City
Morning Brew: May 9th, 2008
Photo: "Contact @ MOCCA" by Peter Grevstad, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
Your Toronto morning news roundup for Friday May 09th, 2008:
With oil prices up to $125 a barrel, the price at the pump will correspondingly be raised to a rather steep $1.25 per litre. I remember when it used to be only 79 cents... it was only a matter of time before we fell in line with the rest of the world.
Parents (and fiscally-responsible taxpayers everywhere) are shocked after a government report showed that Catholic School Board trustees were living high on the hog and claiming excessive personal expenses to the overall tune of $1 million. A $100,000 average per official suggests they're claiming more than just travel expenses and health benefits.
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Some urban residents are upset over the size of the new recycling bins which are apparently difficult to store and look ugly. After that oversized public garbage bin debacle, we should get OCAD students to come up with a concept; they can't possibly do any worse.
A 16 year-old student is in the hospital after being stabbed at his locker while his girlfriend looked on. Apparently, his cellphone was too nice; we can add that to the list of stupid things to get hurt over which also includes iPods and Pumas.
Apparently, they don't have a buy-back policy at Tim Hortons. A woman at the donut chain found herself without a job after giving a Timbit to a young child who was upset. She got a job at another franchise but you gotta wonder at the manager who handled that incident.
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When i drive through with my dog in the drive through the lady with the Hijab always gives him a tim bit!
Off Topic: Is it just me or has the morning brew been missing out on several key topics..
1) the refusal of AID from the UN to Myanmar due to the military junta seizing supplies
2) The closing of BLAK at Bathurst and Queen
It's not surprising that Japhet isn't highlighting news about the cyclone in Myanmar, because this is the blogTO Toronto-related news roundup. Furthermore, I don't think it's realistic to expect us to cover every local news topic either. Things will always slip through the cracks.
That said, feel free to send us news tips or feedback. There's a handy link and form at the top of the page :)
Cheers,
Jerrold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Day_%28Eastern_Europe%29
All those years cultivating an image as a down-home, neighbourly coffee shop -- down the crapper!
It was only 10 years ago when it was 43 cents :P
Although to be fair, Morning Brew was written and posted before that story arose.
Just a thought... I really do hope the TTC's next generation of streetcars will have opening windows.
I also don't like that the fact she is a 27-year old single mother was pointed out so quickly, clearly to establish vulnerability. If this was a 19-year old childless male, I doubt it ever would've made the news. How many children you have, whether you are single, and your age has no relevance to this issue.
A single mother was able to recognize that a client/customer (another harried mother) was having a bad day -- and made a small gesture to help her, creating one of those Tim Horton's moments they mimic in the ads. If somebody in corporate sales reached out to a client with a gesture like that, she'd be called a genius and given a tidy bonus.
It's relevant to the story.
It's nice to see some of the older folk keepin' it real on blogTO. :p
We love to root for the underdog and against "the man." The story has been painted as the bad corporate-lackey manager preying on the poor, selfless mother of four. People eat that crap up as evidenced by the response. They project their own emotions into the situation, be it seeing their mother in place of this woman, or their anger at their own boss or previous boss, or any number of scenerios.
Tims has no obligation to give anything for free, and if the policy is to not give away free things, then it was in their right to dismiss her. Things also rarely occur in a vaccum, and chances are this woman did other things that were not up to her employer's expectations, and probably gave away lots of Timbits over her time working there.
There's being cold, but then there's also being overly empathetic. It's not like this is that situation in the States where a now mentally disabled woman was sued for nearly a half-million dollars by Wal-Mart, the same week her son was killed in Iraq and she didn't even understand what happened to him.
I hadn't seen anything about the closing of Blak but I totally would've covered it.
Post a link!
"Chances are" is an easy phrase, though, to throw around in this scenario. Chances are she was a lazy employee who gave away too many freebies to customers, but the same chances are the manager was overzealous in adhering to policy. Unfair dismissal *isn't* unheard-of.
Frankly, from the stories I've heard, it's impossible to tell exactly which situation is true. The woman has admitted that she never had a good relationship with that manager, but I haven't heard why. Maybe the manager is an asshole, or maybe she's a terrible employee.