Restaurant manager fired for accommodating a bigoted customer's demand

[pgwenthold]

I remember well the horror of being a manager whenever a customer starts acting dickish or bizarre in some way. You look around for the person in charge, and then you remember it's supposed to be you. Omg, what do I do, make this person stop yelling, what would corporate say here, uh...

I could accept that the manager panicked and made a terrible call. However, it was a terrible call, and people get fired for those.

If it had been me (putting myself back in that headspace *shudder*) I'm almost certain that I would have said something like, "I'm afraid we won't be able to accommodate that request, ma'am" in a bland tone of chilly professionalism. And when the old witch inevitably kept yelling racist bull ****, "I'm sorry, but this is a family restaurant. You're making a scene, and I'm afraid you'll have to leave." Make a note of the incident for corporate's perusal, getting ahead of the imminent bad Yelp review. Give the poor server a quick pep talk and remind her that she's valued. Apologize to any customers who seem disturbed. Carry on.

It's not perfect, but I think it would have been the best thing to do in this circumstance. I'm 100% certain I wouldn't have gone and gotten a white girl, lol. I don't want to unfairly judge the manager from my comfy armchair, but he was hella dumb here.

{thumbs up emoji}

 

[pgwenthold]

Being racist isn't a federally protected class.



"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" is hung at almost every establishment. You might not kick them out, but they'd be getting thrown way out of my business and I'd make sure everyone knew why.

Yep, and I wouldn't be embarrassed about it. If needed, I'd be sure to let all the customers know why I did it. If they give me a quizzical look, I'd roll my eyes and say, "She didn't want to be served by a black waiter"

And most of them would just roll their eyes, too.

 

[Mongrel]

A manager in a high-volume place like an Olive Garden should be trained to deal with unreasonable patrons.

Training....lol, that cuts into the bottom line.

Retail, and food service especially, tends towards the informal. Why'd the last manager leave? Stress, probably with a side of alcoholism and a soupçon of theft\embezzelment. The Assisstant Manager gets bumped up, only without a payrise 'as it's only temporary' and corporate leave them to it. Except when numbers are bad...

The most senior\reliable member of front of house get 'temporarily' bumped to AM and shown how to do most of the paperwork by the new manager and may get handed the "How to be a Manager" folder, if it hasn't been lost.

 

[catsmate]

Didn't plantation owners in the South usually have black cooks, servants and other black house slaves?
The degree of racial tolerance it must have required ...

Remember Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima?

 

[Dr. Keith]

The most senior\reliable member of front of house get 'temporarily' bumped to AM and shown how to do most of the paperwork by the new manager and may get handed the "How to be a Manager" folder, if it hasn't been lost.

One minor correction: The Olive Garden is a large corporation. So, the kid moved to AM will have to sign a bunch of documents saying they were trained and given the "How to be a Manager" folder, even though that folder no longer exists and the location has none of the training material on site.

Must have the receipts for the next time a manager screws up.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Training? What training do you need to side with the "Not racist" side of an argument?

 

[Butter!]

Training....lol, that cuts into the bottom line.

Retail, and food service especially, tends towards the informal. Why'd the last manager leave? Stress, probably with a side of alcoholism and a soupçon of theft\embezzelment. The Assisstant Manager gets bumped up, only without a payrise 'as it's only temporary' and corporate leave them to it. Except when numbers are bad...

The most senior\reliable member of front of house get 'temporarily' bumped to AM and shown how to do most of the paperwork by the new manager and may get handed the "How to be a Manager" folder, if it hasn't been lost.

I enjoyed reading this so much. This is, sadly, spot on. It gave me a genuine laugh.


That said, of course, it should still be one's go-to judgment to professionally refuse that particular request. I didn't have specific training for most of the situations that were foisted upon me when I managed a small restaurant (and you literally described my "training" to a tee), but I did know that "go fetch someone of a lighter skin tone" was not ever going to be the best solution.


ETA - Maybe this kind of training will become a thing now. Maybe some restaurateurs will see this incident and enact anti-racism-accommodation policies at their own establishments. I wonder how often things like this happen? I honestly have no idea.

 

[blutoski]

I enjoyed reading this so much. This is, sadly, spot on. It gave me a genuine laugh.


That said, of course, it should still be one's go-to judgment to professionally refuse that particular request. I didn't have specific training for most of the situations that were foisted upon me when I managed a small restaurant (and you literally described my "training" to a tee), but I did know that "go fetch someone of a lighter skin tone" was not ever going to be the best solution.


ETA - Maybe this kind of training will become a thing now. Maybe some restaurateurs will see this incident and enact anti-racism-accommodation policies at their own establishments. I wonder how often things like this happen? I honestly have no idea.

It probably varies by region and industry.

In my personal experience as somebody who apparently has people skills and ends up getting shunted to customer facing supervisory roles by pretty much every employer, I'd say its an "every ******* day" thing.

I did 25 years as a part time rec center supervisor evenings and weekends. Started as a lifeguard and found myself put in charge of the facility after my boss had a mental breakdown. That was in the 1980s. I'd say that 50% of the job is dealing with cranks, and about a third of them are bigots on fire.

