The Greenville Pizza Inn on Woodruff Road in South Carolina gives people with disabilities a chance to earn an income.
It’s owner and operator, Amanda Cartagine, isn’t someone you want to mess with because the customer is not always right – at least not when it comes to being unfair to her workers.
A bully makes demands
Cartagine will protect her staff, most of who have special needs, especially when a rude person comes along and tries to bully their way around.
It’s sad that it’s necessary but it’s precisely what she had to do one Sunday back in October of 2018. The customer wasn’t interested in maintaining the loving environment she had created. They felt mildly inconvenienced and wanted everyone to know it.
The big deal? An empty salad bowl.
Have a heart
The customer told Ryan Mosley to refill the salad bowl.
Mosley has Down Syndrome and his job description is very specific – and he doesn’t do as he’s told by customers, he follows his boss’s orders.
So when he didn’t do as the customer asked, the man decided to complain to the manager. But he went a step further and demanded customers be warned about special needs employees.
The nerve!
Needless to say, waiting an extra minute for your salad isn’t a big deal. But this guy loves his salad more than he respects other people’s dignity.
Mosley started working for the restaurant over the summer.
His mom Angie said he loves being able to earn a paycheck and buy the things he wants with the money he’s earned for his hard work.
The response
Later, the manager told Cartagine what had happened:
“My manager explained to him the situation privately, ‘That’s not his job. We’ve trained him to do this and there are special circumstances,’ and the customer was still not happy” she told WYFF News.
Cartagine wasn’t about to accept this level of nonsense and entitlement. But she did decide to hang up a sign!
It’s just not the one the customer had envisioned.
“These are like my kids, and it made me angry. I wanted to do something that was not rude, but got my point across,” she said.
Here’s your warning
It should go without saying that no one should need to be warned when they’re going to interact with a differently-abled person unless it’s for that person’s safety.
When you go out in public you should expect to encounter all kinds of people who are not like you. And you should have the grace and dignity to treat them with respect. Anything less says a lot about you, and not about them.
“If you have the patience to let them take their time and learn at their pace, when the light bulb comes on, they are unstoppable,” she continued.
So the sign the owner hung on the door?
It read:
“We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and hire all of God’s children.”
She doesn’t care what the customer who complained thinks of her response.
“If he is not OK with that, then I’m OK with him not coming back,” said Cartagine. “That’s a dollar that I don’t need.”
The rest of the community loved the gesture – and we do too!
Be sure to scroll down below for an interview with Amanda Cartagine.
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