This is America...where, if you are an employee at Home Depot, youre apparently expected to take repeated verbal abuse from a customer without verbally responding, however calmly, yourself.
Maurice Rucker, 60, lost his job at an Albany, N.Y., Home Depot after he said he was subjected to racist verbal abuse, which he said was unlike anything hes ever experienced. The fall out has left him shocked, WNYT reports.
Rucker said the incident all started last Thursday when a customer approached checkout with an unleashed dog.
I said to him, Sir, when you have your dog in here we prefer that you keep it on a leash. He turned around and said, Fuck you. Youre an asshole youre a piece of shit, Rucker recalled.
The customer didnt stop there, adding, If Trump wasnt president, you wouldnt even have a job and Youre from the ghetto, what do you know? according to Rucker.
Ive lived all over the country and Ive had no one talk to me the way that this guy talked to me, Rucker said.
The barrage of insults continued until the 60-year-old couldnt take it anymore.
Youre lucky Im at work, because if I wasnt, this wouldnt be happening, or you wouldnt be talking to me like this, Rucker recalled snapping back.
Then, get this, the man left, but then returned because he forgot his dog. He then verbally attacked Rucker again, before leaving for the final time.
Rucker thought the situation was all said and done, but when he went to work on Tuesday he was told he was being fired, something he feels is drastic, considering hes been working with Home Depot for 10 years and was just recently named Cashier of the Month.
According to Home Depot, the harsh discipline was because Rucker did not follow protocol when dealing with the irate customer, who called to complain about him after the fact.
The problem here is that he had several opportunities to disengage and contact management to deal with the customer. Were appalled by this customers behavior, but we also must require associates to follow proper protocol to defuse a situation for the sake of their safety and the safety of other associates and customers, Home Depot Spokesperson Stephen Holmes told WNYT.
Rucker said that the customer accused Rucker of being racist.
He said that I was being racist and that I said I would knock him down. He just told him a bunch of lies and it seems like they believed him, Rucker, who was making less than $13, told the news site.
Now Rucker is considering looking for an attorney, and since he is out of his job at Home Depot, is hoping to work with children, to continue the work he did do at Home Depot, which included running kids workshops.