Clare Harris
Just because you work for someone and they pay your wages, it doesn't give them the right to abuse or misuse you. No matter how young you are or how far down the pecking order you may be, you still have rights and should use them. Clare Harris reports
JAMES McGlone has worked in his local supermarket in the east end of Glasgow for the last six years. At the age of 22, after working his way up the company rungs, he's now a supervisor. He likes the job, he says, because he's "a bubbly kind of guy", and gets to meet people all the time.
One day, just before Christmas last year, however, James met a different kind of punter.
He was on a night shift, in charge of four other members of staff, and getting ready to shut up shop.
"It was about 10 to 10, and we close at 10. I was doing my usual stuff, tidying up, and I went to put the rubbish out the back door. I was going out that night, so I was rushing about, " he remembers. "I came back in to get more bags and I was kicked to the ground. At first, I thought someone was carrying on, then I turned round and somebody pointed a gun at my face.
"Someone else had a knife at my throat.
They were shouting, 'Where's your safe?
Where's your safe?'" Still, James thought the men must be playing some kind of joke - so he told them where to go.
"But when they started shouting again, I realised they were quite serious, " he says.
Left on his own, with the rest of the staff on the shop floor, James started thinking of a way out of the situation. "The robbers were like, 'Where's your keys? Where's your keys?' They wanted the keys to the safe. I said I didn't have them, and that they were up by the tills, " says James.
He still doesn't know why he didn't just lead the attackers to the safe, but by distracting them, James managed to press both store panic buttons. In addition, one of the other members of staff had called the police on her mobile.
James decided he could string the robbers along a little longer until back-up arrived. He was then shoved into the office by the gunman, who was still determined to get the keys and get into the safe.
"I kept putting the guy off, dropping the keys, saying I didn't have the right one for the safe. He saw some money on the table so he grabbed that."
Then James had a brain wave that brought his traumatic experience to an abrupt end. "I said 'Can you hear the sirens?' I couldn't actually hear them, but that got him quite shaky and he ran out of the back door. Both attackers had run off before the police arrived."
Looking back, James admits he could have let the robbers take the money and go, but says he went on auto-pilot. "I probably would have acted differently if I didn't have to think about the other people in the shop, " he says.
He was 21 years old then. It's a lot of responsibility to be in full charge of a shop, late at night, where aggressive customers are regular visitors. James' story is replayed on a depressingly regular basis across Scotland. But he doesn't see that much could have changed what happened.
"I don't think it would have made any difference what age I was, because it was so extreme. I was lucky, because I had a lot of people around me to stop me thinking about it.
"When I was on my own, it did start to get to me. I got some medicine off my doctor at one point to help me sleep." Otherwise, he says, his work hasn't been affected - except he's not put the bins out at night since.
The attackers have never been caught.
ANNA Bridgewater is 21, and in her fourth year of a business course at a major Scottish university. Like many other students, she works in a call centre to support her studies - something she's been doing since she was 17.
She enjoys her job now, but it wasn't always that way.
"When I first joined, that was when it was worst. My first reaction was shock. I'd never seen or heard anything like it before. I was message taking, the person who says you've got this amount of time left in the queue, and you shoot the messenger, you know what I mean?
"The customer always wants to speak to the manager and not everyone can. We did arrange call-backs, but only in an emergency, when the customer has no service.
Everyone else was left to us."
With three weeks training on the job, call centre staff like Anna do get told a lot about the company - but nothing much about how to deal with irate and often abusive customers.
"When you're message taking you just get put on the phones straight away. It's very pressured, there's a billboard up telling you how much time people have to wait. You get people saying they're going to call the police on us, you get people crying and you get all kinds of abuse.
"Even though it's not physical violence its as bad if not worse than that. When you get verbal abuse it affects you mentally, and it sticks with you, and it can get very personal. A lot of people find it hard to brush it off."
With a three strikes and you're out rule, callers can be given three warnings if they're swearing or being aggressive towards the call centre staff. It's difficult, however, to get the mostly older customers to take a young voice seriously.
"They'll say we don't know what we're talking about, but we have to be patient and tell them we do, " Anna says.
