Manager got it wrong. Correct response would have been: Get that camera out of my face, don’t record me or my staff, get out and don’t come back. You are banned.
The customer is always right bullshit is misunderstood.
It started as something along the lines of “Assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not.”
It was also stylised as “the customer is always right in matters of taste.” Which meant the customer could choose to buy your goods and services, or your competitors, and, as it was his money he was spending, he was right.
The modern meaning is a bastardisation that opens employees to pettiness and abuse.
Edit:also if someone misgenders people, we are almost obligated to misgender them back
Easy for a non-manager, outside of Kansas, with prior context of the customer’s interaction with Lily, with hindsight to say.
Owner or not, she has Burger King lawyers to answer to, not to mention the MAGA community of her town, and she was working with partial information; she didn’t know what had actually been said to the employee, she didn’t know what had actually been captured on video in response, and yet she had to respond on the spot.
The manager handled it with the patience of a saint, and she was accurate: the policy is for employees to not be rude to customers, to not tolerate customers being rude to employees, and not to record on private property. She then asked the customer to leave.
I’m confident watching it back, the manager would have done everything differently, but it’s one of those moments you have one shot at, and she did fine.
You are right, she did do well in the face of an abusive customer, and, as you point out, I’m not in Kansas, or even the US.
I am a senior manager, and have faced this before and have reacted by trespassing customers from all of our branches, closing accounts, denying customers accounts, etc. I also know that my position is unique and privileged.
I answer to the owners of my company and they have my back.
I behaved in the same way in an American owned corporate, and whilst they initially backed me, I was up for redundancy at the first opportunity for them.
Owner was trying to diffuse it but bitchlawyer wouldn’t shut up, so when she finally threw her out it didn’t get the satisfying windup the viewing public demands.
Tbh I think she handled it well. The customer was trying to start an incident and play the victim. The manager comes out looking incredibly calm and reasonable. I think almost anyone, even if they aren’t supportive of trans rights, would watch this and see an asshole customer trying to make scene and trying to fuck with an ordinary person who’s just trying to do her job. Only deranged weirdos like the customer, who are obsessed with harassing trans people, would take the customer’s side.
Maybe there’s a better way the manager could’ve handled it, but generally Burger King managers don’t have media training, and we shouldn’t expect people to handle these situations perfectly. And if she’d been more assertive than the customer could’ve edited the clip to make her response look disproportionate. Calmly emphasizing her name and pronouns was the right move to support the employee while getting rid of the customer and not giving her anything to work with.
okay, you know the owner of this franchise is more likely to align with the video recorder than the trans service worker, right? Likely, she was trying to end the interaction in a way that wouldn’t necessitate any real follow up with some other fuckass property owning piece of shit.
Manager got it wrong. Correct response would have been: Get that camera out of my face, don’t record me or my staff, get out and don’t come back. You are banned.
The customer is always right bullshit is misunderstood.
It started as something along the lines of “Assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not.”
It was also stylised as “the customer is always right in matters of taste.” Which meant the customer could choose to buy your goods and services, or your competitors, and, as it was his money he was spending, he was right.
The modern meaning is a bastardisation that opens employees to pettiness and abuse.
Edit:also if someone misgenders people, we are almost obligated to misgender them back
Easy for a non-manager, outside of Kansas, with prior context of the customer’s interaction with Lily, with hindsight to say.
Owner or not, she has Burger King lawyers to answer to, not to mention the MAGA community of her town, and she was working with partial information; she didn’t know what had actually been said to the employee, she didn’t know what had actually been captured on video in response, and yet she had to respond on the spot.
The manager handled it with the patience of a saint, and she was accurate: the policy is for employees to not be rude to customers, to not tolerate customers being rude to employees, and not to record on private property. She then asked the customer to leave.
I’m confident watching it back, the manager would have done everything differently, but it’s one of those moments you have one shot at, and she did fine.
You are right, she did do well in the face of an abusive customer, and, as you point out, I’m not in Kansas, or even the US.
I am a senior manager, and have faced this before and have reacted by trespassing customers from all of our branches, closing accounts, denying customers accounts, etc. I also know that my position is unique and privileged.
I answer to the owners of my company and they have my back.
I behaved in the same way in an American owned corporate, and whilst they initially backed me, I was up for redundancy at the first opportunity for them.
It’s misunderstood because nobody ever finishes the full sentence:
When you say the whole thing it makes sense but it also can’t be used the way these cunts like to use it.
You let people record, generally. At least for the hostile interaction part.
Her response wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty decent for being on the spot. Easy to pick on things with hindsight.
Owner was trying to diffuse it but bitchlawyer wouldn’t shut up, so when she finally threw her out it didn’t get the satisfying windup the viewing public demands.
Tbh I think she handled it well. The customer was trying to start an incident and play the victim. The manager comes out looking incredibly calm and reasonable. I think almost anyone, even if they aren’t supportive of trans rights, would watch this and see an asshole customer trying to make scene and trying to fuck with an ordinary person who’s just trying to do her job. Only deranged weirdos like the customer, who are obsessed with harassing trans people, would take the customer’s side.
Maybe there’s a better way the manager could’ve handled it, but generally Burger King managers don’t have media training, and we shouldn’t expect people to handle these situations perfectly. And if she’d been more assertive than the customer could’ve edited the clip to make her response look disproportionate. Calmly emphasizing her name and pronouns was the right move to support the employee while getting rid of the customer and not giving her anything to work with.
okay, you know the owner of this franchise is more likely to align with the video recorder than the trans service worker, right? Likely, she was trying to end the interaction in a way that wouldn’t necessitate any real follow up with some other fuckass property owning piece of shit.