Good for him for sticking up for his teenage employees!
Recently, a Facebook post from the owner of Coldstuff Ice Cream in Blackstone, Massachusetts, went viral. He wanted to tell the public, once and for all, to stop being needlessly cruel to his teenage employees. As a former teenage restaurant employee, I really appreciate what he said, because it's rare for people to stand up for kids who are just trying to do their jobs.
Working in retail isn't always that bad, especially at a chill store. But there's something about working somewhere that serves food that makes every customer evil. They are hungry, and if they don't get their food as soon as possible, they get extremely angry. As a 17-year-old employee at a fast-casual Chinese food restaurant, I was yelled at by so many grown men and women; it was unbelievable. I wasn't used to being treated that way by complete strangers, and it shocked me at first. It's not like I was messing up a bunch of orders or acting like a brat. I was literally just trying my best, and I still got treated so badly by the general public.
I was lucky to have a manager, JP, who was willing to talk to customers who were out of control and treating me poorly. Not all teenagers on the job have someone in their corner who will tell them that the way they're being treated isn't okay. He was business-smart enough not to say that to the customer's face, but he had my back behind the scenes, and in the moment, that's what mattered most.
Dave, the owner of Coldstuff Ice Cream, took his complaints on social media, right where the entitled customers could see him, and told badly behaved customers that their business is not welcome at his shop. Others took to Twitter to comment on his declaration, and while he got some pushback, most of the feedback was extremely positive. After all, most of us have been a kid getting screamed at by some cruel adult.