And that was my side gig.

For awhile, my main job I was in food services as a server, then as a head waiter. Same ********, except they're more likely to be drunk and have steaknife than the rec center crowd.

And then I went to work for the phone company in frontline sales and service. Eventually, I was the supervisor. You know - they guy they want to talk to when they're not getting what they wanted. And 50% of that was that what they wanted was a white guy, "a REAL Canadian."

In all those roles, one of the options was to eject the customer, and I pulled the trigger several times a year in each of them. In the Telco, we had to wait for deregulation (local phone service was treated as a right, not a product, before deregulation), and then we had a 'mass firing' of customers, I'd say most of them because of escalating racist demands.

 

[Checkmite]

The customer starts screaming in the middle of the restaurant, and you have to call the cops to drag them out of there.'

The customer was already screaming in the middle of the restaurant.

 

[Planigale]

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"?

This is the US you are talking about. A new entry in today's mass shooting thread? An armed country is a polite country and certainly not one where you upset someone by refusing to serve them. The manager may have been fired but at least xe is alive.

 

[wollery]

As much as it would feel good, ejecting people for the opinions they hold is a dangerous precedent.


You’re assuming they will mention that part and won’t just write the head office and complain about what terrible service the waiter/waitress provided.

As much as it would feel like the right thing to do, it’s still putting the server in a terrible situation where they could be subject to abuse and if they put it aside and provide outstanding service, they could still have unfair complaints directed against them.

I'm sorry, I tried to keep it in, but I can't.

You're saying that you would be willing to enable overt, public racism towards a member of your staff because it's the path of least resistance?

Your opinion disgusts me.

 

[blutoski]

I enjoyed reading this so much. This is, sadly, spot on. It gave me a genuine laugh.


That said, of course, it should still be one's go-to judgment to professionally refuse that particular request. I didn't have specific training for most of the situations that were foisted upon me when I managed a small restaurant (and you literally described my "training" to a tee), but I did know that "go fetch someone of a lighter skin tone" was not ever going to be the best solution.


ETA - Maybe this kind of training will become a thing now. Maybe some restaurateurs will see this incident and enact anti-racism-accommodation policies at their own establishments. I wonder how often things like this happen? I honestly have no idea.

To be honest, for a chain like that, it's probably SOP to have customer management training of some sort. Partly to standardize it, and partly because it's dirt cheap. There are hundreds HR contractors who offer a suite of online 'courses' on a subscription basis. Most major chains I've worked with just make it part of the onboarding process.

Mostly in food services, it's drunks. They get handsy, they get grabby (I learned to always tuck my tie into my shirt so it didn't turn into a leash), they get table-poundy and shouty, glass and plate smashy. Ultimately about half of them get a tour of the parking lot. Whether you have been formally trained on this or not, you don't become a store manager without a few years of experience, and you've had to deal with this every day, so it's not going to be a OMG! situation. At that point in one's career, it's just tedious.

However, racism is not always singled out, since it's only one of so many examples of customer intolerance. As somebody mentioned above, it's usually directed against another customer. They don't want to sit near Jews, Turban Twisters, a war amp with a prosthetic, a guy with an earring, kids from the public school, somebody who ordered pork, could the waiter please make the other party move, no we're not moving we have a window seat, they need to move to accommodate my issues. They don't want their food prepared by Muzzies, go page the owner in on his day off to make my meal special like. I don't like the looks of that negro, can you tell him to leave before I call the cops.

Asking to substitute staff is a bit rarer, but I can't imagine it flustering a manager who's likely already jaded.


And on the topic of 'escalating' - yes and so what. Sometimes the customer is wrong. If they want to look like a lunatic, that's on them. And additionally, my experience is that accommodating is ALSO escalating in that the new bar is set. Next time, they come in expecting the entire staff to be replaced by whites, and the cutlery to not be imported from Chinkland, and the billing software not be made by Jews, and it will not end until you have a pure Aryan Nations supply chain. It's not cheaper to accommodate kooks, it's just easier in the short run.




Incidentally, my wife is in a similar situation: she is an emergency room doc, and every shift, there's a patient who refuses her help and demands a white doctor. My point being that anybody who deals with the mass public will recognize this as a pretty common scenario. The difference in nature and frequency just varies a bit by region and vertical.

 

[Bob001]

.....
In all those roles, one of the options was to eject the customer, and I pulled the trigger several times a year in each of them. In the Telco, we had to wait for deregulation (local phone service was treated as a right, not a product, before deregulation), and then we had a 'mass firing' of customers, I'd say most of them because of escalating racist demands.

Not to digress too far, but what kind of racist demands would people make oif a phone company? The service works or it doesn't. The bill is right or it's not. What did people want?

 

[Bob001]

.....
(I learned to always tuck my tie into my shirt so it didn't turn into a leash),
.....

That's why cops often wear clip-on neckties.

 

[Bob001]

Training? What training do you need to side with the "Not racist" side of an argument?

Well, if you're a low-level manager you might be scared that your corporate bosses will punish you for throwing out a customer, especially if they haven't explicitly told you that you are entitled to throw out a customer who is disruptive in any way, let alone abusive to your staff.

