PUBLISHED ONSeptember 16, 2022 6:42 AMByChing Shi JieA diner lost his appetite after witnessing an incident at a Burger King outlet in Bedok on Tuesday (Sept 13) night.
TikTok user Izwandelex shared on Thursday that he saw one of the staff at the fast food restaurant in ESR BizPark scolding his colleague "at the top of his voice" for at least 10 minutes.
Izwandelex said that the latter appeared to be autistic, adding: "I had a tough time digesting my food because of whatever that's happening in that corner.
"This shouldn't be the way to teach someone with special needs."
[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@izwandelex/video/7143429309598878977?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7138311614314890753[/embed]
From the 40-second clip, the older Burger King staff appeared to be at his wits' end while showing his younger colleague how to open a garbage bag.
"[You] shouted at him and even wanted to slap him… the poor staff was trembling," Izwandelex recalled. "The scolding happened before I decided to record. I couldn't eat in peace."
The diner also claimed that the fast food outlet manager did nothing to help his struggling staff and pointed out that "this kind of guidance is absurd".
"I'm not here to get anyone fired. But please, change how you talk to a special needs person," he added.
In the comments, several netizens were furious with how the staff was being treated in the video, while others urged Burger King to address this issue.
Other netizens also felt that Izwandelex should have stepped in to help.
"I came across this a few months back and we stood up for the kid instead of taking a video," a netizen said.
Responding to AsiaOne's queries on Friday (Sept 16), Burger King Singapore shared that it is aware of the TikTok video and it is looking into the matter seriously "to ensure this doesn't happen in the future".
"The actions of this team member do not reflect the values of the Burger King brand and we have a zero tolerance policy for this type of behaviour," the fast food chain's spokesperson said.
AsiaOne has contacted Izwandelex for more information.
In August, a diner at a Swensen's outlet in Clementi Mall apologised after voicing her frustrations with the service there.
After speaking with the manager, she learnt that 90 per cent of the staff were "mid- to high-functioning teenagers" from the Association for Persons with Special Needs school.
"Please don't jump the gun too quickly like myself," Sindhu RK Johnson wrote in a Facebook post at the time.