A restaurant manager named Richard fired a black waiter for helping an elderly couple, but just 2 hours later, Richard deeply regretted his actions.
The day began like any other for John; his alarm clock rang at 5:00 a.m., jolting him awake. After a quick shower and a bowl of cereal, he left his apartment to catch the early morning train to work. By 7:30 a.m., John arrived at the upscale restaurant where he worked as a waiter. The place was already bustling with early diners. John had barely settled down to work when he glanced up and noticed an elderly white couple sitting at a table not far from where he stood at the counter.
The elderly woman was blind; she wore dark shades and held a walking stick. Her husband, who appeared to be much older than her, was spoon-feeding her some hot broth. Something melted inside John, and he immediately felt a great deal of compassion and admiration for the elderly couple.
John had always had a soft spot for blind people; moreover, the elderly man looked quite tired, and as John watched, he noticed that the man’s frail hands were trembling as he spoon-fed his wife. That did it for John; he just couldn’t stand there any longer and watch an elderly man old enough to be his grandfather struggling so much to feed his blind wife. So, John decided to help the elderly couple the best he could, without thinking twice.
John left the counter and walked over to the elderly couple’s table, greeting them warmly. Then, John politely offered the elderly man to take over the feeding of his wife. Without hesitation and with a warm smile, the elderly man accepted John’s offer. The woman, who had been quietly listening in to the conversation between her husband and John, said a word of thanks to John. She even extended her frail right hand to him as a clear sign of appreciation. John gently took her hand before he pulled out a seat and sat down beside the elderly man. John then started spoon-feeding the elderly woman himself, as her husband watched on with a wide smile of gratitude written all over his wrinkled face.
Five minutes later, John was still spoon-feeding the elderly woman when the manager, Richard, sauntered up to the table, looking like a person who was determined to commit a heinous crime. “Is this what I’m paying you to do?” Richard barked, looking straight at John. “How can you be spoon-feeding an old woman when there are dozens of diners waiting to be attended to?” Richard continued.
John, who hadn’t even noticed the manager’s arrival as he was so engrossed in helping the woman, looked up at Richard, and his smile left his face at once. “But sir, I was just trying to…” John started, but Richard rudely cut him off and thundered, “You don’t know your place. You know what, young man? You are fired. Leave.”
John felt like a missile had just hit him; even though the AC was on, he immediately felt like he was suffocating and about to pass out. John opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out; he just sat there, looking at the manager with his mouth agape. The elderly couple were stunned beyond belief as well; the elderly man tried to plead with Richard on John’s behalf, but Richard was done with them all. He just hissed in disgust and walked away.
John, who still sat looking quite lost, didn’t even know when the spoon he was holding fell off his hands. The noise of the spoon as it rattled on the tiled floor seemed to bring John back to reality; he immediately stood up and made to leave. Just then, the elderly man stood up, reached out, and embraced John while offering words of encouragement to him; his blind wife was also the same. John assured the couple that he was fine and everything would be okay before he finally left their table.
But John was not fine; in fact, he was very far from being fine. He was already wondering how he would survive without the job that was his only means of livelihood. John was born into a poor family; his dad, Joe, was a menial laborer, and his mom, Natalie, was a lowly paid hotel janitor. The couple had managed, through sheer hard work, to see John through high school. But once John graduated from high school at the age of 18, his parents bluntly told him that they couldn’t afford to further his education.
John had always dreamt of attending college and becoming a lawyer, but he understood where his parents were coming from, and he accepted it. John left his hometown 2 years later and came to the city in search of greener pastures. He was lucky enough to secure the waiting job at the restaurant almost immediately upon his arrival in the city.
Even though the pay at the restaurant wasn’t great, at least it was enough for John to take care of his basic needs and pay the rent for his one-room apartment. He had been working at the restaurant for the past 3 years and had even saved some money for his plan to further his education. Now that he had just lost the job just for a single act of kindness, how was he going to survive? This was the thought going on in John’s mind as he aimlessly and sadly walked away from the elderly couple’s table.
“Hi John, how are you doing today?” a soft female voice called. John turned around to see his sweetheart and colleague, Juliet, smiling ever so sweetly at him. John answered that he was fine and made to continue on his way, but his eyes and gloomy countenance betrayed him, so Juliet walked up to him and asked him what the problem was. At first, John maintained that everything was fine, but Juliet was persistent. Finally, John opened up to Juliet and told her everything that happened, while trying very hard to hold back his tears.
