[Image: Pond5]
A McDonald’s in Kenilworth, Cape Town, turned into the set of a bad reality show when a male customer decided to take his tantrum behind the counter—literally—and assault a female worker. And, of course, the whole thing is now viral.
The video, originally posted by Facebook user Rybrox, shows a white male customer barging into the employee-only zone, where he gets in the face of a black female worker. At the time of writing, the clip had already racked up over 1.3 million views and a flood of 4,400 comments, mostly filled with shock, frustration, and pure rage.
As the footage rolls, our entitled guest can be seen standing where he absolutely shouldn’t be—inside the kitchen. The female worker, clearly unimpressed with his nonsense, tells him, “You wait for your food.”
Instead of stepping back like a normal person, he throws up two fingers and then, without warning, shoves her. She immediately warns him, “Don’t dare push me.” But he doesn’t stop.
At this point, she’s got a chip fryer in her hands (probably thinking about alternative uses for it) and tries to shield herself while he keeps up his attack, even attempting to hit her. Not having any of it, she pushes him away and fires back, “Who do you think you are, to hit a woman?”
The guy then vanishes out of frame but is still lurking in the kitchen. And because he hadn’t embarrassed himself enough already, he dropped a classy “piece of s***” at her on his way out.
Meanwhile, other male customers in the store seem to be auditioning for the role of ‘silent observers’ instead of stepping in. Eventually, a group of frustrated men do step up to confront him, but just as things start heating up, the camera cuts off.
Public reaction online has been a mix of outrage and hypothetical revenge plots. Some suggested she should have gone full action movie and tossed hot oil on him (not advisable, but understandable), while others debated whether she’d have been arrested if she had.
News24 notes that a colleague who witnessed the attack and who asked not to be named for fear of his job said the man had been drinking and had ordered through the drive-thru, but his order was delayed.
“It did not take two hours as he claimed,” the colleague said. “No one waits that long. Yes, Kenilworth gets busy, but other customers would have been hooting in frustration if it were true.”
McDonald’s South Africa has since confirmed via The Daily Voice that they’re looking into the incident. Daniel Padiachy, Chief Marketing Officer, stated: “We are aware of a video circulating online showing an altercation between a customer and one of our employees. We take the safety of our employees and customers very seriously and have instituted a full investigation into the matter.”
The employee described the scene as terrifying, with staff fearing for their colleague’s safety.
“He was aggressive and shoved her around inside the store. There was no security, and this isn’t the first time a staff member has been attacked,” the staffer alleged.
“We’re waiting for management to take action, but she is expected back at work today [Tuesday],” the colleague added. “We need security present here to avoid this, but the guy must be banned from all McDonalds franchises for what he did.”
Meanwhile, COSATU’s provincial secretary Malvern de Bruyn says they’ll be taking the matter up with the South African Human Rights Commission, who, at this point, claim they hadn’t heard about the incident yet.
Safe to say, this story is far from over.
[Source: Daily Voice & News24]
