- A barista at a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia is accused of mocking a man with a stutter.
- This incident comes just three months after two black men were arrested at another Philadelphia Starbucks
- The man reached out to Starbucks Customer Service, which apologized and offered him $5 in compensation.
A worker at a cafe in University City is accused of mocking a man with a stutter, according to an NBC affliate.
Tan Lekwijit, a Wharton student, described the June 27 incident in a post on Facebook saying that his friend Sam, a 28-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate student, stuttered when he told the barista his name after ordering a coffee. The barista reportedly replied, "Okay, S-s-s-sam" and when Sam retrieved his coffee the cup had "SSSAM" printed on it.
"I am writing this not because I want to get anybody into trouble, but because I want to raise awareness among the employees," Lekwijit wrote on Facebook. "There are many people with speech disorders who are in a worse position than my friend’s and struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence. Getting this kind of treatment from people, especially service employees, only scars them — and I beg Starbucks employees to have this in mind."
According to Lekwijit, Sam reached out to Starbucks Customer Service, which apologized and offered $5 in compensation.
"We want our stores to serve as a welcoming place for everyone who visits and want to ensure our partners provide a positive experience," a Starbucks representative wrote on Lekwijit's Facebook post. "Our local leadership has reached out to Sam to better understand what took place and the specifics of his experience and apologize directly. We have zero tolerance for discrimination and are addressing this immediately."
In a statement to CNBC, Starbucks said: "Our local leadership has reached out to the customer to better understand what took place, the specifics of his experience, and to apologize for his experience directly."
This incident comes just three months after two black men were arrested at a different Starbucks in Philadelphia after asking to use the restroom and not ordering anything while they waited for a friend to arrive.
In response, Starbucks conducted an afternoon-long anti-bias training session with more than 175,000 employees in May. The training hoped to raise awareness among its staff about subconscious biases they may hold against people of different races, ethnicities, religions, genders and sexual orientation. The goal was to make Starbucks cafes more inclusive.
It was not immediately clear what, if anything, was said about disabilities.
The company announced earlier this week that it plans to roll out its new training program over the next year with six separate courses for managers and six for employees. These additional training sessions will address engaging with empathy, gratitude and building diverse teams.
Separately, the New York Post reported Starbucks' deputy general counsel in charge of ethics and compliance, Matthew Shay, a 21-year veteran of the company, retired at the start of June. Starbucks told the paper the exit was planned.
Link:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/sta...phia-reportedly-mocked-customers-stutter.html
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Text of Tan Lekwijit's Facebook post dated July 1st (Sorry I don't know how to embed the bloody thing):
(Updates: Starbucks has commented on this post and reached out to Sam)
Starbucks has deleted my post from their page, so here’s again the story:
My friend Sam who is a stutterer stuttered on his name when ordering a coffee at Starbucks. The barista said, “Okay, S-s-s-sam.” When he received his coffee, he was shocked to see that his name on the cup was written as “SSSAM”, which was disrespectful. Later that day, he wrote an email to Starbucks Customer Service and got a pretty standardized email saying they were sorry that he “felt disrespectful [sic]” for the way they wrote his name and offered him $5. Clearly, Starbucks missed the point. It was about how you treat people with speech impairments, not how you write names.
I am writing this not because I want to get anybody into trouble, but because I want to raise awareness among the employees. There are many people with speech disorders who are in a worse position than my friend’s and struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence. Getting this kind of treatment from people, especially service employees, only scars them—and I beg Starbucks employees to have this in mind.
(For context, he went to a Philadelphia Starbucks on 34th and Walnut on June 27th.)
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It's interesting what gets stores shut down for diversity training and company-wide overhaul, and what gets a $5 apology.
