Massachusetts shop says employee quit after reopening over lack of social distancing, harassment

[RandySF]

A Massachusetts ice cream shop said it was forced to shutter a day after it reopened after customers used profanity with workers over social distancing guidelines.

Polar Ice Cream Parlour owner Mark Lawrence told CNN affiliate WFXT that one worker quit her job at the Mashpee business on the first day of reopening.

"One of my best workers quit yesterday at the end of her shift. She stuck it through her shift," Lawrence said. "But the words she was called and the language, you wouldn't even say in a men's locker room. And to say it to a 17-year-old kid, they should be ashamed of themselves."

Lawrence told the outlet that when the shop reopened, it asked customers to place orders an hour in advance, but that the request was largely ignored by customers who took their frustration out on staff.

"People have forgotten how to treat other human beings in the six or seven weeks that they've been confined to their homes,” he said. “They have no clue how to respect other human beings."



https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/497108-massachusetts-shop-says-employee-quit-after-reopening-over-lack

[RhodeIslandOne]

1. The OPEN EVERYTHING crowd sure loves the free market, don't they?

Businesses have every right to request customers follow their rules, seeing as these cocksuckers are so obsessed with stuffing their maw with shit they've had "stolen from them by the gubmint". Either follow the fucking rules or you WILL STAY HOME.

[DBoon]

3. People who proudly defy a medical quarantine order are self centered jerks

Who knew?

[SMC22307]

4. "...they should be ashamed of themselves."

We need to be hearing a lot more ot this, especially from Democratic leaders and the religious left. Target the re-open assholes and how they're harassing nurses, service workers, etc... I think a new Biden ad does just that. Focus on civility. I remember a poll from way back, maybe the Bush years, that showed Americans distressed about the lack of civility in this country. And it's only gotten worse under Trump...

[Harker]

9. I agree.

Shamelessness has had its run.

When I was verbally abused and threatened at work, I said, "that's not a nice thing to say", but "you should be ashamed of yourself" has a nice, solid, retro ring to it.

[Marrah_Goodman]

5. I find this really shocking

My folks live in Mashpee. They live in a very large retirement community there and they are still isolating, as are there neighbors. having spent a lot of time there, I never would have thought this behavior would happen there. I would expect that type of behavior more in the area I am in.

Guess there are assholes everywhere.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Cautious, civil people stay home. Got it.

Which is why reopening ASAP to suit Trump is a very bad idea.

[DownriverDem]

7. They also

hate it when you tell them "fine, just die".

[2naSalit]

15. I use that one as well as...

"Hurry up and get raptured, will ya? We need to get on with trying to have peace on earth." The bible thumpers really get stopped in their tracks with that one.

And if I'm serving food, especially to go, I give them a really big, I hope you choke on it smile so they think maybe someone might have spit in it.

I don't do service with a smile very well so I tried to avoid that kind of work but in troubled times I had to resort to what work I could find.

[C Moon]

8. Sounds like some MAGAts wanted some ice cream.

[Blue_true]

26. The rugged individual, eat what they grow stuff got old, I guess. nt

[MineralMan]

10. I can clearly imagine the customer who said those things

to that 17-year-old ice cream store worker. I can even see the disgusting expression on his face as he said it.

NO ICE CREAM FOR YOU!

[yonder]

11. 'People have forgotten how to treat other human beings...'

Memory aside, some never knew how except for getting their necessary 'wants'. Throw a wrench into their system, they fall apart.

[DanieRains]

12. The Trump Effect

Being an open unapolegetic asshole.

[Hortensis]

13. In Arkansas, a friend of our daughter was asked if he was a Democrat

by a stranger -- because he was wearing a mask as he walked across a parking lot.

I don't think she said what he answered, but doesn't matter. Not everyone on the right ascribes to this particularly insane aspect of their massive social pathology, to put it mildly.

[DownriverDem]

14. Righties

repubs have made them that way. We need to defeat them big time in November. That means we need big wins in the House and Senate or we change nothing.

