Lola Rose, a 20-year-old former Starbucks employee, claimed she was suddenly terminated from her position because the famous company was looking for a scapegoat that would take the blame for offending a client.
The incident happened at the brand’s location at Glenpool, Oklahoma, on Thanksgiving, when a local police officer entered the coffee establishment and ordered five coffees.
However, somebody thought to make a joke with the cop, and the client received the order with the label “Pig.”
According to Rose, who was the manager of the coffeehouse at the time, she did not know who did the labeling, but it was not her.
Rose also shared that she tried to apologize to the cop when she found out what happened and gave him a blueberry muffin upon his leaving the store.
The former manager said the police officer was not offended by the joke and even laughed about it.
Rose stated: “He laughed it off, said it was cool. I handed him his blueberry muffin, and I went back off the floor to continue doing my shift manager duties.”
Lola claimed that after that, she returned to doing her duties as a manager, like usual, until the end of the shift.
However, another cop, Kiefer Chief of Police Johnny O’Mara, learned about the case from his colleague and wrote about it on social media.
In a Facebook post, O’Mara stated that he was irked by the total disrespect shown to a police officer, who was doing his duties, instead of being home with his family and enjoying a meal.
The law enforcer wrote: “What irks me is the absolute and total disrespect for a police officer who, instead of being home with family and enjoying a meal and a football game, is patrolling his little town.”
The post quickly gained popularity, and the news of what happened soon reached Starbucks.
As a result, the company issued an official statement, saying the employee who was responsible for the offensive joke, was no longer part of the brand.
It read: “The Starbucks partner who wrote this offensive word on a cup used poor judgement and is no longer a partner after this violation of company policy.”
Rose did not like the way the company handled the controversy and hit back with: “They, to make it seem like they were right on top of everything, which they are … they terminated me from my position with no cause.”
The story took an even more interesting turn when a woman claiming to be O’Mara’s estranged daughter shared the following: “I’d like to say that he is absolutely a pig and I’d like to thank the brave men and women from Starbucks for their service.”
She continued with: “For the record, my father has [zero] business being a police officer. He was blatantly, proudly racist when I was a kid. Said things I would never repeat. He treats women like dogs, including his own daughter.”
The young woman later shared his reaction to her viral posts on social media: “[U]pdate: he has seen it and had someone call my mom to ‘get that s–t off twitter’ lmao he is upset.”
O’Mara, who did not expect his initial post to go viral, now regrets his involvement in the whole thing and has turned his Facebook page private.
Rose has received a lot of support from the community and has managed to get quite a bit of donations online.
