Ice cream stand owner goes viral after defending young workers from rude customers
· Toronto Sun
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A co-owner of an ice cream stand in Massachusetts went viral this week after he defended his young employees from rude customers.
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Dave Miller shared his frustrations with aggressive customers who have yelled at teen workers serving up the frozen desserts at his Blackstone shop in a Facebook update.
“STOP YELLING AT MY F—ING EMPLOYEES,” he wrote on his Coldstuff Ice Cream company page last Sunday .
“They are children,” he continued. “This job, for most of them is their first. They are going to make mistakes. They aren’t in charge of anything. This can all be fixed with a smile and a polite attitude. It’s ice cream for crying out loud. Grow up and act your age.”
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Post went viral this week
The post has racked up about 300,000 likes as of Friday and more than 24,000 mostly supportive comments.
Later that day, he defended his passionate plea for more civility among his customers.
“And NOBODY gives a s— if you don’t come back. We’d prefer it that way,” he wrote.
The next day, after the post went viral, Miller commented on the post to clarify that it was not meant to bash boomers but to call out those who get aggressive when an employee makes a mistake.
“The vast majority of the elderly folks we encounter are fabulous,” he wrote. “And I meant no (ill) intent towards the age group as a whole. You know who you are, and you know who we are.
“But seriously, let’s check ourselves around working kids. It’s one group who feels borderline aggressive when something is wrong. It’s a mistake not an insult. There’s no need. It’s ice cream.”
Shop opened up in August
Miller and his brother Kevin, who co-own and run a local restaurant, opened the ice cream shop as a side business in August.
He posted his rant online after noticing some customers had been rude to his employees over minor issues.
“It’s a lot of young kids, and I’ve noticed in these last 10 weeks, more than once, people over there seem a little too comfortable being upset or angry or aggressive over a mistake,” Miller told People . “So I decided to make sure everybody understood that that was not OK.”
Since the post went viral, commenters who agreed with him asked if there was merchandise available for purchase to support his business.
Merchandise now available
On Friday, Miller shared the news that shirts, sweaters, ball caps and tuques with the ice cream shop’s branding were now available to supporters.
“We’ve all experienced it some way or another,” he said of awful customer behaviour. “I can take it. I’m a grown man, but these are children.”