[Javaman]

16. assholes will not stand by idly when they are denied their god given right to ice cream.

"damn it! I'm entitled as a 'merikan to get all up in your biznatch!!! Now give me my god flavored ice cream!!!!"

all over a mask and asked to stand back a few feet.

morons.

[gratuitous]

17. Sounds like Mark Lawrence didn't do a very good job of re-opening

One of his best workers is a 17-year-old kid, and it sounds like he didn't do anything to police the folks coming in to his little emporium and didn't do anything to protect his staff. Too busy ringing up sales to notice anything else, Mr. Lawrence? Why wasn't there anyone at the door stopping people from coming in if they hadn't pre-ordered? Does your half-assed job of re-opening that depended so heavily on a 17-year-old kid being the responsible person in all this show any respect to her? If you truly think so, please explain as fully as you can.

[stopdiggin]

20. security at the door of an ice cream shop?

WOW! Glad you put the onus where it belongs here.
Hope you're feeling better.
--- -- ---

[gratuitous]

21. I didn't say "security," but somebody should have been there

Instead, the owner made the decision - either affirmatively or through omission - to let the 17-year-old behind the counter decide how to deal with customers who weren't following the rule Mark Lawrence supposedly laid down, that customers send in their orders an hour before coming to the store.

Unless Mr. Lawrence has been living under a rock for the last two months, he should have known that tensions are running pretty high in the country. I don't know why it didn't occur to him that a lot of people would just show up at his emporium without calling or e-mailing ahead, but it should have. Instead, he let one of his best workers, a 17-year-old kid, handle the angry customers who crashed the door. Yeah, I put the onus on the owner who didn't think this through very well, if at all. I blame him in the same way I blame Black Friday stores that don't prepare for the door-buster crowds.

[stopdiggin]

23. thank you for your clarification

and you're right .. ALL the ice cream shop owners fault. Should have KNOWN he had a Black Friday crowd .. and behavior on his hands. What was that small business owner THINKING?

Still hopin' you feel better.
-- -- -- -- --

[gratuitous]

24. Sorry you think "business as usual" is a light switch

There isn't just an on/off deal here. And business owners who think they're just going to go back to how it was BC are fooling themselves, and doing their employees a grave disservice. I don't know if Mr. Lawrence was on site when he reopened his shop, but he should have been. And if he sat idly by while his 17-year-old employee was taking that kind of abuse, then he's even more culpable. Later in the story, Lawrence concedes that "there is no road map to follow," but he didn't put an ounce of thought into what might happen when he re-opened.

He wasn't thinking about the weeks of angry mobs waving guns and demonstrating all across the country. He wasn't thinking about the people shooting up the local McDonald's because they weren't able to sit down with their Happy Meal. He wasn't thinking about his 17-year-old employee having to face any of that. In a back-handed way, he's lucky one of his best employees quit before she had a chance to get shot.

Finally, just as I never said anything about "security," I also never said it was ALL Lawrence's fault, so I'll decline your second attempt to stuff words in my posts. Your obtuseness can only be willful.

[patphil]

18. The only good to come from all of this, if you can call it good is...

that we now have a pretty clear idea of how many mean spirited, angry, hate-filled, violent people there are in America.
It's a lot more than expected; a whole lot more.
Fear, and a President who is the chief enabler of this behavior, have given a whole segment of this nation's citizens an opportunity to show how bad things really are in this country.

It's an ugly truth, that I never expected to see in such a large number of Americans.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. How about recording those jerks and posting it all over

social media?

[0rganism]

22. this is why we can't have nice things

as a society, we have not earned them

[Cha]

25. And Ice Cream eaters.. shame on them. Couldn't

even cool it to get their ice cream.

[Blue_true]

27. Maybe the owner was opening up before the state allowed.

A case like that is most likely going to attract the type of people that go to protests with big guns and confederate flags.