A Texas restaurant manager was accused of shaming an applicant with her brutally honest feedback. The manager running the interview was being “straight forward” when she made comments, she alleges.
Crystal Harrington, a 22-year-old single mother from Brazoria, Texas, was seeking a second job as a server at Baytown Seafood Restaurant in West Columbia. Any celebrations about landing the job were short-lived, however, after she says the manager began to make questionable comments about her weight when she issued a word of caution for the new hire.
Harrington, a home health aide by day, was planning to waitress at night to help make ends meet. Much to her dismay, however, she claims the manager made “out of line” comments about her size and how it could affect her earnings. “She informed me that waitressing is $2.13/hr and what I make is SOLELY on tips, which I expected,” Harrington wrote on KHOU 11 News‘ Facebook page. “What I didn’t expect was what this lady said next,” she continued.
“While you might have a skinny waitress do a really crappy job she’s going to get the tips, whereas big girls like us, and she did say us and I don’t know why because she’s not my size. She’s not big to me, big girls like us won’t get the tip,” Harrington stated.
With this, she turned down the job when she was offered the position. “It was over the line. ‘Did you feel discriminated against?’ In a sense yes,” she stated.
More details from Opposing Views:
According to employment law experts consulted by FOX 26, the comments may have not broken any laws, but were just in poor taste.
“‘Is there a chance that you just said something that was maybe a little rude or unprofessional?’ No, not at all,” Mary Pruett stated.
Pruett is the Baytown Seafood manager Harrington was referring to, and Pruett maintains that she never made the alleged comments about Harrington’s weight.
“That is incorrect, what she has posted is incorrect. She was offered a job. Nothing was said about size because you have all sizes working here and I can’t determine what the customer is going to give in tips,” Pruett stated.
Harrington is sticking by her story, and wrote on social media: “I turned it down because I did not want to work for somebody like that if you’re going to be that discouraging and you going to look at me like that just because of my size I don’t want to work for you.”
She said that she was hoping to open people’s eyes with the story, and added: “I couldn’t believe a manager told me that. Just because you’re overweight does not mean you can’t work does not mean that you can’t do the job just as well as somebody else.”
Pruett responded to Harrington’s account: “It hurts me as far as her to think that away because I’m not that way. And people in this town know I’m not that way when I hire people.”
Assuming things happened as Harrington claimed, was this a case of body-shaming by her boss or brutal honesty and a word of caution?
Well, let us know your comments below.
Sources: OpposingViews, FOX 26, KHOU 11