[nagdu] Confronting Discrimination at McDonald's

Sun Jul 13 18:38:03 UTC 2014

	When we first entered the restaurant 20 minutes prior to this video,
we were told the manager said no dogs were allowed. When we asked to speak
with the namager, we were told she did not speak English. The video was the
exchange between Merry and the manager. As you see in the video, when asked
about her English language skills, she seems to be confirming the assertion
by the first employee. Though we doubt the assertion of not speaking English
is untrue, it certainly seems to support that the previous employee may have
been acting upon the direction of the manager. It is a bit confusing, since
one employee seems to now be blaming someone other than the manager, causing
me to wonder how many employees are being thrown under the bus by the
manager here! When I was sighted, I was the General Manager of a department
store. As such, the conduct of each employee was my direct responsibility,
even when they acted poorly and contrary to my directives and whether or not
I was directly aware of their conduct, I was accountable for their actions.
This manager - and I am only basing this upon her assertions and those of
her other employees - seems to absolve herself of any accountability and her
apologies are insincere. She never resolves the situation and exits without
so much as an "Excuse me!" She just turns and walks away! How apologetic is
that? 

	As we have stated, we will be discussing this issue with our contact
at Caspers Company, showing him the video and letting him make his
determination. We will let you know how it is resolved.

Marion Gwizdala

Marion

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Barb breuer via
nagdu
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2014 11:57 PM
To: Cindy Ray; Name, Full
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Confronting Discrimination at McDonald's

Maybe I missed something, but the women didn't say she couldn't bring the
dog in, it was another co-worker. The manager asked the team member who told
him the dog couldn't come in and the team member pointed someone else out.
Yes they all needed to have a brush up on the law, but it was a co-worker
who said she couldn't bring in the dog. 
----- Original Message -----

From: "Name, Full" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
To: "Marion Gwizdala" <blind411 at verizon.net>, "Name, Full"
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2014 9:52:08 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Confronting Discrimination at McDonald's 

Do you think that this woman was really the manager? 

Cindy 

On Jul 12, 2014, at 2:38 PM, Marion Gwizdala via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
wrote: 

> Please feel free to disseminate and repost this message as widely as 
> appropriate.
> 
> 
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> Some of you were unable to access the video, so, thanks to a fellow 
> Federationist who posted it to his YouTube channel, here it is to 
> view!I have also included a brief narrative from merry that will offer 
> a little more background before the link.
> 
> 
> 
> Fraternaly yours,
> 
> 
> 
> Marion Gwizdala, President
> 
> National Association of Guide Dog Users Inc. 
> 
> National Federation of the Blind
> 
> (813) 626-2789
> 
> (888) 624-3841 (Hotline)
> 
> President at nagdu.org
> 
> http://www.nagdu.org
> 
> 
> 
> High expectations create unlimited potential for the blind! 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Before everyone views the video I will give a brief description of 
> what happened before the video was taken.
> 
> 
> 
> Marion and I walked into our local McDonalds- we have been in this 
> restaurant hundreds of times. I have lived in this area off and on 
> since
> 1988 and have been a permanent resident since 1997. Marion and I 
> bought our house here in 2003. This area is great for pedestrians 
> because it has some stores and restaurants within walking distance -
perfect for our lifestyle.
> 
> 
> Continuing on... 
> 
> We stood together in the lobby waiting for an available cashier for a 
> few minutes. When we approached the counter a young man came from the 
> back of the restaurant and stated that the manager said no dogs 
> allowed. We shared these were service dogs and the cashier stated it 
> as well. I then asked to speak with his manager, he replied that his
manager did not speak English.
> 
> I was actually dumbfounded by this. We ordered our food and got our 
> drinks and sat down to eat.
> 
> 
> 
> As we ate we discussed with each other that we needed to educate the 
> manager before we left and video this interaction. We were going to 
> ask for a translater. We video recorded an introduction before moving 
> towards the counter area. As we began to move toward the counter area 
> the manager approached us.
> 
> 
> 
> Now some thoughts before we spoke to her. Yes our neighborhood has a 
> great deal of Hispanic speaking individuals, our local Latin American 
> Grocery store has the best and cheapest Cuban sandwiches. Back to 
> topic: As we discussed over our meal although there is a great deal of 
> Hispanic speaking individuals in our neighborhood there is a higher 
> percentage of English speaking people. It did not make sense to us 
> that McDonalds would put a manager in a restaurant that does not speak 
> English well. The video will show that the manager still claims she 
> speaks little English. After the recording, our cashier was in the 
> lobby taking a break and I asked her if the manager spoke English she 
> stated she did. Unfortunately, as the video will demonstrate, the 
> manager took no responsibility for her employees actions and basically
threw them under the bus.
> 
> 
> 
> We have worked in the past with this McDonalds to do local events and 
> have contacted a member of upper management (Director of Marketing) 
> for the Corporation. I am sure we will hear from him on Monday. He can 
> view the video as well.
> 
> 
> 
> I was a restaurant manager in 1984 and if something liked this 
> occurred in my store, I would have been proactive! I would have been 
> at my customer's table while they were eating, took their receipt, 
> reimbursed them their money, gave them tickets for free meals on their 
> next visit,and I would have told them my employees were wrong in their 
> behavior and I would train them appropriately. This manager did none 
> of these things and only appeared to have her employees do her dirty 
> work and then be deceitful in the area of communicating with us. 
> Apologies are not well received when they don't appear genuine! Now for
the video!
> 
> 
> 
> http://youtu.be/kePK2vedOog
> 
> 
> 
> Merry Schoch, Vice President
> 
> Florida Association of Guide dog Users
> 
> 
> 
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