Edited to remove all establishment names from this exchange at the request of the other party.
Furthermore, that restaurant is in east nashville. Home musicians, foodies, nerds, gays, and other minorities/outcasts. This is my neighborhood, and I AM OFFENDED that some hermitage piece of trash is trying to bad mouth an east side business. Stick to what you know, and the neighborhood you live in. We do not have a place for intolerance in my hood….You are a black hole in the facebook world, and I hope that your “friends” see this misbehavior and call you out on your BULLSHIT. You are a hate spreading, negative, callous c-nt. Thank you, that is all.
The thing is, I’m having a pretty rough time dealing with this whole thing. I don’t know this guy from Adam. I’ve never met him and never seen him before. So why did he feel the need to say all of this? Because I commented on a Facebook post put up by An East Nashville Restaurant last September.
I’ve come to consider Nashville home after living here for a long time. I live in Hermitage and am happy to own property here, but there is a sort of tacit agreement among much of Nashville that Hermitage is one of the undesirable neighbourhoods. The “good schools” are in Brentwood. The hip and trendy are in East Nashville. The old money is in Green Hills. Of course I didn’t know all of this because I didn’t grow up here. When we went to buy our house we just found a house we liked in a neighbourhood we liked and figured that was okay. I never much identify with my neighbourhood other than as a place that doesn’t get “Nashville” services until well after Franklin–another city altogether. Hermitage is one of the red-headed stepchildren of the Nashville neighbourhoods, I guess.
I have a lot of friends over in East Nashville; I suppose I’m no longer allowed to visit them or patronise their businesses. After all, I’m not welcome there because there is no room for intolerance in that ‘hood. (I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this particular irony.)
So here’s the other thing I’m smarting over. I’m really trying to forgive, to have a forgiving spirit. Because forgiveness doesn’t count when it’s easy. When I first read the message I posted to the guy’s employer’s facebook to let them know that one of their employees said this to me and told me in a roundabout way to not patronise their restaurant. After a few minutes I realised that was awfully unforgiving of me and so I deleted the post. I guess someone saw it though, because the guy contacted me again last night and told me it was a heartless move and asked me to keep the whole thing private.
I really want to forgive the guy but I’m also done with bullies and with harrassment being “okay”. You don’t get to harrass someone behind closed doors and then ask them to “keep this private matter private.”
But then again, I’m also supposed to be turning the other cheek. And I’m not doing the best job of that right now.
I’m offended on your behalf. As an East Nashville resident, I want everyone to patronize our businesses (at least the ones I like), so they stay open. And the insult is fairly benign, I guess, but so uncalled for that it becomes obscene. I am embarrassed by my neighbors in this case. And frankly pretty tired overall of the E. Nash attitude that we’re somehow better than the rest of the city. Especially since many of them devote all this nasty, vitriolic energy to defending sub-ar establishments (not to add fuel to the fire but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this shitty behavior in similar situations).
Katherine, I am so glad you are the forgiving type. I lived in TN (Knox area) for about a decade and just had to give up on forgiveness of the fools I met.
“Matter of fact, my husband & I are selling our beloved mountain cabin precisely BECAUSE it’s in Tennessee. And we’ve been watching the state collapse into redneckdom these past 6 yrs.
It’s legislature is passing some of the most horrid, draconian, nutjob laws of late and we really don’t want to be associated with a state of looney-tunes who want to bring back incarceration of gays, limit women’s rights and force religious education back into public schools. I still haven’t forgiven Corker’s supporters for linking Ford to white Playboy bunnies (you’d have to know the history) and then claiming they’re NOT racists! C’mon now!
I mean, look at how this guy characterizes – “Home musicians, foodies, nerds, gays, and other minorities/outcasts”. Hell, I’m every one of those things! (well, not gay, but GLTB-friends) and he says “outcasts”? Yeah, I take a “how dare he” attitude there because there’s NOTHING WRONG with any of those characterizations! Sounds to me like you hit the “artsy” side of town, not unlike the Village (Greenwich) in NYC.
