a friend of mine was at work when this customer attacked him. he punched the guy back in self defense and was fired from his job. hes now trying to sell his old uniform on ebay to collect enough money for his rent. ebay was pressured by mark cuban to take down his auction, its back up after recieving some attention. but now theft charges have been filed against him. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8312819000
mark cuban owns/owned the dallas mavericks, landmark theaters, MicroSolutions, Broadcast.com, Star Search, HDNet, bla bla bla...hes a prime number asshole i posted the link cause i thought it was funny, being that i know the guy maybe im the only one who thought it was funny...well funny and sad...and it makes me angry.
Let me get this straight. He got into an arguement with a customer, customer punched him, he punched back, got fired for it, and is now pissing and moaning about it?
dont forget the making people suckers by selling a shitty shirt... Ebay sign ups should come with an IQ test...
Having worked retail, I can tell you some customers CAN and WILL be serious assholes. I don't know if it was the case here, but it's likely. There are also horrible personell, though, so one has to be somewhat neutral... It's his word against the customer's, though, and it could turn into a PR nightmare costing millions. So little worker will get irremediably screwed, nothing you can do about it, even should he ever be innocent. In Global capitalism, you give up your human rights so you can still feed your family.
it was witnessed by many people, there was no argument. the customer punched and spat on him cause he couldnt brake a hundred...he punched back. i dont see how an employee defending himself becomes a liablility issue worthy enough to fire over, so i guess if he let the guy beat the crap out of him he might still have a job....he also might be in the hospital suing for workers comp...maybe either way he gets fired. anyways i dont think that is so much the issue as ebay pulling the auction, then the city charging him with theft only after he tried to auction off the uniform (he paid for). people buying and selling overpriced crap isnt anything new, especially on ebay. if someone can sell a cheese sandwhich for 10's of thousands of dallors you should be able to sell a crummy t-shirt for a couple hundred bucks.
Your friend got screwed, socialdrone. For sure. It's an unfortunate situation, for sure. That's the way this world works. I hope someone helps him out with the sale.
He shouldn't have gone to eBay, he should have gone to a laywer to sue for false dismissal. Even if he was an "at will" employee, I cannot imagine that he wouldn't be in that position, it is unreasonable for the management to expect him to stand there and take physical abuse without defending himself. Depending on how the customer assaulted him, a necessary defense may have involved punching the guy back. It is hard to say without having been there, but I am sure that there is probably a security tape of the incident since most companies like to watch their employees for theft. To add insult to injury, it is probably too late for him to get a lawyer. Due to his eBay comments, it would be difficult to defend the lawsuit as anything but personal retaliation.
