Bob CollinsIn last week’s NewsCut post — and yesterday’s radio show — on the best jobs,the worst jobs, and the jobs we learned the most from, one theme came through: Be nicer to people at work, particularly in the service sector. Empathy is in, people. Rudeness is out.
And someone should tell that to the people — middle-aged people, by the way — at the Wendy’s in Maple Grove who treated one employee so rudely recently that she’s started a GoFundMe page to give them a break from the customers. The employee in question, and one other staffer, are 88 years old, Taya Brodin-Hanson, of Osseo, writes.
While waiting in line the couple in front of me ordered three frosty’s. Two medium vanilla & one small chocolate.
Mrs. Fran did her best to hear them but asked the couple to repeat themselves a few times and therefore repeated the order back to them incorrectly a couple of times before she got it right; they both got snippy with her, rolling their eyes and taking multiple big sighs just to make sure Mrs. Fran would know how irritated they were with her service.
They again got rude with her when Mrs. Fran told them that they do not have M & M’s or any other toppings (Dairy Queen is right across the street). By the time they left (no thank you of course) you could see by Mrs. Fran’s body language she felt embarrassed/irritated and a bit defeated.
So when it was my turn I did the best I could to show her the respect she deserves; smiling, saying please and thank you & yes Ma’am (what we teach our kids to say to our elders from the time they are two years old.
I tried to lift her spirits best I could during our brief interaction and I went to sit down when it hit me and hit me hard what the Universe wanted me to do for them for all these years.
If this middle-aged couple thought it was OK to treat Mrs. Fran they way they did how must other people be treating Mrs. Laverne & Mrs Fran badly on a daily basis? My guess is sadly, many.
We live in a country where our elderly population have to work later and later in life, that is a sad fact. I say that it is our job as a society to take better care of them all. So until the laws/government catches up to what we should all be doing I say we all step up in any way we can. This is one of the ways I want to step up and am asking for your help.
(h/t: City Pages)