Sounds Preferable to me.
In this situation, turning the other cheek just gives them another target. Bullies don’t do “ironic”. They do “advantage”. Take it from one who has a lifetime of that knowledge.
And thank you again for pointing out just one more reason I’m so glad I don’t do the FB thing.
Maybe it works for some people, but I have no wish to become a FB commodity. Remember – the people who post there ARE the product!
(although the tweeting thing looks interesting, the idea of reading someone’s idle thoughts is a total turn-off. But it seems to be the only way to contact many people anymore)
BTW, they ever do anything to shore up the Cumberland or is that dam still a dangerous risk?
I wouldn’t feel guilty about informing his employer, that isn’t vengeance, it’s doing the right thing by the employer who deserves to know if his employees are driving off business.
And though I don’t live there now, I grew up in Hermitage, so I suppose I will have to inquire if I’m welcome before eating there. Or more likely, I won’t bother.
Wait. This guy is an employee at [the restaurant]? Who called you that in defense of the restaurant? And who thinks you stepped over the line when you contacted the restaurant?
He called you out on Facebook, in front of your friends. He called you the worst, most derogatory name he could think of. And he wants YOU to keep it private? He’s the dude who let the horse out of the barn, and wants you to shut the barn door.
Listen, I know this is a religious difference of ours, but I honestly don’t understand what you have to forgive. He’s not sorry. He’s not seeking a way to make right the wrong between you. He doesn’t care that he did you wrong, just that his employer might have found out about it. I don’t see how you can forgive him, when he doesn’t want it.
But even setting that aside, it was you who once told me that forgiveness doesn’t mean that a person’s actions have no repercussions. It doesn’t get the jerk back to where he was before he did something that required forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t require you to pretend you don’t know he did something crappy to you.
But lastly, if what you’re saying is that you’d like to handle him from a place of love and compassion and not from anger and a desire for revenge, then, I hear you and sympathize with that goal. And, toward those ends, I would say that being open with him about your feelings might be the way to go.
Keep it simple–like you did here–about how he made you feel unwelcome in a part of town you really like, how upsetting and shocking it was to be called that word by a stranger, etc. And put the ball in his court. Give him the opportunity to be a better person than he is currently.
The goofy thing is that he’s NOT employed by [The restaurant in dispute] but by [a different restaurant altogether]. He just really really likes to eat at [The first restaurant].
My complaint wasn’t about their food. They posted what was supposed to be a joke status update but that I didn’t get was a joke until later. (There was nothing about it that said it was not serious. No quotes, no “we saw this and thought it was funny.”) the Pied Piper’s SU was a fake Help Wanted thing that was along the lines of “help wanted for less than minimum wage. Must be willing to put up with customers’ bulls–t” and went on that way. I remarked that it was unwise, insulting and bad for business.
That was what the guy reacted to. I didn’t insult the restaurant. I didn’t say one bad word about their food. That’s what was so ODD.
And yes, you are right. Forgiveness doesn’t mean there are no consequences.
Heh. I just read that and realised how dorkish it is to say “you were right when you quoted what I said to you.” :-p
That said…yeah. I don’t want to keep this in the Intense Hate zone, which is where he seems to be at. But funnily enough I want him to realise that you can’t just say things like this and not realise that you’re hurting actual people.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Oh. It’s not as odd as you think. What he did was still over the line, but I can understand the motivation better.
Being in retail or serving is a mixture of powerlessness and submission. If you are also a frustrated college grad, or forced into it due to circumstances, the stress can be tremendous. You have to keep a tight lid on it sometimes, or it explodes out like this. Unfortunately, he didn’t.
If you’ve worked in retail long term, you understand this, and realize you either learn to suppress it, or move to a different field. It isn’t easy, and a lot of times it means accepting indignities done to you. There’s a lot of intelligent people working these jobs, and it can weigh heavy on the soul. There’s always the moment of weakness that could threaten everything hanging around. I still grind my teeth about class issues though.
