1d • Whiteness
CiW - Bad for Business
Everybody, let’s talk about it: 🧵
I’ve been lurking on your page for a bit because a friend sent me one of your posts, and I never thought I’d be writing in. But I am completely stuck and we have to make a choice by Friday.
My husband and I own a burger place. When we opened a few years ago, everyone we knew, our families, our accountant, friends in the industry, told us we were out of our minds for picking this area. They basically thought we’d get wiped out or robbed instantly. But we wanted to do something good here and prove them wrong. We don’t live in the area for a multitude of reasons (our kids really love their school) We didn’t want to just stick to the easy, safe suburbs, and we thought the people here deserved a nice sit-down spot that wasn't just another bulletproof fast food window or a dollar store.
It took a long time for the neighborhood to trust us, which I get to a point. People are used to outsiders coming in, making money, and leaving when it gets heavy. But we stayed. We show up every single day. We hired almost entirely local kids, and we have eight employees who we really look out for. We’ve always treated them like family, doing holiday dinners, helping them with bills, making sure they knew we actually cared about them.
One girl, T, has been with us four years. Everyone loves her. She’s a younger mom, African American, and I really treated her like a little sister. Which is why this is so difficult. I can’t even count how many times I stayed late after a long shift just to drive her home because she doesn't have a car and I didn't want her walking or waiting on the bus at night. When she told us she was short on rent a while back, we didn't even hesitate. We handed her cash out of our personal account and gave her more hours right away. We just wanted to help her get ahead.
Then a few months ago, the numbers just stopped making sense. We were flying through random items like patties, hot dogs, fries, vegetables, bacon, shake mix, way faster than what we were selling. Then it was the back storage, cases of bulk dish soap, toilet paper, industrial cleaner, just gone every week. We didn't want to make it weird or look like we were targeting anyone, so we just did a general meeting about "waste" and figured that would fix it. It didn't.
We had a bad feeling that it was T because we noticed the items missing after the shifts where she closed the store. However, we didn’t want to accuse her without proof, so we asked two of our other workers, to just keep their eyes open. We actually paid them extra on top of their shifts to document everything she did because we knew it put them in a terrible position with their friend, but they understood it was for the sake of their own jobs and keeping the restaurant open. I realize it was uncomfortable for everyone, but they did what they had to do. They started texting us videos and audio during closing. And when we matched it to the security cameras, it was just awful.
T was giving her friends, loiterers from around the neighborhood, and her family with massive double portions and at times completely free meals on our dime. The part that is frustrating is that every Tuesday we have actually have “pay it forward” style program where we give out free meals. We also allow kids from the neighborhood to clean up trash for free shakes. We do give back.
What we saw on the footage was she was stuffing her backpack and these giant reusable tote bags with our heavy-duty cleaning supplies. We're talking big jugs of commercial Dawn dish soap, bleach, boxes of heavy contractor trash bags, packs of toilet paper, and bottles of multi-surface spray from the back storage, just cramming as much as she could carry into her bags every single week. We’re talking over $13,000 in losses just since the winter.
I actually sat down with her a while back just to check in, and that's the part that hurts the most. She looked me right in the eye, hugged me, cried, and told me how much our support meant to her. Then she went right back out and did it the next shift. I am just so deeply disappointed in her. I really thought we had a real bond, and she completely let me down after everything we did to support her and her kids. I’ve been trying to do the work, reading up on things like survival mentalities and resource scarcity because I want to be understanding of the background here. I know you always talk about "community care", but we have seven other workers who need this place to stay open to feed their kids. She put everyone’s jobs at risk just so her friends could get free burgers and dish soap. Was it worth it?
We have no choice but to fire her this week. At minimum. But we don't know what to do next. We're thinking of offering a payment plan so she can pay us back without involving the system. But my husband says if she blows us off, we have to go to the police because $13K is a massive hit for a small business.
My husband is furious and I’ve seen him act in a way that is unlike him. He’s even said a few things that I know he will regret. Like calling her a “Black b***h” but I understand his anger is justified. Overall the thought of calling the cops makes me sick. A white business owner calling the police on a Black mom? I don't want to be that person, I don’t want to be a Karen. But if we do nothing, what does that say to our staff who stay honest? They’re the ones who helped us catch her. It’s been a team effort.
I'm just terrified of what happens next. She’s lived here forever, she knows everyone that comes in. If she spins this to her friends, we could get boycotted or have our windows smashed. We put everything we have into this place. We chose to invest here when everyone else told us to run away. We've given so much to this neighborhood, and the idea that we’re going to end up being called gentrifiers or the bad guys just for protecting our livelihood is infuriating. It feels like no matter how much you do for people, or how hard you try to help them, you’re always just going to be the white outsider who shouldn't be there.
Am I missing something? My husband would like us to make a decision by Friday. He’s ready to go to the authorities.
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CiW - Bad for Business
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