Sunday, November 13, 2011
Customers Would Rather Have a Pretty Young Girl Cash Them Out
One of my new favorite things has become searching the Buffalo News' website. There are so many interesting stories that pertain to this class. Type in gender or racial relations, and there's hundreds of articles to read. This one caught my attention because I've always been interested in discrimination in the work place. The article is about a manager at Panera Bread supposedly getting fired because he had a African American male employee cashing people out on his shift. Apparently, he should have been working in a less visible position, because "that is what the customers want" It could be a scam, the manager could just be using this as a way to get money since he was denied an extended period of medical leave after having hip replacement surgery. Just read the 1st 5 small paragraphs and you'll get the main idea. Here's the article.
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Claire,
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. I have done some reading/research on people of color working in the restaurant and found that time and time again people of color are denied positions in the "front of house" (servers, bartenders, managers, hosts) in dining establishments. This is especially the case in fine dinning, where the servers are often white (and male) while people of color are often regulated to lower back of house positions (which are typically paid much less).
Its really troubling to hear about what is happening at Panera, but based on what I have read, not very surprising.
I wonder if this reflects company policy?
John, I feel as if since African Americans were seen as servants to whites in the past, that is still how some people think of them. Whites think blacks should still be washing dishes and cleaning tables and things like that. It is sad though that at Panera they are that worried about their sales / what the customers want, that they would discriminate. I really do not think anything would change at Panera if this young black man was cashing people out as opposed to a young pretty white girl.
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