Okay, as a lot of you know, I work overnights at a hotel. It’s for a pretty recognizable brand, so we get a lot of high paying customers.
Part of my job is to prep the breakfast area before the breakfast team shows up so that breakfast is done by the time it needs to be. This, of course, means that I have to step away from the desk. It doesn’t really help that the time I need to start working on breakfast is also when customers start checking out.
So I had the bright idea of making a sign. It’s not fancy, the letters are pretty big, and it basically just says “Hey if you need me I’m in the kitchen, just give a holler.”
It’s worked really well so far; people see it, they call for me, and I get them taken care of with little to no fuss. Or, at least, it’s worked up until now.
This guy.
This. Fucking. Guy.
I finish prepping the breakfast area, I walk out, and at the front desk is a man, huffing and puffing. He harshly asks “Are you working the front desk?”.
I say with my best customer service voice “Yes sir, I just had to prep a few things for the breakfast team. Can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah you can help me by giving me some fucking service. I’ve been waiting for almost five minutes and I have to catch my flight!”
Oh boy. Here we go.
So I tell the man, “Well, sir, if you’ll look right in front of you, if you needed me, that sign tells you that I was in the kitchen.”
And this man. Just. Fucking looks at me. And says.
“You expect me to fucking read on my day off?”
And I just.
I was floored. That someone would say that. Completely unironically. With no hesitation.
"Cops everywhere staring down the barrel of a gun at a black man don't see a human being
—
they see a caricature. A thug. A n*gger. So, nah! You don't get to show up in a Halloween-costume version of us and claim 'Irony!' or 'Ignorance!' Not anymore."
Dear White People, Chapter I (2017) dir. Tina Mabry
