I wouldn't be so hard on the guy — the same strategy worked for my father for years
/'Too bad I need to eat!' Store sparks outrage with post for 'volunteer' job
A pharmacy in Toronto is facing backlash online after posting a 'volunteer' job ad
Shoppers Drug Mart has removed the post and claims it was made in error [Spoiler alert: it wasn’t]
A Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy in downtown Toronto posted the unpaid position on job site LinkedIn on Thursday, CBC News reported.
'Your role as a volunteer is crucial in ensuring that our customers have a positive and seamless shopping experience,' the listing read.
The unpaid role would require 'assisting customers, restocking shelves, and organizing inventory.'
The job was advertised by Emil Harba, the pharmacist owner at the Shoppers Drug Mart located at King and Peter in Toronto.
Shoppers Drug Mart has since claimed that it was put online by mistake.
… However, Harba told [CBC] that the position was posted intentionally but he was only 'trying to help people seeking Canadian experience.'
'The post wasn't for any bad intentions, it was for good intentions,' he told the publication.
Harba explained that he often receives messages from people who want to gain work experience but that once he was told by the company it would not be allowed he immediately took the listing down.
Bah humbug: Pharmacist Harba should have stood his ground and insisted on employing this time-tested approach to labor relations.
When my parents sold their W. 11 St. brownstone and moved the family out to Riverside, the property they bought on Gilliam Lane had 1 1/3 acres, almost an acre of it lawn, and that posed a daunting weekend mowing job for anyone pushing a mower. So he bought a 1954 Jacobsen mower, with sulky, to ride on while slicing down those pesky blades. As it turned out, a riding mower was a novelty back then, and the local teenage boys (Bruce Moger? Dan? Dickie Wallace? Still around?) competed with one another to do the job for him, for free. (it’s important to note that, kind-hearted man that he was, father never took advantage of the boys, and so never charged them for the privilege).
That worked for quite a few years, until the teens grew up and wised up and, sadly for us, the Fountain boys reached an age (10, if I remember) to take their place. Still, that purchase worked out just fine for “The Commander”, and the boys gained valuable experience that surely benefitted them as they proceeded through Yale and Cambridge and on through their successful careers.
