so, a few months ago, this kid, drew, refused to serve a tranny and two gay dudes. he called another co-worker up. and i walked with rachael because we were talkin. so, he flat out says "as a christian, i refuse to serve them. rachael, take the register. i will bot compromise my beliefs to serve them." i went to the store manager about it, the results are later on...but this time, i feel what he said was WAY worse... so, i get to work on wednesday at 6, which is normal since it's truck day. so, i went into the office, and there were thompson, rodas, and han (all three managers) drew, and morine. so, the subject of another store manager came up, mr. o'dell, who happens to be gay, but the subject changed really fast. about 10 minutes later, the subject of store transfers came up, because han said he can't stand our store manager. so, he tells drew that he would like to see him in pharmacy at mr. o'dell's store. drew immediately snaps, "the same o'dell we were just talkin about?" to which han replies "yes." again, drew snaps, "oh, i can't work for him then!" now, i immediately knew exactly what he meant. but mr. han didn't, and was all "why not?" drew, in the most serious yet dispised tone says "because he's gay. i cannot, and utterly refuse to work for someone that is homosexual!" mr. han was speechless. he was all "drew, don't ever say that" and drew was like "well, it's the truth. i won't work for anyone that is homosexual. i refuse." mr. han was all "well, if you say it, then i have to write you up and you can be fired for discrimination." then drew was all "well, you remember phillip, right? i couldn't stand working with him because he's gay" god fuckin dammit han! why they FUCK did you not say anything?! han said it himself! he could get written up and fired for discriminating like that! and everyone in the store knows i'm openly bisexual! so then rodas had to talk to han in private, and we were all dispersed. like, 10-15 minutes later, drew came up to me all "oh, i didn't offend you, did i? because yer the exception to my rule. i befriended you before i knew you were bisexual. and you don't seem it anyways. usually i pick up on it in people, but you seem straight" i've never wanted to fuckin hit someone as hrd as i fuckin wanted to fuckin hit anyone so hard in my life. i said "no" and walked away. he knows how i feel about his bigotry because i approached him on with the last incident. when i get back from my vaycay, i'm gonna talk to mr. levy (the store manager) because this is fuckin absurd. there were 3 fuckin managers in there, and even han (who's the second in the chain of command) was all "drew, you could be fired" etc etc. should i even go to the store manager at this point? last time drew's bigotry shined through and i went to mr. levy, nothing was done. not even a fuckin write up! or should i try taking this above mr. levy? i went to levy before, and he was all "well, it's his religious beliefs, i can't write him up" and i was all "how is something like religion, which someone chooses, held more sacred than who someone is!" i got "no, it's his religious beliefs"
Thats such crap, I feel real sorry that you have to be in that environment where it seems heaps hard to do stuff about it, but at least you seem to be like the kind of guy that is confident enough to do stuff about it. Personally I would go to Mr Levy, then if nothing is done then I would go to someone higher up if you feel really strongly about it
i went to him the first time it happened though. and nothin happened. he was all "i can't do anything because it's his religious belief" so, basically, drew has a free pass to be a bigot
Talk to Beckyg, she knows loads about the laws in America about discrimination for gays. If there are laws protecting you, you need to download them, print them up and go and see your store or even regional manager and tell him as politely as possible that there are laws about this sort of thing and although we all have the right to religous freedom we don't have the right to use them in a prejudicial manner. This kind of behaviour from a co-worker is completly unacceptable, you shouldn't and mustn't put up with it but do check your legal rights before barging in there. Moral rights and legal rights are not necessarily the same thing. If you don't have laws backing you up, you either have the choice of trying to get the laws changed... difficult at your age or changing jobs. Yes, morally this is completely unacceptable, why should you have to change jobs because of a bigot, but if there are not laws to protect you, you might not have much choice, that or put up with his biggotry! Hope it works out but you will never rid this earth of small minded bigots, you can try to educate them if you have time to waste but most are hopeless cases and you just end up angry, hurt and frustrated. Well done you for not giving into your violent impulses, that can't have been easy but you did the right thing!
Wow... that's appalling. That must make it really unpleasant for you to work there. I really don't see how someone's religious beliefs should allow them to avoid having to serve someone in a retail setting. If someone doesn't want to associate with someone privately because of how they are, fine. But this notion that somehow one's religion gives one the right to treat people like dirt in public is so... really disturbing. I've never seen how freedom of religion trumps freedom of expression or just freedom of being, anyway. Like you said, religion is OBVIOUSLY something you choose. It's certainly something you can switch. So like... even if being gay WERE a choice, religion would be just as much as one. And you have to take note of how he's okay with you because in his eyes, you can "pass." So really, it's not actually what gay people do in (hopefully) private (or at the least not in Walgreens stores *grin*) that's a problem, it's him having decided that someone is acting in a way he doesn't like because he associates it with being gay. So basically he's saying he would discriminate against the most hetero guy in the world if he happened to come across as effeminate, no matter how many women the guy was boning, to put it crudely. THAT'S what I find the most stupid and annoying. Because that, to me, reveals that it's at least as much about gender conformity as it is about sexuality. But yeah... that also sucks that management is turning a blind eye to it. I don't really know if it's worth your while to try to fight it given the type of job it is. Like I assume you don't want to stay at Walgreens the rest of your life? So you obviously know you're in for a struggle if you make waves and sometimes it's better to save your energy for making waves in situations where it might count more. That being said, you could totally decide it's worth it to you to fight this particular fight because it's something you have to live with on a daily basis. Only you can really make that determination. You know the store manager better than us--is he likely to be reasonable or is he likely to do what his assistant managers have done and turn a blind eye?
