Everyday Justice
While cruising around Substack recently, I came across a blog post that included the story repeated below. It’s worth the read.
I witnessed something at a coffee shop. Teenager working register. Couldn’t have been more than sixteen. New uniform, still stiff. The kind of nervous energy that gives away someone on their first or second day, checking everything twice, moving carefully, trying hard to get it right.
Customer ordered. The kid rang it wrong. Maybe he misheard. Maybe his hands weren’t steady yet. Either way, it was a small mistake, the kind that happens a hundred times a day in every coffee shop in every city in the world.
The customer didn’t see it that way.
He raised his voice. Then he raised it more. Called the kid stupid. Incompetent. Made a scene the entire shop could hear. The kid kept apologizing, over and over, his voice getting smaller each time, his eyes going glassy. He was doing everything right. Keeping his composure. Not arguing back. Standing there and taking it the way young people are taught to do when a customer is unhappy, like absorbing it is part of the job description.
The manager came over from the back. Middle aged woman. Calm. I expected what usually happens. The apology. The offer of a free drink. The gentle redirecting of the customer’s anger into something manageable. The quiet message sent to the kid that keeping the customer happy matters more than what just happened to him.
Instead she looked at the customer and said: “Get out.”
The whole shop went still.
Customer looked shocked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Get out of my shop. Don’t come back.”
Customer sputtered. “I’m the customer. He messed up.”
She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t flinch. “He’s sixteen. It’s his second day. He made a mistake. You’re an adult who chose cruelty. Leave.”
The customer left. Angry. Cursing loud enough for the whole street to hear.
The manager turned to the kid. The shop was completely silent. “You okay?”
He nodded. Still shaking. “I’m sorry I messed up.”
She looked at him for a moment. The way people look at someone when they want to make sure the words actually land. “Everyone messes up. That’s how we learn. What you don’t deserve is abuse. Not here. Not anywhere.”
For a second nobody moved. Then someone started clapping. Then the table beside them. Then the whole shop, a full coffee shop on a weekday morning, applauding a manager who chose her employee over a customer. Who chose dignity over profit. Who looked at a sixteen year old boy near tears behind a register and decided that was where she drew the line.
I started going to that coffee shop every day after that. Not just for the coffee. To watch what that manager had built. The way her employees moved through the space. Relaxed. Attentive. Like people who knew they were safe to make mistakes and learn from them without being made to feel worthless for it. They stayed. They smiled. They genuinely cared about the people they were serving. Because someone had cared about them first and made it clear that care was the standard in that room.
That kid is still there. Three years later. Different uniform now. Shift manager. Training new employees, walking them through the register, showing them the rhythms of the place. And when they mess up, which they do, because everyone does, I have heard him say it himself, steady and clear, the same words that were said to him on his second day.
“Mistakes are okay. Abuse isn’t. We protect each other here.”
Sometimes the best business decision you will ever make is choosing humanity over the customer is always right.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of that shop. Whether it all actually happened just that way or not, there is plenty in the story to digest and from which to draw lessons. This is a simple example of everyday justice, called on at the moment of need without time for preparation. No fanfare, just action that carried a lifetime of impact, at least in one kid.
Moves like this manager took, I believe, flow out of a settled band of convictions about what is right and how people ought to be treated. While this isn’t a Jesus-people story, I see grace and gospel all over it. Think about how this reflects Micah 6:8.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
An old west phrase for people like this manager who stands their ground in the face of many reasons to back off is “that one’s got sand.” Not to be blustered away, she had a firm grip on what was right and just and merciful then humbly acted on it with “Get out of my shop. Don’t come back” to the bully.
There’s an interesting vignette in the Jesus narrative in Matthew 12 that can help with this. Jesus, in the midst teaching those who gathered, is once again interrupted…
Then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and couldn’t speak, was brought to Jesus. He healed the man so that he could both speak and see. The crowd was amazed and asked, “Could it be that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah?”
But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “No wonder he can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.”
These tightly-wound religious honchos had no answer to what the crowd began to believe from what was witnessed, so they jumped to a supernaturally wrong conclusion, that Jesus was not Messiah, rather he was an emissary of Satan himself. Their intent to expose Jesus instead condemned themselves.
In Mt. 12:25-37, Jesus carves up these chuckleheads with their own argument, then exposes their dark hearts for all to see. The high and proud are brought low and shamed in front of the crowd. In the midst of his denunciation, two sentences speak to what we are talking about and are worth pondering.
For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.
So, the question for the week for you and me just might be a hard one: What am I storing up in my heart that when my coffee-shop moment comes, then what, if anything, will come out of my mouth?
Blending the story with Micah 6:8 and Jesus’ words leaves me with an example, a template and a ponder.
The example is from the manager who rose to protect at her own risk, and while losing a customer, she did more for a young man than any paycheck could accomplish. Out of her heart flowed quiet power as she stood by her young worker. I’d like to think you and I would do the same…if we thought fast enough.
The template answers the question, “What does God look to see in me?” Act. Love. Walk. Having decided beforehand what I believe is right frees me to “act justly” when the moment arises. And those actions flow from a desire, however imperfectly, to “love mercy” as a first priority in relationships. Mercy relieves. Mercy shares. Mercy stands with. As I act justly and love mercy, I see myself more clearly as part of something bigger than me, so walking in humility with God then comes quite naturally.
And so, for me and maybe for you, the ponder is personal.
Is my heart full of justice, mercy, and humility so that when a moment is present, I am ready to say and act in ways that reflect all I say I believe?
Probably worth investing some time. Wouldn’t want to be unprepared for the next opportunity to stand for others, even while in line at a store.
In other words…
One day on the way home from church a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, the preacher's sermon this morning confused me."
The mother said, "Oh! Why is that?
The girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?"
"Yes, that's true," the mother replied.
"He also said that God lives within us. Is that true too?"
Again the mother replied, "Yes."
“Well," said the girl. "If God is bigger than us and he lives in us, wouldn't He show through?"
Music for the week
Lame Joke? Sure…
An avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck.
Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him. He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, a pessimist by nature, and invited him to hunt with him and his new dog.
As they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. They fired and a duck fell. The dog responded and jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet. The friend saw everything but did not say a single word.
On the drive home the hunter asked his friend, "Did you notice anything unusual about my new dog?"
"I sure did," responded his friend, "He can't swim."
****************
When the new patient was settled comfortably on the couch, the psychiatrist began his therapy session.
"I'm not aware of your problem," the doctor said. "So perhaps, you should start at the very beginning."
"Of course." replied the patient. "In the beginning, I created the Heavens and the Earth..."