The customer is not always right: BC bakery says staff with disabilities increasingly mistreated
A bakery owner says she’s become increasingly infuriated by some customers after they mistreated staff members.
Lisa Beecroft says about 35% of her staff at Gabi & Jules self-identify as having a disability. Having such a diverse team has always been an important factor to the business, Beecroft told Daily Hive, as they pride themselves on being inclusive and “rooted in kindness.”
“We started with the intent of hiring individuals with autism, because my eldest daughter has autism. We had been seeing the isolation that can go along with having autism, and we wanted to create opportunities and create a space to be included.”
By focusing on inclusivity in the hiring process, she said the shop attracts “amazing individuals” who later join the team at Gabi & Jules in Port Moody and Burnaby. Unfortunately, in the eight years the business has been running, Beecroft has noticed a disheartening trend recently.
“We’re dealing with more instant instances of people being really aggressive,” she said. “Like bullying from customers, a kind of impatience and unkindness, and it’s really frustrating.”
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Beecroft added that specific team members have increasingly faced this kind of poor treatment compared to others.
In a recent Facebook post, Beecroft addressed the “blatant hostility” her team has been facing and urged customers to practice kindness to all employees.
“We kindly ask for your patience and understanding if a team member’s communication or approach varies from what you might expect,” a Gabi & Jules Facebook post reads. “You do not know what the individual serving you is dealing with or what challenges they may be facing. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt that they are doing their best & remember that everyone is deserving of kindness and respect.”
Beecroft went on to tell Daily Hive that she’s tried her best to support, protect, and empower her staff during this time but admits it’s a difficult situation to manage.
“[It’s a] varied kind of degrees of that treatment, but it’s enough that what we’re seeing is some of these [staff] are feeling demoralized and that they’re not feeling safe and happy at work,” she said. “That’s just really frustrating because it’s hard to find good people, and when you have really good people, and this is the reason why they’re unhappy at work, it’s like, what can I do to try to fix that?”
Beecroft insisted, “We don’t necessarily abide by the ‘customers are always right’ philosophy.”
“I think it’s created this entitlement,” she said.
Beecroft said that, particularly for a small business, the “customer is always right” mentality “perpetuates bad behaviour” from some customers who expect unsustainable practices from a business.
“Customer service is tough, and I don’t think that there’s an appreciation for the toll that it takes on everybody,” she said.
Whether a staff member is neurodivergent or not, Beecroft said all customer-facing employees should not be treated less than others.
“You should be just kind and understanding to everybody because you don’t know what anybody is dealing with,” she said.
No matter what someone does for work, Beecroft said she wants people to remember that a person’s job should not impact how they are treated.
“We need people to pick up garbage like we need people to serve coffee,” she said. “These are all good jobs.”
Since sharing staff’s experiences online, many have come to the bakery’s defence, thanked the owners for shedding light on the issue, and continued to echo the message by urging customers to be kind.