An elderly white customer had a young Black Burger King employee ready to throw hands after she insulted her by telling her to either find better employment or become a prostitute.
Video footage shows what seems like the aftermath of the two exchanging words. When the video begins, the customer and worker are facing each other and speaking.
“Get lost. Arguing with an 80-year-old lady,” the woman can be heard telling the Burger King employee. “Get yourself a better job or go in the street and sell yourself. You’ll make more.”
At this point, the young woman grimaces as if she’s trying to contain her reaction, and then she forcefully slaps the customer’s purse on the ground. Her co-worker then grabs her and pulls her away.
The young woman tries to turn around to re-engage the lady, but her co-worker continues to hold her back and direct her to the back of the store. She discourages her from letting her emotions get the best of her by repeating, “Come on, come on … no, no, no … you on the job,” while taking the young employee out of the camera’s view.
“She’s gonna lose her job,” the woman responds after her purse is knocked over. Another employee seems to be on the phone troubleshooting something on the register, and someone in the background can be heard saying, “That’s f—ed up,” before the video ends.
TikTok users largely criticized the older woman for her harsh words. “People need to get a grip. I don’t care how old you are, you have no right to say that to someone,” one user wrote.
“That was so scummy trash sh-t to say to what appears to be a teenager. No one should’ve helped her miserable a— after that,” someone else added. “I would’ve lost my job,” another chimed in.
“She was gone turn that lady every way but loose,” another user commented. “I would have quit because I would have beat her a— are better yether how you know you must have done it all ready,” someone else replied.
This isn’t the first time a white person has disrespected a Burger King employee. On Easter Sunday, March 31, a white customer in Willowick, Ohio, pulled a gun on a Black employee in the drive-thru because the employee gave him a promotional discount.
“He was like, ‘My order can’t be right, it should be like $11,’ and I’m like trying to explain to him that we had a promotion going on, and like it’s cheaper, and he started cussing and getting all loud, and I was like, I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t know why you want to pay more money,” Howard Vernon, the Burger King employee, said in an interview at the time.
At the time of the writing police were still searching for the suspect.