This story reminded me of another incident that happened while I worked in one of the food service lines at our local amusement park. While we were all barely a step above minimum-wage employees at your typical fast food restaurant, before we started working, we had to undergo three days of training, which included allergy training. The key points of this training were as follows:
- If a customer said they wanted something custom-made because of an allergy, we had to immediately put on new gloves, sanitize the workstation and all equipment, go to the fridge to get new ingredients that had not been sitting out and thus risked cross-contamination, and make everything on three layers of paper to minimize the possibility of allergens getting into the food as much as possible.
- Only managers and supervisors were allowed to answer questions about allergens. They had extra training the regular workers didn’t have, and they also had access to the “allergy book”, which had more details.
One slow afternoon, most of the crew was on break except for me, [Coworker], who’d been working there for a couple of summers, and [New Kid], who’d just started the week before. I came up from making club wraps to see a woman reaching over the sneeze guard above the frost top as [New Kid] lifted the five-gallon bucket of pickles onto it to give to her.
Me: “[New Kid], what are you doing?!”
New Kid: “I was just trying to show her the ingredients list.”
Mom: “I need to see if my son can have one.”
Me: *To [New Kid]* “It’s not safe to do that. It’s especially not safe to do that when it’s full.” *To [Mom]* “Excuse me, ma’am. Is this an allergy-related question?”
Mom: “Yes, my son has a lot of allergies.”
Me: “I’m very sorry, but company policy is that only managers can answer questions about allergies—”
[Coworker] interrupted in a tone that clearly implied that she thought I was a moron.
Coworker: “Uh, they’re all on break?”
I ignored her.
Me: “—so if you wouldn’t mind stepping to the side just there for a moment, I will go get someone to fetch the allergy book and come help you out.”
The mom, along with her husband and son, who looked about seven, stepped to one side, and I ran to the breakroom. Fortunately, not only was it in the same building as the restaurant where we worked, but it was just across the hall from our kitchen. Even more fortunately, [Manager], [Supervisor], and [Restaurant Supervisor] were all sitting at the same table having lunch.
I quickly apologized for interrupting them and explained the situation. [Supervisor] told me she would find the book and be right out. I thanked her and returned to the restaurant.
Me: “Thank you for waiting, ma’am. Someone will be out in just a minute.”
Coworker: “Ugh, [My Name], you could just answer their questions.”
Me: *Quietly* “No, they told us in training, remember? Only managers and supervisors have access to the allergy book, and we’re not supposed to answer questions about allergies.”
Coworker: *Loudly* “Why are you wasting their time when you could just let them see the ingredients and tell them what’s in the stuff?”
I stood in stunned silence for a moment, partly because of what she’d said and partly because we had literally JUST had a meeting wherein [Supervisor] told us to be careful about not arguing in front of guests. Then, I took a deep breath, turned on [Coworker], and spoke in a normal volume.
Me: “Do you know what kind of oil we use? Do you know what’s in it? Do you know how often we change it or if we use communal oil? Do you know how many different things can trigger a milk allergy that aren’t called ‘milk’? If someone told you they had an allergy to soy, would you know off the top of your head what we sell that carries that risk? Things don’t have to be obvious to have something in them that someone might be allergic to. I am not taking the risk of killing someone — especially not a child — because you don’t want to take the time to do things correctly!”
[Coworker] shut up but glared at me the whole time.
I turned around and began asking the kid if he was having a good time, if he’d seen any of the shows, what his favorite ride was — all the things we were supposed to do when there was a wait.
A few minutes later, [Supervisor] came out with a three-inch binder, apologized for the delay, and began showing [Mom] the pages. They were able to narrow down a small handful of things the kid could eat.
Supervisor: “Okay, ma’am. We only sell [item #1] and [item #2] here, but if you go to [Restaurant on the other side of the park], that’s our Allergy-Friendly Restaurant, so all their food should be safe except for [item #3].”
Mom: “Thank you. And I’d just like to say—” *points at me* “—that I’d like to recognize and thank your employee here for following procedure. It’s nice to know that someone cares if my son lives or dies.”
We weren’t allowed to accept tips, but I got a $5 gift certificate to the employee store as a bonus. [Coworker] glared daggers at me but didn’t say anything — then, anyway.
I was off two days later, and when I came back the day after that, another coworker dryly said I’d “missed all the fun” and then told me that [Coworker] had been fired and [Manager], who was best friends with her, had been demoted and transferred because they were apparently gossiping on company time.
Gee. I wonder who about…
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Finally, A Positive Reaction