Right now I’m dealing with my son being harassed by another kid in our homeschool group. Not once has it occurred to me to tell my son to “forgive” the kid. If the kid came to him and apologized, then yes, I’d tell him to forgive. But to me, forgiveness is something you do when someone is sorry for what they’ve done. It’s something that is given when asked for. God forgives us when we ask for it. Does the Bible say He forgives us if we don’t ask, if we don’t want it? If He doesn’t forgive until we ask, are we expected to forgive others who don’t ask?
There are people in my past who have wronged me and never apologized or shown any remorse. Do I forgive them? No. I let it go, though. I stopped thinking about them and moved on. I think there is a difference.
And I Googled “turn the other cheek” and found this blog post that I thought was rather interesting and applicable: http://provocativechristian.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/provocative-bible-verses-turn-the-other-cheek/
I’m kinda bummed for your son. I can’t believe that goes on in homeschool. It should be free from that kind of thing. But I guess my parents thought the same thing about Christian school and I still got bullied.
I hope everything works out with him.
And that link on turning the other cheek was AMAZINGLY insightful.
Fortunately he’s being very mature about the situation. And bullying goes on everywhere. I was in public school and got bullied some, but where it really hurt was the bullying I got at church.
Glad you liked the article I found. I have always had an issue with the whole idea that not retaliating is the same as being a doormat. I think I’ll be reading more posts on that site.
You’re better than me. I’d savage the guy. One of my failings is that I can’t really stand urban hipsters, their mores, and their culture. It’s based on self-righteousness and upper-middle class morality than any real bohemianism, and you get all the negative aspects of that. Like the idea that their mores should always be culturally dominant, or how they really don’t care about the poor or oppressed as much as they think they do; instead “reading Pushkin and sitting in a tenement feeling good about myself” as Chesterton has one of his characters say.
And when you stand against them. you get all of this negative stuff. He owes you an apology, and he legitimately could get fired for this; this is even worse than doing so in the establishment itself. Heck, by not pushing for that you forgive him more than he deserves.
I worked in retail for a long time. Then in telesales customer service. Then in telesales quality assurance. Then with Chinese manufacturers. Believe me I know the stress level and what it’s like to have it boil over. Since he didn’t harm a loved one or do anything to my food I figured that there is absolutely no reason to cost him his job.
I am all for people from Hermitage (and anywhere else in the city) patronizing East Nashville establishments, so long as y’all don’t block my driveway when you park on my street because you have to wait in line for burgers. (Honestly, I don’t get what it is that makes people in Nashville enjoy lining up to eat.) But the insults are so irrelevant to what the guy’s is reacting to, and so over-the-top nasty and hostile, that on the one hand if it were me I would just say “some people can’t insult me” and laugh about it.* And on the other hand someone who does things like that needs to be told. So, you know, what B recommended.
But if he doesn’t work for the PPE and wasn’t contacting you on their behalf and wasn’t insulting you on his employer’s time then I don’t see that his off-duty behavior is his employer’s problem — in fact it seems to me like an over-reaction on your part. If he was doing so using his employer’s name, though, that’s different, and they should be told. What’s awful is that I love [The other party's current employer] and it squicks me out that someone who would do such things is involved with preparing or serving my food there.
*This isn’t the position of compassion you’re aiming for, I know, but sometimes it just helps to be aware that you are better than the one trying to drag you down to his level, and that his dirt can’t stick to you.
I’m still not a native, I guess, because I won’t wait in line for food. That’s too soviet for me.
This just makes me mad. Wanted to let you know that there are just things, this bullying crap that people do these days for sport, that I just don’t understand.
Take care of yourself and just know that this would hurt and distress me too.
“but there is a sort of tacit agreement among much of Nashville that Hermitage is one of the undesirable neighbourhoods.”
Madison is considered even worse than Hermitage even though I’d not live anywhere else.
I’d agree with what others have said above.
Really? I thought Madison was supposed to be the next Inglewood.
I think you are being far nicer to your insulter than he deserves.
Well, I screwed up. No need to drag his employer into it. And he did apologise.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.