Don't Do This

[Content Note: Harassment.]

Shakesville Moderator Hallelujah_Hippo emailed, which I am sharing with her permission:

I've been seeing several links recently to people going to their local Hobby Lobby and rearranging stamps and craft letters to say things like 'pro choice' and 'all women deserve health care' and I understand the feeling behind it (we'll show them!) but I think it's a really, really shitty thing to do.

Now someone who works at that store has to rearrange the display (and if they get a mystery shopper or a product rep or a regional manager before they get to it, the store manager, and therefore whose ever job it is to 'keep things tidy and neat' is going to hear about it).

Like, I don't know what a good way to 'just show them!' is, but I feel like making more work for the in-store workers is not the way to go about it.

This also came up in comments, when Shaker billerina mentioned that some people were making suggestions like filling up a cart with merchandise and then abandoning it, or making a mess in the store.

Don't do this.

This is not "activism." This is just piling more harm on the people who are being directly harmed by this bullshit ruling.

It isn't the owners of Hobby Lobby who have to clean up the mess left "for them." It's the workers in their stores, and causing them headaches isn't sending a message to management, and it sure as shit isn't acting as an "ally" to those workers.

Many of whom might not have the option of easily switching jobs to work somewhere else.

If you want to register your dissatisfaction with Hobby Lobby's corporate management, here is their contact page. Or leave a message on their Facebook page. Or tweet at them.

Do not create additional work for their in-store employees.

Because you know who else is endeavoring to fuck over those employees? Hobby Lobby Corporate HQ.

If your activism aligns itself with the very people you're ostensibly trying to protest, and you end up hurting the exact same people, you're DOING IT WRONG.

[Shakesville Moderator Scott Madin notes that Sarah Joffe has also been talking about this subject today.]