A Walgreens worker filmed a customer berating her and allegedly calling her racial slurs in a viral TikTok.
The video, posted user by MsJaxxon (@tijjax89), starts with her saying “You’re horrible,” to a customer off-camera who then can be heard yelling at the worker, “You’re a fucking child making minimum wage,” among other things. You can also hear the TikToker, who goes by Toni at work, calmly trying to talk to him but the customer doesn’t seem to care and repeatedly tells the Walgreens worker to shut up. The caption explains that Toni remained respectful to the customer even after he called her a racial slur.
At the end of the clip, it seems the police showed up at the scene after Toni allegedly called them when she heard the commotion in the store.
@tjjax89 Even after being called a 🥷 I still remain respectful…. Shit that happens in customer service 2017.. #walgreens #customerservice #nobullying 🛑 #fyp #nevergiveup #racistoftheday ♬ original sound – MsJaxxon
The video of the incident received 2.4 million views as of Friday and viewers were quick to sound off about the rude customer in the comments. They also asked Toni for a ‘storytime’ to explain what led to the Walgreens customer’s outburst and in a follow-up video, the TikToker promises that more details are yet to come.
The comment section of the first video in which Toni was still at the store was almost unanimous with viewers thinking that the man was completely out of line. Walgreens customers who berate workers seem to be a running theme with a number of former Walgreens workers recounting their own experiences.
“I hated working at Walgreens bc this shit was a daily occurrence. I had a mental breakdown bc of it,” one user claimed.
“This y I left I can’t handle people come in the store act like we not human,” another alleged former employee said.
Unfortunately, customers who think that it’s acceptable to berate workers or generally treat them badly aren’t a new phenomenon. Many customers have become even more emboldened to act out after the pandemic. However, Science Daily warns that this type of behavior leads to high turnover, with employees quitting jobs at record rates.
In a follow-up storytime video, Toni cleared up exactly what happened with the customer before she started recording him.
@tjjax89 Replying to @cityoflil ♬ Luxury fashion (no vocals) – TimTaj
According to Toni, she was going about her business doing her duties in the store when she heard a loud commotion and saw a group of “teenagers whooping this man’s ass.” She says that she immediately called the police and went up to the front to see what she could do to help in the meantime.
Another assistant manager purportedly informed Toni that the man had gotten angry with the group of teenage boys for being in the candy aisle and started to hurl insults and racial slurs, including the n-word, at them. So the teens allegedly decided to beat him up. The man also got angry with the assistant manager for not breaking up the fight and called her a ‘dyke.’ When she heard that the man had also berated one of her co-workers, Toni asked the customer to leave the store.
According to her, the man started yelling about how the assistant manager didn’t help her and told Toni to call the police. “Now he’s upset at them because they responded to something that he did and he started taking it out on us,” Toni says. That’s when she started recording him.
A number of users in the comments section called on Walgreens to recognize Toni’s behavior in the face of the rude customer.
“@Walgreens give her a raise! She earned it! Handled this situation perfectly!” said one viewer who was impressed by how Toni dealt with the belligerent customer.
“@Walgreens give this woman a raise this is exactly how she should’ve handled this,” echoed another person.
However, despite numerous comments calling on Walgreens to give Toni a raise for handling the situation so well, she said in a follow-up video that she never received any kind of recognition from corporate.
“I wasn’t offered a raise…[and] my district manager never really said anything,” Toni says in the clip. Not only that, Toni claimed that there have been numerous instances in which she felt the company didn’t have her back. She also said that when racist incidents happen to workers, a manager’s response is usually to ask what the worker did to provoke the customer. But, Toni notes, “You don’t really have to do much to trigger these people.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Toni via TikTok comment and to Walgreens via email.
