Something happened today that really had me thinking about how a person’s perception of a company may be affected by the behavior of the companies’ employees even outside of work.
This is a summarized version of what happened. I was buying beer at a supermarket today and the young cashier needed assistance because of my ID. I am not a US citizen and therefore I have a Green Card issued by the United States government. This means that I am a permanent resident and I pay taxes like everybody else. The floor supervisor who came upon request was someone I had no respect for due to a pervious incident with my Green Card. Based on the principle of what happened I always avoided her and did not want to deal with her then. When she came over I made it clear that I did not want to deal with her and asked her to get her manager. After making it clear several times that I did not want to deal with her, she finally went to get her manager.
The assistant manager of the store came over asked what the problem was and I explained that I did not want to deal with her floor supervisor and why. She then took my card and said that she to go look it up in the handbook. Now this is not unusual I have even helped people find my type of ID in the same book before and have been buying alcohol at the store for the past three years. The assistant manager came back about 10 seconds later and said that she was sorry but my ID was unacceptable because it was not in the book. Imagine my outrage that an assistant manager would lie to a paying customer, someone who should be setting an example. I then told her that that was impossible since I know it’s in the book because I have seen it with my own eyes. Realizing that I know the truth and that I caught her in the lie she proceeded to tell me that they have the right not to sell to me. I also told her that I have spoken to her manager about something similar to this and he apologized and said that it should not have happened. I demanded to speak to the manager she said that he was in another state and that she was not calling him.
Now don’t get me wrong I know that they have a right not to sell alcohol to anyone but within reason. But they had no reason not to sell to me – I am of age, I have a valid ID, I was not drunk nor was I belligerent and the ironic thing is I don’t drink. While I’m demanding a reason, a customer entering the line next to us pipes up that they have been in the business for a long time and that she is right not to sell to me. That really pissed me off, so I turned to the person and asked even for racist reasons and to my amazement, the person answered for any reasons yes. Realizing that this person was not someone that I could reason with, I ignored them but I was furious because they exacerbated an already tense situation. Still demanding a reason someone else said that she should call the cops, which I replied with please call the cops. The assistant manager knows what she did was wrong and that there is a law against discrimination she then proceeded to ask me to leave. I took her name, said I would be speaking to her manager and left.
After I left, I found out that the person who had the audacity to tell me that they could refuse to sell me beer for any reason including racism since that was the question I asked, was an employee at Keene State College to my surprise. After my initial disgust, I had to laugh when a friend commented on how everything came back to KSC. On Saturday I presented at the Academic Excellence Conference and among the people I presented to were, the Vice President of the college Jay Kahn, and the Provost Emile Netzhammer. On Sunday morning I was inducted into the Management Honor Society and on Sunday afternoon a KSC employee was supporting someone’s decision to discriminate against me.
So here I was thinking that everything the college was working towards diversity, acceptance, and tolerance was been undermined by its own employee and not just any employee but someone who had a measure of power. The person had no idea who I was or many of the other people who were present. This is a small community and the college’s image may suffer because of the actions of one employee.
Personally if I was another customer and I knew or found out that the person who made such an atrocious comment was a KSC employee and they held the position that they did I would be appalled and would not attend, send my child or family nor would I recommend anyone to attend the KSC. Are we back to the days of Rosa Parks? If they have the right not to serve me based on my race where does it end? They might as well kill me while they’re at it so I wouldn’t ever bother them again. On that note, did Hitler have the right to kills the Jews?
Do you think that employees’ actions affect the public’s perception of a company and can you refuse to serve someone based on their race?
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