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A local Philadelphia Starbucks located on 34th and Walnut is in hot water after a customer says he was mocked by an employee due to a speech impediment.
Starbucks says an employee in Philadelphia has been fired after reportedly mocking a customer with a stutter. The coffee chain says the behavior did not reflect the experience customers should have and the employee is no longer with Starbucks.
The customer’s friend took to Facebook to share their story.
“My friend Sam who is a stutterer stuttered on his name when ordering a coffee at Starbucks. The barista said, “Okay, S-s-s-sam.” When he received his coffee, he was shocked to see that his name on the cup was written as “SSSAM”, which was disrespectful. Later that day, he wrote an email to Starbucks Customer Service and got a pretty standardized email saying they were sorry that he “felt disrespectful [sic]” for the way they wrote his name and offered him $5. Clearly, Starbucks missed the point. It was about how you treat people with speech impairments, not how you write names.
I am writing this not because I want to get anybody into trouble, but because I want to raise awareness among the employees. There are many people with speech disorders who are in a worse position than my friend’s and struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence. Getting this kind of treatment from people, especially service employees, only scars them—and I beg Starbucks employees to have this in mind.”
