Monday, February 2, 2009

respect and racism in my community

I just discovered Silver mine Subs this month when some one ordered them for a meeting I was at, and I loved it! In fact I love there sandwiches so much I have ended up eating there about once a week since then. I went in today yet again to have one of their delicious subs and I will never return. I walked around 2pm and was the only customer in the restaurant, the manager had seen me come in but decided to spent a good minute to finish berating his employee, while he was extolling on this young man’s many faults the worker was doing his best to get past his manager to help me. Finally the manager put us all out of our misery by telling the worker he was of absolutely no help and he should just leave which the man smartly did; The manager, obviously still worked up over the argument, came and took my order but was in no mood to be polite or even kind ( and yes I totally get it every one has bad days, but if you are a manager of a store you can at least not be downright mean to your one customer) so he takes my order and makes it for me and I settle in to eat. Another customer comes in and obviously knows the manager as they start talking while she gives him her order, in the middle of this an older Mexican man enters and is lost looking for the houses located behind the restaurant. The manger treats him like an idiot and as he give the man his directions during which he is very polite, gracious and giving all signs that he is comprehending what he is being told the manager, is being rude and treats the man as though he is completely witless, says" you obviously don't get it" and starts to tell him in Spanish. The man gets where his destination is located and leaves, the moment he is out the door the manager uses racist remarks to tell his friend all about how the Spanish are dirty, and not to be trusted and should be run out of the country.
Having had many experiences working in the food industry I know the feeling that young worker had as he left the restaurant and having a close friend who is Hispanic I think I might know what it would be like to only be seen for the color of your skin and nothing of the person you might be. For these two reasons I am encouraging you my friends, family and perfect strangers who are reading this to join me in using our purchasing power to cause the silver mine subs company to reconsider who they allow to represent there company.
Please join me in boycotting Silver mine!
Note: in the spirit of the far reaching powers of the Internet, this letter will be posted on my blog, as letters on MySpace and face book where I will encourage as many people as possible to read them and forwarded to my local news outlets. It has also been sent on to the Silver mine Company and local restaurant.

Your former customer,
Kim Nash

(You can contact Silver mine at http://www.silverminesubs.com/ )

EDIT: I got a email back from corporate silver mine ( the only response I've gotten so far) which was apologetic but at the same time managed to place the blame off of the selves assuring me they would never hire people like this - the letter didn't help - still dissatisfied, still not eating there. :-(