A Vacation for Rachel?

I originally posted this on my Facebook page but felt that it would be better served as a blog post.

I saw this yesterday and my only reaction was "Are you kidding me?"

http://www.indiegogo.com/Chick-fil-A-Rachel

This Indiegogo campaign began as a reaction to the video someone posted online showing him confronting a Chick-Fil-A employee during Wednesday's "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation day". The guy was wrong in every sense of the word and actually lost his high-paying executive job over the incident. But that's not my point.

The campaign's description begins "Rachel, an amazingly awesome and happy Chick-Fil-A employee was treated with great disrespect by a customer during Chick-Fil-A appreciation day." The harshest words she had to deal with were "I don't know how you can live with yourself working here". Disrespectful? Sure. Did she deserve it? No, especially considering the hard economic times we live in and the lengths people will go to put food on their tables at home (a point well expressed by this article). But I would bet the farm that that's FAR from the worst thing she's had to deal with. She probably takes worse abuse from customer's who've had their drink orders messed up. ("I said diet lemonade and you gave me regular! What are you, a fucking retard?!")

The last time a "vacation fund" was set up was for Karen Klein, the grandmother who was verbally abused by a bus-full of school kids. The difference there; Karen WAS abused, unlike Rachel. So this campaign to send Rachel on a vacation belittles what happened to Karen, which was far, far worse.

Shit, yesterday a customer called me a "fucking stupid-ass cracker". Do I get a vacation?

The very notion of sending Rachel on a vacation over that video is ridiculously silly and is clearly the brainchild of someone who has never worked in the service industry.