Hackney Peddler Unpaid Internships?

+1 to what Enda nicely laid out above, only they’re more generous than I would be: where they say ‘rationalise’ I would substitute ‘excuse’. Even if they were committed to teaching kids work skills, which their advert clarified was not guaranteed, offering unpaid ‘internships’ for children to do manual labour is shameful.

Look, all I'm saying is that yeah it's cool they apologised and all but I guess they've got a bit more to do before they win back people's trust. Think that's not totally unfair given the fact that the apology still tried to rationalise what they were doing, and given that a day beforehand they were deleting comments on the original post pretty much making the same complaint as us in the hope that nobody would kick off about it. Am I saying that they are therefore unforgivable or fundamentally bad? No, of course not, give them the chance to make it up. But also saying 'we fucked up' is kinda the bare minimum. Like reputation is more of a track record thing than it is admitting what you did was bad when enough people call it out. Other people seem to have good examples on this thread suggesting that it's part of a pattern rather than an isolated mistake. That information seems relevant. I genuinely do hope that they turn it around and make the effort to be a good business/employer and not just do the bare minimum they can get away with. But then again that's their business and not mine...

There are cycling gammon.

If anyone doubts this, just head over to the time trialling forum.

Every "cyclist" is a person;
Some people are cunts;
Ergo some "cyclists" are cunts.
QED

If anyone doubts this, Boris Johnson

heh :)

SO MUCH THIS. It really grinds my gears when self-important freelancers try to make it sound like they can afford an assistant.

Are the gentrfied Stokey bike floggers the new Foffa? About as cool as Thatcher, hip as Trump,respected as Hopkins and as kind as Lance?

Hope so.

Have been an occasional customer there for years, from when they started. Always found them knowledgeable and helpful. This is disgraceful though. Not going back there, no interest in giving a business that is happy to treat their workers like dickheads my money, plenty of other great bike shops in the area

Have known this shop and it's owner for years and have heard endless bad stories about the place and his way of conducting business, both from ex employees and friends.
To some extent, he's found a gap in the market and capitalised on it by selling over priced bikes - usually nice frames but with budget components to hipsters that don't know any better.

plenty of other great bike shops in the area

Go to pedal pedlar, I worked there for a few months when i was like 16 and they actually paid me for my time

I once took a bike with cantilever brakes in to get adjusted, as at the time I really couldn't be arsed and thought giving some dosh to a local bike shop would be nice. Brakes came out worse and I had to re adjust myself later on, I also noticed the staff were miserable, makes sense as to why now. It's a shame because at the time I lived around the corner and was building loads of retro bikes and always looking for parts and an extra pair of hands.