Saturday, May 16, 2015

Are These the Kind of Starbuck's Employees that Howard Schultz Wanted to Engage in Discussion about Race?

NBC New York reports:

A New York City Starbucks employee has been fired after cellphone video showing her ranting at customers in a Queens store went viral shortly after being posted online.

Customer Ruby Chen, the main target of the employee's tirade, complained about the interaction on Starbucks' Facebook page and posted the video, provided to her by another customer in the store who filmed the entire incident on Tuesday.

She said she'd placed an order for a Frappuccino at the store on Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, and was pulling up the Starbucks app on her phone to pay. The Starbucks employee asked her name for her order -- but Chen said she didn't hear her.

That's when the worker began shouting at her, Chen said.

The worker yanked away the app scanner when Chen tried to pay, and then "told me to leave and never go back" to the store, Chen said.

The worker then accused her of trying to steal the cookie straw she was holding. She asked a co-worker to call the police.

"You're talking to the manager," the worker told Chen when asked who the manager was. "Get out. You're not going to be served here. Period. Bye. Bye. Bye."
The worker was a shift supervisor, not a manager, according to a spokeswoman for Starbucks.

The supervisor is heard telling Chen: "Give me the straw and leave. Or you can leave with the straw and not be allowed back in. Which one do you want to do? Because when I told you the price, you wanted to keep on arguing. So which one do you want to do? You're not going to be served here."
When other customers in the store began to speak in Chen's defense, the supervisor began yelling at them.

Video here.

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