Juliet was so stunned after John had told her what happened that she kept on shouting, “Impossible! This can’t happen, John!”
John and Juliet were not just mere colleagues; they were lovers. The two had been in a romantic relationship ever since John started working at the restaurant. Juliet had already been working as a waitress at the restaurant before John arrived. She had fallen for the funny, charismatic, and well-disciplined Jon the very moment she set eyes on him. John also fell for the kind and compassionate Juliet; it was a quintessential story of love at first sight for the duo, and the bond between them had been growing ever stronger since then. Their love transcended both race and age, as Juliet was white, and John was black. Juliet was also four years older than John; it was an open secret at the restaurant that John and Juliet were dating.
The charismatic and charming duo were both loved by their colleagues, but there was one person at the restaurant who hated the very fact that Juliet and John were so much in love with each other, and that was Richard. The 34-year-old manager had always had his eyes on the beautiful Juliet. Richard was basically obsessed with Juliet and had tried everything possible to seduce her. But Juliet was deeply in love with Jon, so she always politely declined all of Richard’s romantic overtures. In fact, the more Richard tried to get Juliet to accept him as a lover, the more Juliet detested him.
When Richard saw that his game wasn’t working on Juliet one bit, he changed tactics and became quite rude to her. He even once threatened to sack her if she didn’t give in to his demands. But Juliet stood her ground; she was tough and was not the type of girl that could easily be bullied into dating a man that simply disgusted her like Richard did.
Soon enough, Richard discovered to his greatest horror that Juliet and John were dating, and since then, he had held a personal vendetta against John. To Richard, John was the reason why Juliet rejected him. This realization literally drove Richard nuts with jealousy, especially when he saw Jon and Juliet together. Richard saw Jon as his nemesis, and he’d been looking for an opportunity to get Jon out of the way so he would have Juliet to himself, or so he thought.
Richard didn’t even hide his utter disgust for Jon; he was openly hostile to him. Richard would always go berserk at John for the slightest provocation, even when Jon wasn’t at fault. It got so bad that John would often bitterly complain to Juliet that he felt like he was losing his sanity because of Richard’s relentless harassment. Juliet would always comfort John and encourage him to be strong in the face of Richard’s cruelty, for her sake at least.
So, when John told Juliet that memorable morning about his sacking, Juliet didn’t need a fortune teller to tell her the real reason behind the sacking; her instincts immediately told her that Richard had finally succeeded in finding a perfect ruse to fire Jon, like he’d always wanted.
“But he’s not going to succeed; I won’t let him get away with this travesty, never!” Juliet blurted out.
John, still looking quite gloomy and confused, asked Juliet what she was talking about, but Juliet didn’t respond; she had already vowed inside her to get justice for John, even if it would lead to a showdown with Richard, and every second counted. So, Juliet promptly brought out her camera phone from her jean trousers pocket and headed straight to the elderly couple’s table. As Juliet walked to the table, phone in hand, John closely followed behind her, asking her what she was up to. “Just watch and see,” was all that the mean face to Juliet told John.
When Juliet got to the elderly couple’s table with John, the half-finished plate of broth still lay on the table; this implied that the blind elderly woman had most probably lost her appetite and stopped eating the meal once John had left. The elderly man was by his wife’s side, gently caressing her hand while softly whispering something into her ears. Once the elderly man saw Juliet and John standing over their table, his countenance brightened up, and he whispered, “Our kind boy is back,” to his wife.
The blind woman quickly extended her right hand to John as a clear sign that she was also glad to see him back. John gently took her hand once again before he and Juliet sat down opposite the couple, with her camera phone in her hand. Juliet immediately kicked the plan she had hatched in her mind into motion. Juliet first warmly greeted the elderly couple; she then told them and John about her plan. She wanted to capture footage of the elderly couple narrating everything that happened themselves and add her own story about Richard to the video footage. Then, she would send the video footage to the restaurant owner’s email.
The elderly couple welcomed Juliet’s plan; they were happy to help him get justice, though John wasn’t so sure about the effectiveness of Juliet’s plan. He had no choice but to go along with it, and that’s what they all did. The elderly couple both took turns to tell the story, with the woman even saying that Jon was the kindest waiter she’d ever met in her entire 65 years of existence.
