s more to the story. Doubly good for Belgium.