Added pressure comes from the strict time limit on each call - a swearing customer could go on for hours, says Anna, but calls are monitored and they need to get a caller off the line. "I remember one time a woman said she was going to go the papers. You're not allowed to respond to that. You just have to get on with the call."
While the predominance of young, part-time staff makes it easy for employers to ignore the problem, training on how to deal with abuse is getting better all the time, says Anna.
Her company - like every call centre should - employs an in-house counsellor, illustrating the stresses of the job.
"What I think would really help would be if the public was more aware of how stressful it is. There could be campaigns or adverts like there is for everything else, to let people know that we're just doing our job."
'Just because i was behind a till she thought I was scum'
THERE aren't many jobs that Daniel Donaldson hasn't turned his hand to, but he's always been aware of his rights. Now 25, Daniel joined a trade union at the age of 17 and has been vocal in making sure those rights are protected ever since. Still, it hasn't stopped him facing some pretty nasty encounters during his nine-to-five.
"One incident that sticks in my mind was when I was working in a call centre, " recalls Daniel. "I had a whistle or a loud siren blown down the phone into my ear. You can imagine what that does to you when you've got a headset on. I went to my employer and said that this was completely unacceptable - I'd even been to A&E to check that my eardrum wasn't blown out.
"My boss said it was par for the course. I said I wanted something done about it, and he told me to fill in the accident book. Of course, you're going to get people phoning in upset, but nine times out of 10, the management really weren't interested."
Abusive customers weren't confined to the phone, says Daniel. "You get people who are just looking for a fight. When I was working in a shop, one particularly arrogant woman waited until I had finished with everyone else in the queue, turned round and said 'at least I have an education'. It was as if she had spat on my face. Just because I was behind a till she thought I was scum.
"When you're 17 and that happens to you, it's like, 'what's the point?' When I complained, the management was not supportive - they made me complain in front of the customer and she just laughed and said, 'You're going to lose your job now'.
No matter how big or small, all employers have a duty of care to their staff under the Health And Safety Act, says Daniel. That means that if your boss knows about any abuse going on and doesn't do anything about it, they could be held to account. "But in practice, " he adds, "that doesn't often happen because they're paying your wages."
Money has a great part to play in whether or not violence at work - be it mental or physical - is dealt with because, says Daniel, it generally costs more to put measures in place to protect staff.
He talks of several large retail groups who save cash at the weekends by employing just two young, part-time members of staff and refusing to shell out for a security guard. "If you walk down the high street this weekend, how many security guards do you see? They won't employ any until something happens. If someone was stabbed, there'd be security guards everywhere.
For the moment, though, they just don't see it as a priority, " says Daniel.
Another factor is age - or rather, youth. "The workers who do complain tend to be the older ones, and it may be that younger people, in general, tend not to be as savvy. "Having the confidence to complain if you're facing abuse is crucial, Daniel adds. "If you can't tell your boss, you can get in touch with a trade union, or the Citizens' Advice Bureau.
There's always someone, but the first step is to speak out."
Know your rights. . .
EVERY employer in the land should know the rights of the employee. It's a good idea that you do too, so you can deal with any problems at work effectively. Most teenagers go into their first job not knowing their basic rights, and as a result sometimes have to put up with levels of physical or verbal abuse that are unacceptable.
That is never "part of the job."
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines workrelated violence as: Any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work.
Under the Health And Safety At Work Act 1974, your employer has a legal duty to ensure your health, safety and welfare at work, as is reasonably practicable.
If you are experiencing any form of work-related violence, whether verbal or physical, or have any concerns about your health and safety at work you must:
Immediately inform your employer, providing details of the date and nature of the abusive incident
If any member of the public causes you alarm, annoyance or disturbance in the workplace, contact Crimestoppers to report the incident on 0800 555 111 If you are subject to abuse from members of the public on a regular basis, ensure you keep a personal diary, recording all incidents of abuse, however small they seem
Ensure your employer takes action and provides you with feedback on how the issue is being handled If you haven't received any training on how to deal with violent or abusive customers, approach your employer to discuss this
Refuse to do something if you believe it endangers you or a fellow worker
Encourage your employer to develop a policy to deal with violence in the workplace, if there isn't one in place
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