A viral video surfacing on social media has viewers tuned into an altercation at a grocery store between a white manager and a Black cashier.
According to the footage posted to TikTok the week of Nov. 5, the incident shows a middle-aged white manager confronting one of the store’s cashiers, who appears to be an older Black woman, over the cashier’s alleged deviation from the work schedule.
“You were scheduled to clock out. Clock out,” the manager could be heard telling the cashier at the beginning
of the video. The manager confronted the Black employee about not taking her breaks and claimed she caused her to go over labor hours by six and a half hours. She made the accusation in front of customers while the store was busy.According to the manager, she told the cashier to clock out on time because her bosses reprimanded her about the employee’s extra hours. “I haven’t cheated you on anything. You were scheduled [for] 29 and a half hours. Why won’t you clock in and out on your time? You got your hours,” the white woman says.
The Black woman tells the manager to move her fingers from her face before she is ordered to “get out of the store.” The cashier sat her bag down on the table and responded to the manager, “Woman, you don’t know who you messing with!”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not scared of you anymore,” the manager said, to which the cashier responded, “I’m not scared of you.”
The manager recounted an alleged previous confrontation with the Black employee
.“Everybody’s mad because I backed up last time,” the white manager said as she pulled up on the older Black woman to assert that she was not backing up this time.
Spectators in the store attempted to de-escalate the situation by telling both women to calm down. One woman pointed out the manager’s unprofessionalism in handling the situation. The pressure from the customers led the rude woman to storm out of the store.
In the video, the Black cashier never addresses the manager’s complaint. The situation garnered several perspectives from TikTok users. Some believe the manager was wrong in this case, and she should have handled the matter in private. Others understood the manager’s frustration but suggested there was a better way to address her employee.