Note that what follows was written before Starbucks commented. Starbucks denies this person ever worked for them in Atlanta or anywhere else. Until someone can prove otherwise, I accept their answer.
I leave the rest of this here because I feel it serves a purpose, but I will edit to remove any improper taint for Starbucks. Readers take note: Starbucks denies the post, and I believe them.
Usually I stick to firearms and gun topics on here, but today I saw something that made me so angry I decided I had to write about it. I have demanded answers: you should too!
Again, what follows assumes the truth of what this person did. Asserting these things is heinous in and of itself.
Somewhere around 8th grade you realize that the school system is keeping score, that grades matter, and that an education is important. Even people who hate school, teachers, and everything else, recognize that education is either a promoter or a limiter depending in large part on your grand desires for life.
I am firmly convinced no one ever dreamed that their life’s work would be serving coffee at a Starbucks. People get hired at Starbucks either because (a) they’re working on a degree or other self-improvement; or (b) that’s the only work they’re qualified to do. And keep in mind, that’s not a high hurdle anymore since cash registers tell you how much money to give back. Basically if you can pour water and speak something close to English, you get hired. That’s not a dig at Starbucks either; they have a very simple product/market. You don’t need brain surgeons selling coffee.
Back to 8th grade. That fussy math teacher is telling you that Algebra, Geometry and math in general are important to your future career plans. It may be hard, it may be boring in some ways, but its important. You have a choice: do it or not. To paraphrase Yoda, “do or do not, there is no try.” Or as I often say, trying is just a noisy way of not doing something. You either let letters and equation symbols beat you into a life of servile dependence, or you master them. Even if you don’t like them. Even if you think you’ll never use them. I remember vividly asking my former Trig teacher and Satan’s personal emissary here on earth, why I needed math. I argued I’d never use it. Then I wound up having to calculate entrainment ratios and suddenly realized just how important my high school and college math education was. (But I still don’t like her.)
The important thing is, I had a choice, just like everyone has a choice. Educate and liberate yourself, or fail to get an education and condemn your life to following orders. Case in point, my time in the Army. It is the ultimate place where following orders you may not like is a way of life, and failure to do so gets you jail time.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved the Army. Where else do they give you a gun, send you to strange new lands, allow you meet strange new people, and pay you to kill them. For the most part I worked with officers I truly admired and respected. But there was this one Sergeant Major who would not respect the chain of command. He wanted personal services not because he had the military authority to command them, but rather because he thought his feces were not capable of producing aroma. I politely explained to him the chain of command and suggested he talk to my boss, the Captain, to whom I was directly attached and who dictated what I could and could not do. He ordered me to do his work. I refused, went to see the Captain, and the Captain straightened him out. If that was the end of the story, I might have stayed in the Army. But he came back to me a few weeks later and told me that the Army was a small family, that we’d meet again, that he would see to it, and that he would make my life a living hell.
You see, in the Army, even if those appointed over you are simpering morons, you have to follow their orders. Even if it gets you killed. When my ETS came, I did not re-enlist. I had by then achieved my VA benefits, and I went to college and ultimately law school because I like being my own boss, setting my own priorities, and benefitting (or not) from my own choices. I follow orders to this day, because we all have bosses at some level. But my bosses can’t send me to the gulag.
All this gets back to choices. I made choices. I could not pay for college, so I mortgaged 4 years of my future for a 4 year degree. I followed orders for 4 years. Nowhere in that time, even when receiving truly stupid orders, or being asked to do servile things (clean the coffee pot, bring someone coffee, KP, etc.) did I ever contemplate poisoning people with dog feces, or spitting in the drinks of other people.
You get a job. You owe the company loyalty. You owe the customers your honest effort. You get paid for what you do. You get punished for what you do not do. That is how employment works. To take petty, childish, and assaultive actions against people on the basis of their race (and that’s what this person did), is beyond repugnant.
To date, no action has been taken against the worker. This is, sadly, a form of “black privilege.” You can get away with bad behavior if you’re angry, poorly educated, and black. You can be forgiven because you were “oppressed.”
No one alive today and born in the US was ever a slave. No one’s parents were slaves. No one’s grandparents were slaves. Yes, slavery was awful, but hundreds of thousands of men perished to put an end to it. Being angry and black does not give you the right to inflict your version of social justice on others.
And, perhaps the worst thing of all, in my opinion, was her assertion of poisoning the child’s hot chocolate. A four year old child is not capable of seeing race. She is not capable of hating a person (but broccoli, maybe). She is still sweet, innocent, and in most cases delightful. And this monster put ground up pit bull feces on her hot chocolate, and act that could have caused E coli contamination. An act that could have claimed that child’s life. That is criminal!
But far worse is the fact that after doing so, she bragged about it as if it were a good thing. You cannot tell me her boss did not know she was doing this. You cannot tell me her co-workers did not know she was doing this if it really happened. It doesn’t wash. My guess: everyone at this location was in on the scheme, and everyone should be considered a co-conspirator, again, assuming its true. Everyone from the manager down at that location should be fired if it is true. The location should be permanently closed.
I will drink coffee at a Starbucks again. I accept their explanation. That people would assert this kind of thing in an attempt to scare others on the basis of race is both criminal and shameful. And while these crimes cannot be prosecuted without evidence, Starbucks can surely unleash a battalion of lawyers on them.
So, Starbucks…. thanks for responding. Good luck in finding these swine and making them pay.
The Well Armed Attorney 