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| I was called a Nigger by a customer. I told the customer to leave. Home Depot soon fires me. |
Home Depot faced a major backlash after they fired a worker after he was berated by a racist customer.
Maurice Rucker, 60 years old was working at an Albany, New York Home Depot faithfully.
It was ruined by a rude customer who hurled f-bombs and racial slurs at him.
Rucker was supposed to follow protocol according to Home Depot. Rucker told the man to leave and that he was lucky he was at work. Rucker was later fired for not letting a manager handle it.
He worked for Home Depot for 10 years and was making less than $13 an hour.
Rucker said the incident all started last Thursday when a customer approached checkout with an unleashed dog.
“I said to him, ‘Sir, when you have your dog in here we prefer that you keep it on a leash.’” He turned around and said, ‘Fuck you. You’re an asshole you’re a piece of shit,’” Rucker recalled.
The customer didn’t stop there, adding, “If Trump wasn’t president, you wouldn’t even have a job” and “You’re from the ghetto, what do you know?’” according to Rucker.
“I’ve lived all over the country and I’ve had no one talk to me the way that this guy talked to me,” Rucker said.
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| Home Depot face a backlash after the company fired a worker after he was berated by a rude customer. |
The barrage of insults continued until the 60-year-old couldn’t take it anymore.
“’You’re lucky I’m at work, because if I wasn’t, this wouldn’t be happening, or you wouldn’t be talking to me like this,’” Rucker recalled snapping back.
Then, get this, the man left, but then returned because he forgot his dog. He then verbally attacked Rucker again, before leaving for the final time.
Rucker thought the situation was all said and done, but when he went to work on Tuesday he was told he was being fired, something he feels is drastic, considering he’s been working with Home Depot for 10 years and was just recently named “Cashier of the Month.”
According to Home Depot, the harsh discipline was because Rucker did not follow protocol when dealing with the irate customer, who called to complain about him after the fact.
“The problem here is that he had several opportunities to disengage and contact management to deal with the customer. We’re appalled by this customer’s behavior, but we also must require associates to follow proper protocol to defuse a situation for the sake of their safety and the safety of other associates and customers,” Home Depot Spokesperson Stephen Holmes told WNYT.
Rucker said that the customer accused Rucker of being racist.
“He said that I was being racist and that I said I would knock him down. He just told him a bunch of lies and it seems like they believed him,” Rucker, who was making less than $13, told the news site.
Now Rucker is considering looking for an attorney, and since he is out of his job at Home Depot, is hoping to work with children, to continue the work he did do at Home Depot, which included running kids’ workshops.
