Zachary Randolph loves him some cops. And he’s allowed.
Randolph said he was working a normal shift at his job at the Katy Mills Mall when a police officer who worked at the mall placed an order for a $2.75 cheesecake brownie.
The teenager said he wanted to show his appreciation for the official protecting and serving his community.
A good deed? Well, everyone knows what comes of good deeds.
A Texas teenager was suspended from his cookie store job after a customer became upset when he paid for a police officer’s order.
Zachary Randolph, 18, was suspended from his job at a Great American Cookies mall after he bought a police officer a brownie out of his own wages on Sunday.
What’s particularly amazing is that he didn’t just give the cop a free brownie, which would have been the norm. Nope, Zachary paid for the brownie out of his own pocket. That alone speaks very well for the young man, given he probably could have just handed the cop a cookie in the time-honored tradition of donut shops. This was a kid of integrity. So naturally, the customer behind the cop was outraged.
Randolph said the customers in line who overheard the interaction became upset and threatened to beat him up because he was racist and promised to get him fired.
To achieve max outrage, to the point where others would threaten physical violence for racism, is hard to understand. It’s unclear whether the accusation of racism is Randolph’s favorng the cop’s “race” or not buying brownies for everyone because they’re just as entitled as a police officer to free brownies. But whatever attenuated notions of fury flowed through the cookie-eaters, it resulted in a disciplinary action against Randolph.
What so outraged the customers on line wasn’t necessarily that Zachary showed kindness to a police officer, but that they didn’t get their freebie too.
A family behind the officer in line witnessed what happened and allegedly became upset when they asked for free treats, and Randolph declined.
“They were asking if I was going to buy them a cookie. And I told them both, “No. They don’t have a badge. I’m sorry.”
That Zachary favored police officers might reflect a controversial position, and had he stolen a brownie from his employer to give to the cop, those behind the officer in line might well have had a gripe. But this wasn’t merely a matter of unfairness.
Randolph said the situation then escalated when a middle-aged man become upset and threatened him.
[Zachary’s mother] Tami added: ‘This customer started verbally attacking him, calling my son a racist, and threatened to beat him up. His wife threatened to go back there and slap him.
‘The middle aged man sat down his little daughter and tried to come behind the counter to attack him. Thankfully his coworker defused the situation. The man then said “I will get you fired”.
And when the middle-aged man, furious at his lived experience of entitlement thwarted, demanded satisfaction from the Great American Cookie Company, what did the company do? Did they give him an award for being so honest as to have paid, out of his own pocket, for the cop’s brownie? Did they make him employee of the month and send him on a vacation to Bermuda? Did they ban the violent and entitled customer from ever enjoying one of their mall cookies again? Nope. Of course not.
The following day he was told in a text to ‘bring all of his stuff’ into a meeting with management, where he was reportedly told the ‘upper managers want him fired’ due to the customer’s complaint against him.
However, his manager refused to fire him, instead suspended him for a week and wrote him up, according to the Facebook post.
Tami wrote: ‘(The warning) says “he bought a cookie for a police officer and a customer wanted to physically fight him” it does state if this happens again he will be terminated.’
It’s unclear whether this corporate reaction was prompted by hating cops or fear of a social justice backlash screaming about this cookie kiosk harboring racists in the hiring of a white male 18-year-old who appreciated police officers despite it being unfashionable. But if that was their fear, the reaction must have come as a surprise.
However, due to the attention the incident brought, Great American Cookies reversed its decision.
In a statement released to the Houston Chronicle, Biju George, owner and operator of the Great American Cookies at Katy Mills Mall, said: ‘On behalf of Great American Cookies Katy Mills, we owe the employee an apology.
‘It was never an issue that he purchased a brownie for a police officer, but rather the events that unfolded with another customer in line at the time.
‘However, after further review, we realize that the employee was in fact in the right and we continue to reach out to him and his mom to issue an apology.
If this giant of mall cuisine chooses to give away cookies to people on line who call their employees “racist” for not giving them a free cookie, or threatening physical violence in the name of cookie equality, so be it. It’s their business and they can give free cookies to any damn customer they want.
But what part of this required “further review”? A guy demands a free cookie and the employee refuses? A guy called the employee a racist for not giving him a free cookie? A guy threatens violence, and starts to act upon his threat? Which one of these facts made the company tool scream, “fire this scoundrel!!!”
There will, no doubt, be deeply passionate people who will explain why Zachary Randolph’s buying a brownie for a cop justifiably inflames the passions of those finely attuned to social justice and the refusal to show the same favor to people of color by giving them a free cookie. Doesn’t everyone have a right to a cookie paid for by Zachary Randolph under the tenets of social justice?
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This is all because he didn’t read the childhood classic _If You Give A Cop A Cookie_.
What the hell are you talking about?
Not all the classics are from the ’70s.
*You can delete the link, just FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
I googled it too, but what I fail to get is what the comment had to do with with this post, or was this just completely random word association? If you can explain what one thing has to do with another, great. If not, Rachel gets exiled to reddit where she can enjoy random word association to her heart’s content.
You had to Google the reference. If you have to explain a joke, it isn’t funny. Strike one.
The book doesn’t really parallel the post. It’s not as if the cop asked for a second cookie and then arrested everyone for failing to comply with his command presence. Strike two.
But banishment? To Reddit?
