I hear ya,
@BeelzeBecky. At first when I read your post I kind of had that thought of "you suck it up, help them, and move on"
...but I think if I was in that same situation I would kind of feel like by continuing to treat that guest like I would any other guest it would make them think that I agree with them/support them. I don't want ANY part of perpetuating or encouraging racist/homophoic/sexist bs, so I think there HAS to be a line we can walk as employees that makes it clear we won't stand for certain types of language, while
still doing our jobs.
Maybe that means we all need to grow a spine and man up and say something, even while knowing we will still be standing face-to-face with that person in 5 minutes. It's one thing to say something and then immediately walk away/pass them off to another TM/try to kick them out, but it's a lot harder to formulate a response when you know you'll have to continue interacting with that person. 99% of us loathe confrontation, but I feel like in that situation we have 3 options.
-We can do nothing and pretend like that person isn't being a raging asshole, thus reenforcing the behavior by seeming to give it our stamp of approval.
-We can refuse service, which is playing right in to the far-right wingers hands, imo. They love to bash us and call us special snowflakes who can't handle the real world...so I feel like passing the guest off or refusing service is a bad idea.
-OR we can try to figure out a way to very directly speak against what that person is saying, but still serve them.
I can't imagine ever having the guts to do it, but I feel like we should force ourselves to say something like "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I would appreciate it if you didn't use that type of language around me" if someone starts gay-bashing/being racist.
To be clear, I think we need to avoid making a scene, or calling people out left and right. I've dealt with a lot of rude/weird guests, but I can only think of like 2 that I think would fall into the category of guests that I'm talking about dealing with in this thread.
I'm very much against denial of service, mostly because I'm afraid of seeming hypocritical- I figure it's easier to play it safe on that issue, but try to find a workaround so you're still taking a stand without being the other side of the hate-coin, if that makes any sense whatsoever. (Granted, one could argue that someone hating a hater is different than a hater hating a 'normal' person...but to 'the other side' we're the haters, so even if being rude to a racist person makes sense to me, I have to realize that they truly cannot see where I'm coming from, because they think they're right)
Bottom line: I think we all just have to try to be as ethical and upstanding as we possibly can be in those situations. That will look different for all of us. But we have to examine our motives and make sure we're not just being defiant for defiance's sake, and we're not lashing out in frustration or anger. I think if you focus on those things you'll figure out what you need to do in each individual situation as it pops up. Maybe it might mean you get fired, because the higher-ups at Target are so obsessed with kissing the ass of every guest that walks in the door, but I think if you focus on being as ethical as possible you'll probably manage to avoid that situation. (For instance, if you flat out refuse to serve a guest, that could spell trouble. If a guest is spewing out tons of hateful stuff and you calmly but firmly ask them to stop (but
still help them) I think you would have a strong chance of arguing your case with leadership, because you were still doing your job
and can prove that you did your best to handle the situation in a respectful manner.
Sorry for the ramble. That was just a really interesting topic to think about, because my knee-jerk opinion was so different from what my "sit and think about it for a second" opinion was.
