Posted on 12/17/2016 2:29:05 AM PST by rickmichaels
WATERLOO — Students and faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University are slamming the graduate students association after its sudden decision to close a popular campus café this week.
The apparent reason? A tongue-in-cheek help wanted ad that asked for a "slave" to help run the café.
On Monday, Veritas Café operator Sandor Dosman was brought into a boardroom and told the recent advertisement he'd posted online had ruffled some feathers.
In the ad, he joked he wanted "a new slave (full-time staff member) to boss (mentor) around Veritas Cafe." The ad was clearly intended as to be humorous, with jokes about man buns, tattoos and food safety because "we try to not kill our customers."
But Dosman says he was told his contract with the student group was being terminated as a result, and soon he was being escorted off campus by two security officers.
"This came completely out of left field. I'm still in shock," said Dosman, who had run the café for four and a half years. "It was just black and white, 'You are done.' Now I'm out of the job and I have no idea what I'm going to do next."
The sudden closure drew criticism from many of the café's customers. Laurier ethics professor Byron Williston penned a scathing open letter to the graduate students association, accusing them of acting like "spoiled children."
"I suppose it's a sign of the times, especially on university campuses whose student bodies — undergraduate and graduate — seem to have been taken over by the terminally thin-skinned and self-righteous," Williston wrote. "Perhaps you should direct your moral outrage at some of the many real problems in the world rather than behaving like petty bullies."
Williston said the termination was a heavy-handed overreaction to an attempt at humour, even if the help wanted ad showed some poor judgment.
"I wrote the letter because I think the operator has been morally wronged. I think it's important for somebody to speak out for him," he said in an interview.
Samantha Deeming, president and chief executive officer of the GSA, declined to comment when asked about the decision. But in a story in The Cord, the Laurier student newspaper, she said her student group was looking for a new café operator that would reflect "Laurier community values."
"We invoked clause 3.2.3.3 in our contract, which states that: 'conduct on the part of the Service Provider that is materially detrimental to the Business or would injure the reputation of the WLUGSA as determined by the sole discretion of the WLUGSA" shall be grounds for immediate termination,'" she wrote in an email, according to the Cord.
Dosman, meanwhile, is left trying to figure out how to pay his bills. His living room is stuffed with equipment and food that he was given just hours to remove from the café. The future of his food truck, which used the café to prepare meals, is also up in the air.
Running the café was his primary source of income, and a paycheque for 11 employees.
He says he tried to have some fun with the help wanted ad after posting multiple ads that drew little response. It worked — he got dozens of applications from people who wanted the job.
Dosman wonders why the student group chose to end his contract so quickly, instead of giving him a reprimand, asking for an apology or demanding a retraction. He said he deeply regrets his attempt at humour.
"I decided I'd try something a little different, but maybe it was a little too outside … I apologize if I offended anyone, that certainly wasn't my intention," he said. "I wouldn't have done it if I knew this was going to happen. I have no job now."
Tolerance is double-plus good, and anyone who disagrees will be stomped out of existence.
Leftist spoiled children with power are fascists.
What happened to the working man is sickenning.
Leftism is dangerous disease.
This kind of think ticks me off. More leftist tyranny.
I don’t know if there is a go fund me for this gentleman, but if there is, I’ll contribute to it.
Wow, a man lost his business and 11 employees get no pay checks
Just before Christmas
Over a tongue in cheek job ad
What righteous smug little progressives
May karma visit each of them
Yes if there’s a GoFundMe please post it
This isn’t leftism, this is spoiled brat syndrome. Just a bunch of spoiled brats from the snowflake class ready and eager to get worked up over something.
How utterly disgusting. I hope the guy sues the university where these brats go. High time universities started being held liable.
Special snowflakes ARE the product of leftism.
There’s a time to joke and there’s a time to joke.....placing a help wanted ad is not a good time to joke. Likewise, job interviews, not so much, either.
This is the Laurier GSA contact info if you’re interested.
For all inquiries, generalinfo@wlugsa.ca
Phone: 519 884 0710 x3501
Fax: 519 884 1736
Seems to me, Samantha Deeming has a racist ax to grind. Anyone with any maturity would have understood that Sandor Dosman was using a metaphore to create an impression that he wanted a hard worker. It the was wording used in a short hand way to convey the idea that was Deeming’s problem. A lawyer would have straightened Demming out.
Is the graduate students association composed of thin-skinned "snowflakes?"
Thank you.
I’ll follow up.
They should have asked for a rich kid who would be required to pay all their bills, be servile to any minority and like it. They would have been applauded.
He said he deeply regrets his attempt at humour
If this is what he regrets he’s their Bitch even in his heart.
Perhaps he should have used words like “Serf/Esne/Helot” - they wouldn’t have understood them and wouldn’t have been able to find a way to be offended.
Almost wish something like this happens to THEIR business some day, but we all know these types will live off the government(taxpayers) their whole lives.
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