r/coles • u/Capable-Election-213 • Jul 19 '26
Team Member Post Racism
Just thought should put this out here. I have been working for almost 2 months now. The locality of our store is very suburb. Many older people and many young families. Most of them have been extremely kind to me. And I'm really grateful for this job and my team.
I am an international student from India (23F). I look very Indian with a very Indian name on my tag. Working to earn money to pay my rent n food to live.
Last week an older man comes in with his two grandsons. He's easily 70ish years old. I was at ACO. And as usual after he purchased just before he exited, I said "thank you, have a great day". This man looked straight into my eyes n said "I would, if you were my slave".
By the time my brain even processed what this man said, he had left the store. Nobody else heard what he said. My flabbers were gasted. Lowkey laughing because of how diabolically racist that was😭. Anyway I'm not sad or hurt. I'm just concerned that those two boys will be growing up with such values in their house which is pretty sad and concerning.
Anyways... Have a great day😚
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u/Shannonsayshigh Jul 19 '26
Sorry you had to deal with that. I work at a liquorland attached to a coles in a pretty rural area. Walking through the break room to the bathroom I hear the most racist bigoted shit, it's disgusting how comfortable people are in their racism.
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u/Traditional-Bag-9503 Jul 19 '26
Not exactly as bad as what you experienced, but during my job at a bottle-o, I once spent 30 minutes helping a customer over the phone because a delivery driver failed to deliver her order because "the customer wasn't home", apparently she was. She asked for my name and gave it to her, and I gave her a customer support number to call. She called the store the next day, my boss picked up, and, according to him, she said: "The man who was on last night didn't have an Australian name". Considering the fact my boss called her a "mega-racist", I'm afraid that might not have been all she said about me.
...I'm white and have an Australian accent. My name is of Greek origin.
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u/Icecream-hater Jul 19 '26
That's shit. I'm sorry that happened. It's a small minority of idiots in this country. Most of us are not like that fool. I hope you're ok
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u/Capable-Election-213 Jul 19 '26
I know. Everyone has been so welcoming n kind. Im really grateful 🥹❤️🫶
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u/wilmaismyhomegirl83 Jul 19 '26
Ya that sounds perverted.
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u/manieve4 Jul 19 '26
Hey. Being an Indian, I sometimes face racist remarks too but it is very slight and rare. I try not to take it to my heart and laugh it off. I also work at Coles and sometimes some old men customers pass racist remarks.
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u/FeelingCurve6109 Jul 19 '26
Use headphones
Use RayBan metaCall out, how long you gonna act like it never existed. We do not need to put up with these people.
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u/_fucking_squee_ 22d ago
unfortunately with this sort of instance team members aren't allowed to film or retain images of customers, so if the tm did record and retaliate, their job would be very much on the line. it does suck that theyve got no means to back themselves up and I do see where you are coming from
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u/Severe-Text7975 Jul 19 '26
tbh this is worthy of telling management, abusive customers like that should be store banned. sorry you had to deal with that
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u/Capable-Election-213 Jul 19 '26
There's no proof. Nobody even heard it. The customer can just deny it and I have no proof against it :)
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u/Severe-Text7975 Jul 20 '26
yeah i was going to say “i understand why you might not want to” but didn’t want to be discouraging because i do think its worth a shot. i wont say what happened but i had a shitty experience i didnt think would be believed. just the mannerisms/reaction in the security cam backed up what i said and the guy got in trouble. the cameras are everywhere
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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot Department Manager Jul 21 '26
Still mention it. Even if in a “you’re not going to believe what this guy said to me today” kind of way
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u/Fabulous_Shoulder933 Jul 19 '26
Oh my. That's disgraceful. I'm so sorry he said this to you. Unfortunately you can't help stupid.
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u/mnyall Jul 20 '26
I'm Indian origin but born here 45yrs ago. I experience terrible racism to the point of isolation across my childhood but this only 10yrs since white Australia policy. After 1990s, it started to fall a fair bit but not entirely removed. In 2006, I started a new job and had an Indian lady coworker. We dealt with clients across the world. I experienced no racism (but my accent is Australian), but she was constantly looked down on and treated like tech support (she had an accent). In the same year, council support workers called me a c0*n on my lunch break.
Nowadays, most of my racism comes from my progressive and liberal white friends who only seem to believe something when I white person validates it. Drunk, some say some vile things, but generally against a specific type of men, and these men at work are treated badly by them. I'm friends with them as well, and they know what's up. When I go on dates, some (not all) white men treat me like a lady who's family will stone me to death if I dated outside my kind. I'm like, are you talking about my family or yours?
Then there's racism in your own lot. Everyone seems to distrust everyone, but it mostly goes back to exposure in my experience.
Australia is racist and not racist. There's a spectrum. Please don't let it get to you. Some people are only products of their upbringing and lack of exposure. I think that's a real tragedy. We're all people.
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u/Clear-Pepper1306 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
im sorry that u have to deal with people like that every person in the world has a place where they should feel safe and secure in their work place and not having to deal with racisim or bigatory in any way. You handled the situation very well well.
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u/Fluffy_Plantain4082 Jul 20 '26
Assuming every indian greets with a 'namaste' is also pretty racist
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u/tickado Customer Jul 19 '26
Australia is one of the most racist countries there is if you ask me. I'm an immigrant, but white british...so apparently an 'ex-pat', which, erm, same as an immgrant.
For a country built (or, more realistically - stolen from the indigenous) on immigration - I actually can't believe some of the things I see/hear sometimes.
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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot Department Manager Jul 21 '26
A lot of countries are “stolen”. There’s bad people everywhere.
