Cosmopolitan



I had the delight of dealing with one of Edinburgh charming, urbane, cosmopolitan citizens tonight. Well, a drunken skinhead ned who came into our bookstore just as I was trying to empty the tills toward th end of the night, sloshing his Buckfast bottle about and giving me dog's abuse until I managed to force him out of the shop. And where was our security, you ask? Well our diminutive boss - who has fucked off one a long holiday - decreed we would stay open an extra hour during the Festival month. Now as we're already open until 8pm every goddam night that means now we're there until 9 - or later for those of us who have to lock up. However he still hasn't arranged for the security firm we deal with to cover that final hour, weeks after he changed the hours.



I've now heard that he plans to keep those hours going for September, despite saying it was only for the Festival. Naturally he never discussed it with staff or even bothered to tell us. And naturally he still hasn't arranged for the security to be there for the final hour. So there we are in the final hour late evening in a busy city centre after dark during hte time when we start taking tills off with no protection. Tonight I had to kick a drunken and obnoxious , foul-mouthed punk out. I am not a bouncer and that is not my job. I stuck in a formal complaint to our management demanding they either fix the security coverage or revert to the old hours which are already covered before a repeat incident - or worse occurs. Nice to know how much Waterstone's values the security and safety of it's staff (or even it's cash).