KFC work­ers, in par­tic­u­lar at Sixth Av­enue, Barataria, are fed up of be­ing abused by cus­tomers and are send­ing a clear mes­sage to all would-be abusers that if they dare to as­sault them that they would re­ceive a hot oil bath.The threat came yes­ter­day when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the branch af­ter one of its work­ers doused a 38-year-old Mal­ick man with a pot of hot oil af­ter he al­leged­ly slapped her on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

One work­er, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said: "We are send­ing a mes­sage to all cus­tomers who want to vi­o­late...come we have thing here for you. We fed up be­ing vic­timised."Ac­cord­ing to a fel­low em­ploy­ee and eye­wit­ness, Shameek Gon­za­les came to the es­tab­lish­ment around 1.45 pm on Mon­day and or­dered a sand­wich. The wit­ness was not sure which of the two sand­wich­es of­fered by the fast food out­let the man or­dered.

The wit­ness, who opt­ed not to be named for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, said when the cashier told him to hold on while she went to check, the man be­came irate and be­gan ver­bal­ly abus­ing her. She added that the man threat­ened to slap the woman who has been em­ployed at the out­let less than a year. The cashier told him, she said, to "go ahead if your name is Earl."The woman was then struck with a stack of KFC pa­per bags acrosss the face. The man then left.

The cashier, who lives at Sea Lots, went to the back of the out­let where they fried the chick­en, dipped out a pot of hot oil and went to Gon­za­les who was about to en­ter his car.Af­ter dous­ing Gon­za­les, he struck his at­tack­er and the two be­gan fight­ing. Po­lice, who were pass­ing in the area, had to in­ter­vene and res­cue the 32-year-old moth­er who has been ar­rest­ed and is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court to­day.

Gon­za­les was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he was treat­ed for burns to his left chest, left arm and right fore­arm.When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed him yes­ter­day he said he would not speak of the mat­ter un­til he con­sult­ed his at­tor­ney as he planned to take le­gal ac­tion against the fast food fran­chise.One cus­tomer told the T&T Guardian Gon­za­les was de­serv­ing of his in­juries. The woman, who iden­ti­fied her­self on­ly as Ar­lene, al­so works in the cus­tomer ser­vice in­dus­try.

She said: "Some cus­tomers are like the dev­il. I give them right. Some cus­tomers here feel be­cause they buy­ing, they right. Not all the time cus­tomers right. If we go in their work­place and get on so they would coast."An­oth­er cus­tomer, who was lis­ten­ing while Ar­lene spoke, passed and said it was good for Gon­za­les.

Oth­er abuse

The KFC em­ploy­ee said Mon­day's in­ci­dent was not the first and would not be the last.She said on­ly a few weeks ago a preg­nant em­ploy­ee was doused with a full cup of juice by a fe­male cus­tomer."I think it is re­al non­sense what does hap­pen here. Cus­tomers does come and abuse us... it re­al ridicu­lous. They al­ways threat­en­ing to pelt or do us some­thing," she added.

The woman said fol­low­ing Mon­day's in­ci­dent she feared that noth­ing much would be done to pro­tect em­ploy­ees.She said the guard on du­ty at the time watched the en­tire in­ci­dent and did noth­ing. She said she was doubt­ful the lay­out of KFC out­lets would be changed to ac­com­mo­date pro­tec­tive glass or any oth­er pro­tec­tive mea­sures against abu­sive cus­tomers."I not stand­ing up here and tak­ing no lash. He (Gon­za­les) de­served it. I don't think it is fair that she get charged."

"He had no right to hit her. You have no chil­dren work­ing here. Your wife not work­ing here," the up­set woman said.