Had the reference been worth it, I wouldn’t have minded at all. But it wasn’t. Not even a little bit. I spend way too much time trying to make sense of crap that makes no sense. The only thing in common is the word “cookie.” Reddit may be too good for them.
“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is a classic children’s book in which a mouse is given a Cookie, but then subsequently needs milk, then to wash his face, and so on.
Very clever reference. You’ll have to up your bedtime story game when you get promoted from “Admiral” to “Grandpa”
I was aware. Charles noted it before you. You then noted it again, because you don’t apparently see any need to read other people’s comments. And it’s very nice that you think it’s a very clever reference. I fail to see anything clever about it and find it completely moronic and irrelevant, but for the inclusion of the word “cookie.”
So, you should start a blog and hope for similarly clever references, while I will be constrained to survive without you and things you find very clever.
This is what I come here for. Seeing careless people get savaged for what they thought was a useful or clever remark. Better than Dr Laura!
I exist for your amusement. Can I wash your car or fetch you a coffee, perhaps?
Why don’t you just delete this stupidity and ban these idiots. Why do you tolerate this garbage?
I never expect stupidity to spiral out of control like this. I never seem to learn.
Sounds like you need a cookie. Helps with the crabbies!
In the AP’s recent “analysis” of “The state of hate in America,” incidents like these received no mention. Leftists expect not only their free cookies, but a free pass on public demonstrations of violence and hate.
When the media takes sides, and when advocacy journalism is accepted in lieu of facts and neutrality, this is what happens. We are left without a credible source of factual information.
Hardly a “leftist” trait to expect their cookies or demonstrate hate or violence. Those on the “right” have their share. It’s an statement lacking critical thought or observation. What this incident does display is heightened sense of righteousness and entitlement pervasive in our political discourse preventing consensus and getting things done.
You just proved B. McLeod’s point, Ahaz. Way to go.
Perhaps. I just hate it when one side of the political aisle believe it’s only the other guy.
He didn’t say that, and no one who grasps logic would have imputed such a false notion. What you really hate is that your team looks poorly this time, and the only defense you can offer is the logical fallacy, tu quoque. Leave that game to the third-graders (in age or mentality) on twitter.
I’m sorry..I guess my understanding of the English language isn’t as refined as yours. Obviously, the ability to look beyond the words to identify the subtle undercurrent of meaning is beyond me. What the original poster stated is something that those on every side of the aisle says about the other. And certainly you made a big leap trying to identify my political orientation from an attempt to point out hypocrisy.
Nobody gives a flying shit about your butthurt or political orientation. What I do give a shit about are comments that drag the level of discourse down to third grade level. That hurts your feelz? Too bad. Click on the pink box on the sidebar and register your complaint. Or go to reddit and complain about the mean old blawger. No doubt there will be sub there that will care deeply. But not here.
And you were even nice and informative to him. No good deed, bro. The only thing left is the “you’re mean and I will never read SJ again!!!”
You really like rubbing it in. Am I the only one who realizes you’re much meaner than me?
It would certainly take more than a few words from an “mean ol blawger” to hurt my “feelz” to use your vernacular. I stand by my comments as well..no matter what grade level you believe them to be. And despite your attempt at “smackdown”, enjoy your “mean ol comments”.
Cheers
Sigh. Cheers.
“after further review, we realize that the employee was in fact in the right ”
That right there is amazing. Not that they didn’t hide behind weasel words like “policy” and “inappropriate”, nor that they reversed themselves, but that they acknowledged that there was such a thing as “in the right”.
There is yet hope.
Sorry, but empty words offered as a palliative for the unanticipated public reaction. That’s not hope. That’s just PR.
This is all because they didn’t read my thesis, “If You Fire A Worker Who Gives A Cop A Cookie: A Behavioralist Approach to Collective Mental States vs. the Soft and Chewy Bigotry of Low Corporate Expectations.”
Soft and chewy, so sexist.
No call yet for doxxing the complainant. Have we turned a corner here?
Hopefully. And no mention of skin color or intersectionality, as well, although I can’t help but wonder if the same would have happened had roles been reversed.
I want a free cookie!
I don’t understand the need to get someone fired because they did something nice for someone else out of their own pocket, and not you. Perhaps if the cop had been seen beating up puppies out behind the mall prior to the cookie incident, maybe…
But, seriously?
This goes beyond left/right to a malignant sub-species of customers known as “Always Right”. (No they’re not right-wing, just always right). Anyone who works in customer service will recognize this beast, by their shouts of “The customer is always right!” or “I’ll get you fired!”
it’s sad that the manager took the customer’s side instead of taking the employee aside, laughing about it and saying “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.” (Yes, they didn’t fire them, but still, a week’s suspension!?)
I weep for humanity, as these customers are spreading.
Had it just been about a free cookie, it might have been so easily pigeonholed as a basic “customer is always right” issue. It wasn’t.
The part where they thought there wouldn’t be a backlash over their desire to terminate a kid for not doing anything wrong.
What’s that shadow across the police report? It looks v. omin0us, if you catch my drift? The Shadow, at a theater near you!?!
This doesn’t even have the word “cookie” in it.
The cookies are *imbedded*. You cannot see them, but they are there. You have to read “between the lines,” so to speak. They are there somewhere, trust it. To quote our Fearless Leader, this police report is simpley “amazing”!
You gave him the opening, Charles. What did you expect?
I started laughing at the punch lines. But there was always something funnier on the way!