Just yesterday (21 January), a netizen named Cheryl took to Facebook to share about her awful experience with a famous poke bowl restaurant in Bandar Sunway, where they were allegedly violating human and labour rights.
According to her, she has a friend who is a foreigner who used to work at the poke bowl restaurant situated opposite Sunway University. When he resigned, he still had an outstanding salary of RM700 that he had yet to receive from the company. Since he borrowed RM200 from the company earlier, they still owed him RM500.
During his time working there, he stayed at the company’s hostel and once had to break a lock on the door as he was locked inside without a key. Cheryl said in her post,
“He had honestly and sincerely reported it to the management, even going as far as taking pictures of the broken lock and sending it to them, asking them to deduct it from his salary.”
Rightfully, he should receive less than RM500 due to this incident. However, when payday came around, he respectfully asked his manager regarding the right time for him to collect his salary.
“To his shock, the manager quite rudely tells him he won’t be getting his salary because they had to hire a lawyer for this broken lock issue,” she continued.
Her friend was surprised by the answer and asked for the reason why they needed to hire a lawyer to fix a broken lock but the manager apparently sent him a hostile message, asking to meet up at the restaurant and “to show him how tough he is”.
Hoping to settle the matter in a civil way, he reached out to Cheryl and several friends to accompany him to the restaurant.
This was when things became worse.
When they arrived, they claimed the manager had been acting unprofessionally and was being rude and offensive towards them. When Cheryl asked him again for the reason he was withholding her friend’s salary, he had a new excuse.
“His excuse now changed from having to pay legal fees to being that they are holding his money because they haven’t fixed the broken lock yet.”
Cheryl and her friends were then forced to head over to the office to settle the issue. When they arrived, the owner and higher management staff of the restaurant allegedly insulted them and called her friend “uneducated” in a different language.
She was also surprised by the excuses they gave, which kept changing from having to pay legal fees, to them not being able to fix the lock and then accusing her friend of stealing something from the hostel room.
Cheryl and her friends were told that they should have settled this in the restaurant, not the office. They were, however, told otherwise when at the restaurant. They were later kicked out of the office, leaving only her friend in the office.
“If only you could hear the number of insults they were throwing at my friend, you’d be disgusted,” she said.
After an hour, Cheryl had enough of hearing her friend being yelled at. She banged on the door and demanded them to let her friend go so they could just leave. When they opened the door, they started insulting her as well!
Cheryl then ends her post by saying that foreigners are constantly being disrespected and taken advantage of because some people think that they are inferior here.
“Please treat others with respect no matter what the situation is. Plain and simple,” she added.
The restaurant has since addressed this issue on their Facebook explaining the whole situation from their side. They mentioned that their ex-staff had broken the back door to gain access into the hostel to retrieve his belongings, which they consider to be a security breach and a criminal act, whether he admits it or not. However, in Cheryl’s post, she mentioned that her friend was actually locked inside, not out. Hmm, we wonder which story is true? Either way, they claimed that Cheryl’s accusations were false.
The restaurant has since lodged a police report, claiming that Cheryl had tarnished the company’s name and that they are considering taking legal action against her. Hence, they have requested Cheryl to remove the post and apologise on social media. That said, they are willing to have a meeting with the management as well as Cheryl and her friend to resolve this issue.
What are your thoughts on this situation? Tell us in the comments below!
Also read: JB Immigration Officer Rudely Smacks Foreigner’s Head in Viral Video