Oh sorry... I missed this post when I wrote my first reply. If that's the case, then trying to fight it is going to be really, really hard, so you'll want to give it a lot of thought before you decide whether to take it further. Because then it's really going to become a showdown between religious freedom and sexuality/expression freedom and in the US, that's still not the clear-cut battle I, at least, think it should be. So basically it boils down to, "Do you want to push this as far as it can go?" There's nothing dishonourable, I don't think, about picking and choosing your battles, so you could use this as incentive to find a different job with a better environment. Or you could stay silent. Or you could fight it. None of us can really tell you which to choose because the stakes aren't at all high for us.
I went to the Human Rights Campaign website and it doesn't look like Florida has any discrimination laws yet. So it looks like this person can get away with this kind of behavior. Sad....but true.
hell no i don't intend to stay with slavegreens. that being said, there's something bigger than that goin on here. walgreens is considered one of the most gay friendly places to work. they extend insurance coverage to life partners. what a way to show it, yah? so, in my mind, there's two things goin down here. there's mr. levy, who obviously shows no compassion towards discrimination (when my friend rachael transfered back to the store, she was 7 months pregnant, and at didn't wanna take her back "just so she can leave on maternity leave." rachael went to the district manager and levy was forced to take her back). then there's drew's issue with being a fuckin bigot towards gays (and possibly lesbians?). i'm not tryin to defend him or nothin, but he was raised almost under a rock. he was home schooled, which i'm so against because of shit like this. because of his home schooling, i feel he was never given a social education. so, where a somewhat decent person may not agree with something, they wouldn't go to his extremes. i dunno if that's clear. i'm not feelin well today.
I'm not sure about Walgreens but I work for a major retail chain as one of my jobs there are posters in the staff lunch-room with an anonymous toll free number that I can call if there is any discrimination or harassment in the work place, including stuff like you mentioned. Basically, if the store-level management won't do anything about my concerns, or if I'm not comfortable talking with them directly, I can call head-office and let them know of my concerns and hopefully they'll do something about it. I've never had to use it but I work for a very large and diverse company and I'm confident that their zero-tolerance policies will be enforced if I ever had to use them. Even if the law won't protect your job, the corporate head-office will likely protect you. After all, I'm sure a large company like Walgreens wouldn't want an intolerant bigot representing their company. That kind of thing is bad for business. A guy like him could offend customers. I'm sure the company would rather not offend a sizeable chunk of their business. Good luck with sorting that mess out. EDIT: Oh, I live in Canada, by the way. I'm don't know anything about individual state laws regarding this.
could offend customers? brah, i've had customers come up to me and say that he's discriminated against him. like the tranny and her two gay friends. one of them had to use the bathroom, and one of the gay guys came up to me and said he was ignored when he asked drew where the bathroom is, and that drew had giggled when he saw the tranny. so, the complaints are there. i dunno what my boss' issues is. when i return home (i'm back on o'ahu right now! represent!) i'll see if there's a number anywhere.
As much as I dislike large corporations, the nice thing about working for one is that they don't tolerate that kind of bigotry. A small mom-and-pop shop could treat certain minorities like inferior people and nothing could be done about it. If a manager at a large chain does that, and nothing is done at the store level, something will be done about it by the company (assuming someone actually says something). Larger companies employ so many different people and their customer-base is very diverse and they will not allow on of their managers (whom represent the company) tarnish their image as a friendly place for everyone to shop. The law may not back you up or protect your job, but your company will (beyond a shadow of a doubt) back you up. Even if you can't find an employee complaint line, just use their consumer comment/complaint number and make sure the company knows about him. There's also a web-form on your website. Even better if you notice this happening with a customer, just tell the customer to give that number a call and file a complaint with head-office. The company will listen. Getting rid of your boss is in their best interest.
I'm with Slickypants. If your supervisor is a small minded bigot, go over him to head office and explain the situation, they won't want a big fuss made and have the gay community turn against them because they support bigottry, either they will talk to this guy or he will lose his job. This issue could be dynamite if you use it against them... just don't get yourself fired!
As has been said a few times over, most (large) companies have an open-door policy. I used to work at Michaels (the craft store, for the North Americans here...) until recently, and they drilled into our heads that if there was ever something going on in-store and nothing was done about it, or we weren't cofmortable talking to the managers about it, we were to call head office. They are responsible. Better yet, it is anonomus, so your co workers don't need to know that it was you. It could just as easily have been a customer, right?
well, i'll have the gay community on my side fershure. my store is near downtown ft. lauderdale, which has two gayborhoods (wilton manors and victoria park) and at least 20% of the "store" customers are gay, and at least 40% of the pharmacy is gay (a lot of gays get their HIV/AIDS medicines at our store. i'm not sayin that every gay pharmacy patient has HIV, but a lot of them do. i work the pharmacy occasionally). one customer says he wants to dress in drag and come in and make drew assist him haha. and if he doesn't, instant complaint.
whoa man, that whole situation sounds fucked... yeah, i believe that you definitely do something. report him for sure.. that kinda discrimination is disgraceful, and putting it down to christianity is just bulshit. he doesnt deserve a job if he thinks he can pick and choose who he serves, what a pig. tell him what you think man, and get him FIRED.