 

[Giordano]

As much as it would feel good, ejecting people for the opinions they hold is a dangerous precedent.


[snip]

IMO accommodating people with this type of reprehensible "opinion" would be a dangerous precedent. It is well beyond stating some sort of political view. It is a form of insult and verbal abuse with no legitimacy in a healthy society. The manager and staff should feel obligated to protect their legitimate clients from this type of idiot. Ejection seems fully appropriate.

 

[Checkmite]

You’re assuming they will mention that part and won’t just write the head office and complain about what terrible service the waiter/waitress provided.

It doesn't matter what they say, quite honestly, because everybody saw what really happened. If the racist lies and complains that they simply got "poor service", the corporate office would in all likelihood just kick that issue back to the restaurant manager to address, and the restaurant manager knows what actually happened, so the complaint goes nowhere. If the racist complains that they were kicked out but makes up some other more serious phony-reason that prompts corporate to actually investigate for themselves, the restaurant staff would inform them of what really happened, so the complaint goes nowhere.

Restaurants throw loud and belligerent customers out all the time. I do not buy the apologia that the manager was deathly afraid of the prospect of a "bad Yelp review", or that any typical manager would have felt just as compelled to appease a customer behaving in such an abusive manner by whatever means possible in order to quiet them down. This manager just made a very bad decision.

Nor can I agree that firing the manager was the wrong decision by the company; it was absolutely the right decision. How can the black hostesses continue to work for an individual who not only let them be attacked in such a vicious manner without consequence, but even openly sided with a histrionic racist against them in front of the whole restaurant by acquiescing to the racist's demands? The manager proved that she does not have her employees' backs against abusive customers.

 

[blutoski]

Not to digress too far, but what kind of racist demands would people make oif a phone company? The service works or it doesn't. The bill is right or it's not. What did people want?

It comes up during interaction with our employees.


It's 2020, so some of the examples are dated, but...


... people used to call operators a lot. If the operator had an accent, they'd ask for the supervisor automatically. The assumption being that a call center was a bunch of brown women with a grey haired white guy pacing the aisle behind their chairs 'supervising'.

We used to have physical stores for wireline before people got used to just phoning into call centers, where customers could walk in and arrange for a move to a new address, additional jacks, features, listing changes, or change to their long distance plans, stuff likethat. they would line up and when they got to the wicket it'd be an Asian woman, they'd demand we swap her out for this transaction, what do you mean no, i want to talk to your supervisor.

They need a phone jack moved, the techician who shows up is East Indian. They refuse to allow him on the property and demand a Real Canadian come immediately and do the job, no they don't want to rebook, this is the phone company's fault for sending a wog, what do you mean the next available appointment is tomorrow i want to talk to your supervisor.

They forgot their login password to Netflix and when they called the repair department, the guy clearly had an Latino accent, so they didn't even hear what he was saying and immediately interrupted, asking for their supervisor. The supervisor came on, uh-oh, he's also got an accent. OK, they admit they don't necessarily want a supervisor, just connect them with a Real Canadian supervisor please, even if they're in another department, just do it or I'll cancel all my services.

Here's one: they were at our Richmond mobile phone kiosk and there were no white staff there, what are we going to do about that. No, i'm not a customer, no i don't use or need a cellphone, i was just walking past and i'm a concerned citizen. nothing? you're not going to address this? i want to talk to your supervisor.

 

[blutoski]

It doesn't matter what they say, quite honestly, because everybody saw what really happened. If the racist lies and complains that they simply got "poor service", the corporate office would in all likelihood just kick that issue back to the restaurant manager to address, and the restaurant manager knows what actually happened, so the complaint goes nowhere. If the racist complains that they were kicked out but makes up some other more serious phony-reason that prompts corporate to actually investigate for themselves, the restaurant staff would inform them of what really happened, so the complaint goes nowhere.

Restaurants throw loud and belligerent customers out all the time. I do not buy the apologia that the manager was deathly afraid of the prospect of a "bad Yelp review", or that any typical manager would have felt just as compelled to appease a customer behaving in such an abusive manner by whatever means possible in order to quiet them down. This manager just made a very bad decision.

Nor can I agree that firing the manager was the wrong decision by the company; it was absolutely the right decision. How can the black hostesses continue to work for an individual who not only let them be attacked in such a vicious manner without consequence, but even openly sided with a histrionic racist against them in front of the whole restaurant by acquiescing to the racist's demands? The manager proved that she does not have her employees' backs against abusive customers.

I also think that here in 2020, businesses aren't as afraid as they used to of social media blowback, and in particular, it's because we've done a cycle of learning that accommodation just jacks up the stakes for the return visit. "OK, this time, make all the white staff wear blackface, and she has to wear shackles and be chained to the floor, or I'll post **** on Yelp."

 

[Baylor]

This is the US you are talking about. A new entry in today's mass shooting thread? An armed country is a polite country and certainly not one where you upset someone by refusing to serve them. The manager may have been fired but at least xe is alive.

The chance of anyone being shot in this situation was nearly 0.