And that will now be on page 256 of the next Olive Garden Manager Training Manual that no Olive Garden manager will ever read.
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Restaurant manager fired for accommodating a bigoted customer's demand
- Thread starter Checkmite
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And that will now be on page 256 of the next Olive Garden Manager Training Manual that no Olive Garden manager will ever read.
pgwenthold
Penultimate Amazing
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Bah, ********.
"I'm sorry, maam, is there a problem with your service?"
"Have you had a problem with this server's service in the past?"
"No, I just don't like black people"
"Ms. Y is an outstanding server. If her service is not acceptable for you, you are free to choose to dine elsewhere."
Come on, what's going to happen? The customer is going to write a bad review on YELP? What do they say, "The restaurant would not comply with my insistence to not have a black person waiting on me"?
Cavemonster
Philosopher
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Honestly, I could easily be persuaded that everyone's the victim here.
The racist customer, to say something like that loudly in 2020 could very probably be dealing with mental illness or dementia.
The manager made the wrong move, but being blindsided by a weird happening and not knowing which move would make the company thrown them under the bus could very easily have prompted a "Let's just try to keep eveyone calm" reaction. Most people in service jobs have extensive practice accomodating bad behavior in customs just to keep the peace and that may be an automatic mode when dealing with conflict. Some people say they could have sued the company if fired for kicking out the customer. Who pays their rent while that law suit is stretching out? And if it's a right to work state and the company articulates their decision with more nuance than "We fired you for not doing what a racist said" is victory guaranteed? Is a next job guaranteed even if they get a payout? Suing is not an easy thing to pursue.
Obviously the server had to go through this too.
Just everything awful.
The racist customer, to say something like that loudly in 2020 could very probably be dealing with mental illness or dementia.
The manager made the wrong move, but being blindsided by a weird happening and not knowing which move would make the company thrown them under the bus could very easily have prompted a "Let's just try to keep eveyone calm" reaction. Most people in service jobs have extensive practice accomodating bad behavior in customs just to keep the peace and that may be an automatic mode when dealing with conflict. Some people say they could have sued the company if fired for kicking out the customer. Who pays their rent while that law suit is stretching out? And if it's a right to work state and the company articulates their decision with more nuance than "We fired you for not doing what a racist said" is victory guaranteed? Is a next job guaranteed even if they get a payout? Suing is not an easy thing to pursue.
Obviously the server had to go through this too.
Just everything awful.
Thermal
August Member
Posit: The only evidence of this event is a lone diner's facebook post. Restaurant management has been shown in other stories to fire first and ask questions later (BWW, Chipolte, etc). Lone diner/posters may be disgruntled, pot-stirrers, liars, or just wrong. Are the vaunted skeptics of the forum ready to drop the gavel here? Enough evidence presented for a conclusion?
Mike!
Official Ponylandistanian National Treasure. Re
Ah, the classic Olive Garden Kobayashi Maru test.
The manager should have reprogrammed the simulation and made the customer blind.
The manager should have reprogrammed the simulation and made the customer blind.
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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The customer starts screaming in the middle of the restaurant, and you have to call the cops to drag them out of there.
Here's the thing: when **** hits the fan, that makes a miserable dining experience for everyone there. And that's bad for business. It doesn't matter if you can blame the racist customer, the fact is that the other diners at your establishment had a bad time. That can keep them from coming back, regardless of the reason.
No. For a Yelp review, you say the service sucked and the food was terrible. It doesn't matter if that's your real complaint, that's still the review you leave if you want to hurt the place.
Ziggurat
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Yeah, pretty much. I have an easy time accepting the manager made the wrong call, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to always make the right call under unreasonable conditions, and this customer created unreasonable conditions.
The one caveat I have to your post is that if the customer was suffering from mental problems (quite possible but not guaranteed), it isn't the restaurant's responsibility to accommodate those problems. But I'm sympathetic to the impulse to just not make a scene.
Good call.
William Parcher
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Social justice is killing skepticism at the ISF.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
You're not supposed to blind the customers, it's an unwritten but very important rule in customer service. I just can't work under such strict conditions so I went back to school. Now I don't do customer service and can blind whoever I want.
