Partially Paralyzed Woman Was Fired For Not Smiling Enough (Walmart)

[matcom]

<snip>

ST. PETERSBURG - Molly Beavers lost her smile early on in her 19-year career of pushing food samples and collecting grocery carts she could barely see over.

Her scowl may have cost her the job.

A Sam's Club manager fired her in December 2003 for not smiling enough, she says. Beavers' face is partially paralyzed from surgery related to her condition as an achondroplastic dwarf.

Beavers, 49, filed an Americans With Disabilities Act complaint in federal court Friday, alleging that Sam's Club and parent company Wal-Mart discriminated against her when they fired her. She claims they knew about her health problems and failed to accommodate her.

The complaint says Beavers is seeking a jury trial, but Beavers says she's really seeking an apology and some compensation for the last two years she has been unemployed.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Christi Gallagher declined to speak about the lawsuit.

"I can tell you that Wal-Mart's policy prohibits discrimination of any kind," Gallagher said.

Beavers is also one of the 5,000 women alleging Wal-Mart discriminated against them in a high profile class-action lawsuit that's working its way through the courts.

Although partial paralysis has saddled her with a permanent frown, Beavers said she lived for her food demonstration job.

She commuted by bus each morning for one hour from St. Petersburg to the Clearwater Sam's Club along Gulf to Bay Boulevard to offer tastes of biscuits and gravy and pigs-in-a-blanket to Sam's Club customers.

She started working for a Sam's Club's predecessor, Pace Membership Warehouse, on U.S. 19 in Pinellas County in 1984, when she was 28. She rode her bicycle about 10 miles to and from work every day, until a car hit her and left her unconscious, battered and bruised.

Beavers said she can't remember the exact date of the surgery that paralyzed her face but that it occurred when she was working at Pace and it was to correct a glandular disorder.

http://sptimes.com/2005/06/14/Tampabay/Suit_says_missing_smi.shtml

[LiberalFighter]

1. Things I hate about stores

Stores that call me by my first name as if they know me when they obtained it from my credit card.

Stores that require their employees to say hi to everyone that they see.

Stores that don't train their employees the proper way to give change AND how to properly hand it to the customer.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Things I hate about stores

Stores that call me by my first name as if they know me when they obtained it from my credit card.

Stores that require their employees to say hi to everyone that they see.

Stores that don't train their employees the proper way to give change AND how to properly hand it to the customer.

[givemebackmycountry]

3. You know, this is so typical...everything is disposable in this country

Including you, if you happen to be a victim of somebody's whim that given day.


Here's a clearly disabled woman.

Working for the richest global mega-corporation in history.
Rides a FREAKING bus an hour to get to a bullshit job.
A job that WE would dream of, only in a nightmare.
Dishing out samples of biscuits and gravy and pigs-in-a-blanket to redneck Floridians.
She said "she lived for her job".
I'd slash my wrists after thirty minutes.

19 years.

And they throw her out like a spoiled loaf of bread.
She rode her bike 20 miles round trip to her "job".
To push carts around a parking lot.

Then they toss her aside.

These are some heartless bastards and I hope she wins enough money that she will NEVER have to work again.

Lord knows, she deserves it.

[NMMNG]

4. What a load of horse excrement

Fired for not smiling enough! As if their other employees smile some pre-determined amount :eyes: .

They basically used her until they got tired of her, then (particularly after her claim and requests for accomodations) decided to dump her based on a trumped up charge.


They are scum.

[LisaL]

6. It's absolutely true. Don't think it's made up. The clerk is

supposed to smile at the customer. Of course it's kind of hard with paralyzed face.

[NMMNG]

10. I'm not saying I think the story is BS

I think their claim against her is BS. I've been in plenty of Wal-marts and Sams-Clubs and gotten nary a smile (the greeters being the exception). Some of them practically growl at me for asking for assistance. Should they all be fired?

[Robeson]

5. I hope she gets a good attorney, and sues the living shit out of them.

[matcom]

7. yup

agree 100%

[Trigger Hippie]

8. Argh.

I hate stories like this. What a nightmare for this woman. I hope she gets a lotta money from those bastards at Wal-Mart.

[arwalden]

9. All She Needed Some WAX LIPS In The Shape Of A Smile

[TheMightyFavog]

11. They still make wax lips?

I can never find them anywhere.