Starbucks Barista Fired After Officer’s Cup Had ‘Pig’ on the Label

MAJ Bryan Zeski 1. What was the cop’s name? Was it Paul Ivan G? I am guessing not. Was this the sole transgression the barista had made? Did you know that sometimes baristas are newly returned veterans who were just loading artillery and now they are making fancy coffee. Wait. Cofefe.

I back the blue. However I don’t think this would be worthy of firing someone. That would be worse than say, letting an F-16 pilot get away with rape because of time limits.

Oh, am I off topic?

Guess I should be offended if someone wrote jarhead, leatherneck, devil dog or any other term used to deride the Marine Corps - which we took as out nom de guerre.

PIG = Pride, Integrity, Guts. I first heard that back in the 70s. To borrow a line from Jeff Foxworthy, if you are offended by name calling you might be a snowflake.

If the cop was offended the Barista should be made to publicly apologize. Where did we lose our manners?!

Regardless of the undertones, the specific act was to disparage a customer while in a customer service position. This is a bad look for the organization and can cause a loss of revenue that might justify termination from a financial perspective. If you're duties are to show respect to your customers, and you fail to do so, there's a case to be made for termination. I think this logic applies regardless of the occupation of the victim. However, the backlash to the company can be stronger against certain categories of people. The news cycle for "Barista calls Insurance adjuster a crook" tends to be pretty short, and thus the financial impact to the company is less.

Obviously, from a morality perspective on what constitutes grounds for termination is more nuanced. What is the optimal balance between reforming employees that act out of line and cutting losses/replacing them? That, at the very least, would need to be satisfactorily agreed upon before we could objectively decide whether a firing is just.

I think Police officers should be held to the same standard of being judged on how well they execute their duties, which includes protecting civilians (And verbal assault might well constitute a violation of their duties, but #notalawyer). But there is certainly a different calculus against a rude police officer and a rude barista based on how much of their job is focused on customer service.