Time to boycott Shell Oil.

[dalesql]

I direct your attention to what happened in nashua, NH recently.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/10/19/protesters-support-n-h-gas-station-clerk-who-pulled-gun-on-robber/

A gas station clerk who had been working there for ten years, was working the overnight shift when a would-be robber, dressed with a full face mask and heavy coat and holding a knife in his hand entered the store and came around the end of the counter and demanded money. Clerk felt in fear of his life and pulled out his legally carried firearm, and warned the would-be robber that if he came any closer he would be shot. Robber retreated in the face of superior force and no shots were fired. Clerk calls police and all the usual police work ensues. Police determine that the gun was legally carried and carry on with trying to identify would-be robber. Shell Oil fires the clerk for carrying a weapon on the job contrary to company policy.

Time to boycott Shell Oil for firing an employee for exercising his constitutional right to self defense.

Comments

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't company policy be respected, though? I mean, I have a constitutional right to free speech, but I think if I told my boss that they should take a long walk off a short cliff that I'd probably be fired...and the company would have every right to do so.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

A policy that deprives an employee of most means of effective self defense. (barring the occasional kung fu master or whatnot) without having a company provided means of self defense in substitution is not valid in my view. It is a 24 hour gas station. They are a well known target for armed robbery. Hence the nickname "stop and rob" that some use for those sorts of stores. The clerk does not have a lockable door, bulletproof barriers, or anything. All the clerk has is a company shirt and is not supposed to carry any weapons. Despite the studies that show in an armed robbery the method that gives the clerk the highest rate of survival is armed self defense or a lockable bulletproof enclosure.

For ten years, this guy probably carried a gun with no problems there. He had the appropriate licenses to carry it. Who knows if he even knew that this was a company policy. I found out at a job that I had already held for a couple of years that they company had a policy against all employees carrying any sort of weapon. A policy I had been violating every day with my pocket knives and the ramset gun in my toolbox. Not to mention the hammers, boxcutters, screwdrivers and the toolbox itself, all of which are weapons.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Was the station really owned by Shell Oil and did Shell really do the firing? I thought it was an independent station ...

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

Probably a franchise. Nearly all big name gas stations are franchised. But the name corporation pretty much dictates everything that they can do, so the name brand gets all the blame until proved otherwise. The story mentions a manager and district manager who tried to block the termination, that implies a large corp imposing it's policy no matter what the actual circumstances on the ground.