A manager in a high-volume place like an Olive Garden should be trained to deal with unreasonable patrons. Suppose the issue wasn't race. Suppose the customer was a belligerent drunk? Suppose he was making outrageous remarks about every woman he could see? Suppose he was overly "friendly" toward children? The manager would be required to deal with it, and it wouldn't be by accommodating the customer. In this case, I could imagine the manager saying something like "Let me move you to another table," and quietly marching her out the door. If the cops need to be called, so be it. The other diners might have enjoyed the excitement.
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OMG !! Just look at the coverage in that horrid Daily Mail.
And that comments section, don't even get me started.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...diana-restaurant-manager-racist-incident.html
And that comments section, don't even get me started.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...diana-restaurant-manager-racist-incident.html
plague311
Great minds think...
If the customer was mentally ill she should have had someone with her to mind after her or she should have, at the very least, worn her "Racist when shaken" T-Shirt.
Thermal
August Member
A link, with the server interviewed. Excellent.
Donahue says the manager complied with the request for a not black server, but that the bigot laid into her and started screaming...later? Not sure I get that part.
eta: got it. Donahue was the hostess, and she and the server were both berated loudly, but after the demand was met.
Donahue says the manager complied with the request for a not black server, but that the bigot laid into her and started screaming...later? Not sure I get that part.
eta: got it. Donahue was the hostess, and she and the server were both berated loudly, but after the demand was met.
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OMG !! Just look at the coverage in that horrid Daily Mail.
And that comments section, don't even get me started.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...diana-restaurant-manager-racist-incident.html
Their story is based on a link from the local TV station.
https://www.tristatehomepage.com/ne...cial-discrimination-at-evansville-restaurant/
plague311
Great minds think...
Well, no. That's not true, according to Today:
It appears the story is confirmed by the employees (two of them). One of them went further:
It also appears as if Olive Garden started an investigation the day the post went up and it just completed on Monday. It doesn't appear, to me, to have been a knee jerk firing. They looked into it.
There's never going to be definitive evidence to your standards, from what we've seen. Which is required to be absolutely complete without even a possibility of any other explanation taking place, no matter how unlikely.
So no, the answer for you will be forever, no. To me, there is all of the evidence corroborating one story, and not a single person is saying anything to the opposite.
eta: Got in after your post because my co-worker can't shut up.
Ziggurat
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Should they be trained for that? Perhaps. Were they? I suspect not.
It's a much easier call when the conflict is directly with other customers than with the staff.
Cavemonster
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True, but if you're dealing with mental illness to the extent that you're not in great control of your behavior, I'm not sure blaming them for not having the proper support system is helping matters much. That's on the broader system and their family.
My uncle towards the end of his life became obsessed with what he saw as the terrible danger of Islam. Then they found a brain tumor that had been growing for about the duration of his obsession. But for a few years he was out walking around being treated as just a guy with strong angry opinions.
You'd see him at a wedding and ask how he was doing "Fine except for the problem of Islam".
Thermal
August Member
Glad to see you caught up in your eta
My standards are pretty low for evidence, but not nearly as low as others have. 'Somebody says on facebook' is never enough. Interviews, some impartial witnesses, maybe a police report or video, and that is quite satisfactory. Otherwise, it's just projection and confirmation bias. That's good enough for you?
plague311
Great minds think...
There were other people with her. She wasn't isolated or anything. According to all articles the woman was with family and they just let her go off. That signals to me that this either isn't abnormal for her, or they agree with it. There aren't many other explanations. If it was part of an underlying condition you'd think the family would say, "I'm so sorry, let me change get her out of here."
Even if she was trained, it's something you can forget if you don't use it. I don't go to Olive Garden because...many reasons, but I can't imagine there is a whole lot of conflict happening. Maybe some "Karen's" sending back salads, or a wine drunk being a douche, but nothing to the level of "racist screaming in the lobby" type of behavior. If you're not used to it, and you don't have to manage that behavior, even training can be forgotten.