The footage was quite emotional, with the woman even shedding a few tears and removing her dark shades to wipe them away. Juliet narrated the constant romantic advances and harassment Richard had been putting her through and his threats to sack her. She concluded the video by saying that she was certain John had been fired because he was Juliet’s boyfriend, and that made Richard jealous.
After the video footage was completed, Juliet promptly sent it to the email address of the restaurant’s owner, Mrs. Shelly, hoping against all odds that she responded. The elderly couple profusely thanked Juliet and wished Jon the best of luck before leaving the restaurant. Jon saw them off to their car, thanking them sincerely. The elderly man jotted down Jon’s phone number and promised he’d give him a call in the evening to find out how everything went. The elderly couple then gave Jon a farewell hug and some last few words of blessing and encouragement before they drove away in their small golf car.
After the elderly couple left, John hid in the changing room with Juliet. They both got talking, and Juliet kept consoling the love of her life and assuring him that everything would turn out fine. Barely 2 hours after the firing incident, a Range Rover pulled up at the restaurant’s parking lot, and Mrs. Shelly herself stepped out of the SUV and briskly walked into her restaurant. Everyone was quite shocked at the sight of the restaurant’s owner, as she rarely visited.
Mrs. Shelly was looking extremely angry and ignored all the greetings of the staff; she only kept demanding for Richard. The manager was promptly summoned out of his posh office upstairs by a staff member that Mrs. Shelley sent to get him. She also asked for John and Juliet; a colleague who knew they were hiding in the changing room quickly went to fetch them.
The lovebirds felt a mixture of dread and relief when they were summoned. Yes, they had sent the video footage to the restaurant’s owner and hoped she had come to support their cause, but what if she hated the whole idea of her workers directly sending anything to her email address? What if she didn’t believe their story? The duo wondered as they made their way to where Mrs. Shelly sat.
When Juliet and John arrived before Mrs. Shelly, Richard was already standing there; he was looking as nervous and fidgety as a child who had committed an offense and knew he was about to get punished. Mrs. Shelly was a woman of few words, so she promptly got down to the business at hand without preambles; she angrily berated Richard for firing a worker for helping an elderly couple. The fact that the elderly woman was blind seemed to infuriate Mrs. Shelly the most.
Richard kept trying to apologize, but it was too late. “You know what, Richard,” Mrs. Shelly continued, “you are fired.” Mrs. Shelly promptly rose up to leave; then she sharply turned back like she forgot something, and pointing at Juliet, she said, “For being brave enough to expose such shameful discrimination, you are to assume the position of manager with immediate effect.” With that, she turned away and left the restaurant.
Juliet was stunned beyond belief; John looked stunned as well, but he recovered from his shock on time to turn around and tightly embrace Juliet. The lovebirds remained in the tight embrace for a long time, professing their undying love for each other.
As for Richard, he felt like the ground should just open up and swallow him. He stood for a long while just staring into open
space, like someone lost, with tears already welling up in his eyes. Richard soon walked away from the restaurant, feeling shattered and deeply regretting his actions for firing John.
The elderly man kept to his promise and called John that very evening to inquire about how everything went. John happily told him how fate was kind to him at the end of it all. The elderly man was overwhelmed with happiness for John; he even handed over the phone to his wife to speak to John. She was also overjoyed; she further heaped a lot of praises and blessings on John and concluded the call by reminding him to always be kind.
John and the elderly couple remained best friends, and whenever they came over to the restaurant, John would spoon-feed the elderly woman himself. As the new manager, Juliet soon duly appointed John the restaurant’s chief cashier; the new position came with an increased salary package and other perks. John was elated about his new position; his financial situation improved for the better. John now lived quite comfortably and could even afford to send money back home to his poor parents.
John and Juliet got closer with each passing day; their relationship kept blossoming like a beautiful rose flower, and Juliet soon moved in with John. Exactly a year after the memorable incident at the restaurant, John and Juliet had a modest wedding. The new couple loved each other to the moon and back, and they continued to live in peace and perfect harmony.
What do you think about Mrs. Shelly’s actions? Feel free to share your comments with us in the comment section.