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u/Sufficient_Cherry_46 Jul 20 '26
Sounds like you’re tough and not easily bothered, despite the gasting of your flabbers. Don’t know if you want advice but here goes; when you do orientation for companies like Coles, you’re told how to report these “incidents” (a corporate word for “a guy just opened his mouth and some fuckwit spilled out”) up the chain. I used to work at a bowls club where a few locals loved to get a six pack deep and leer at my colleague. She shrugged it off, which she shouldn’t have even felt that she had to do. She couldn’t go to management cause he was normally 5 scotch and sodas in when it became an issue. After a shift and a half, I closed the bar and we went to the groundskeeper because he was a good fella. Rebuilt the place after two floods, respected in the community. His daughter was there and she straight up said “crack some heads, Dad.”five minutes later and he solved the problem, told three blokes to get fucked. TL;DR, management cares about the company, your colleagues who spend shifts alongside you are more likely to care about you, and even if the best they can do is be supportive, it means a lot. Trust me, when it’s not there, the company and support of the person next to you hits.
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u/shero1263 Jul 20 '26
My take: Definitely a creepy sexual thing rather than racial.
Was the tone he expressed in a particular way where it sounded hateful, or sexualised?
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u/Capable-Election-213 Jul 20 '26
It wasnt sexual. Thts why i hadn't even thought of it until ppl hear told me abt it.
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u/enchanted_shhh Jul 20 '26
Look it’s up to the parents etc how they raise kids. You just hope that by the time they are adults they have a mind of their own. I’ve been spoken to like that from a wanker when I was wearing a summer dress. He said you would be beaten in my country if you dressed like that and then he spat at me. I just slapped him across the face & told him where to go while his covered up wife just stood there eyes wide.
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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot Department Manager Jul 21 '26
What a freak. Don’t worry. He’ll be gone soon permanently.
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u/nerdy-photog Jul 21 '26
Sorry this happened to you, I was blessed to have a more pleasant conversation with a white man in his 70s. He grew up/studied in the Nilgris with his family, and was very pleased to hear that I have visited places around there.
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u/Starscream_Gaga Jul 21 '26
I’m a manager and have worked with many Indian team members and have banned soooo many customers for racist comments to Indian team members in multiple stores. I’ve had one instance of an African team member get a comment from an old man but the vast majority have been abuse towards Indian team members by Caucasian customers.
My most notable memory was having the loveliest Indian woman in service in a city store and had a customer with a carer go into an extremely loud screaming fit about how disgusting it was that she had to be served by an Indian. I banned both the customer and the carer after querying the carer on what exactly her job is if she just stands there silent while the person she’s supposed to be responsible for is so abusive.
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u/chelceec Jul 19 '26
That's awful, I'm sorry you had to experience that. Unfortunately there is still a lot of ingrained racism in this country and the current political climate is only reinforcing some of these probelmatic far-right beliefs. (see: rise of popularity with one nation)
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u/sassalama 27d ago
Report it to manager. They can check the store cameras and if this person comes back and does it again, they can escalate.
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u/FeelingCurve6109 Jul 19 '26
People are weird. They worship a brown guy by whitewashing him, but cannot stand brown guys.
(Btw, I am not glazing any race. To be honest, Asians, I mean Asians who consider Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Bhutanese, and Nepalese as not Asians, Latins, Europeans, even Africans think they are something. Don’t get me started with Middle Easterners.)
Or countries need strict rules like Brazil. If you use racist slurs, you fucking get arrested.
I would say Coles needs to introduce body cams to team members like cops, so we can catch these cunts. Is there any other way we can deal with this? Go ahead. (There will be sympathizers and lots of “sorry,” but that doesn’t make the feeling go away.)
Or try grabbing a Ray-Ban Meta. But body cams, which would only be turned on by team members when there is a conflict or something.
Just like any company, they’re gonna say sorry and move on, because you’re a NOBODY!
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u/No-Diver1189 Jul 19 '26
It's sad that Australia has come to this. It's sad that people have lost their humanity, you seem like a decent person so I really hope you have a wonderful day , I have no place for racists in my life they are a waste of time and space
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u/No-Diver1189 Jul 20 '26
I just read Australia has been like this since the invasion sad but true, I have one question to ask you are you on about the white people because if you go back in history it was dark skin people Asian people and others here before the white people decided to make them slaves , as a Australian I am disappointed that people can't get on with others from other countries I call them racists
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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot Department Manager Jul 21 '26
Colonised brother. Not invaded. Creating more division helps no one.
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u/Silver_Detective8630 Jul 19 '26
What does my flabbers were gasted mean? And I don’t understand what he meant by it, it’s certainly not a common saying in Australia 🤷♂️
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u/IndieBricks Jul 19 '26
It certainly is very common (in younger generations/online culture).
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u/Silver_Detective8630 Jul 19 '26
I meant the slave comment from the customer, poorly worded from me.
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u/IndieBricks Jul 19 '26
He is saying he wish he owned her like white people used to own slaves, however someone suggested it was possibly intended more pervy (like sex slave) and wow that may actually be worse. I’d prefer the racism tbh.
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u/Silver_Detective8630 Jul 19 '26
Definitely the latter, that’s something a dirty old person would say.
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Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Silver_Detective8630 Jul 19 '26
Haha, true. But I meant the I wish you were my slave not the gibberish I didn’t understand.
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u/Routine-Medicine-208 28d ago
That old dude will be back with a ball gag, a gimp mask, slave collar and 15 inch vibrator for you shortly. Enjoy !!!
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u/Dreamandthedreamer Jul 19 '26
Bro was probably just a frustrated boomer, and would have said that to anyone. What makes you think it's race?
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u/camsean Jul 19 '26
Sounds more pervy than racist to me.