Lola Rose Facebook; Courtesy of Lola Rose
The Starbucks manager who was fired when a cop at her shop received an order labeled “PIG,” is considering suing the coffee giant for making her a “martyr,” she told The Post Wednesday.
Lola Rose, a shift supervisor at the Glenpool, Oklahoma, location, is determined to “clear her name” after she claims the chain wrongfully terminated her in response to the coffee cup controversy.
“I really feel like I was made out to be a martyr,” Rose, 21, said during an exclusive interview. “This is a lot of slander on my part, a lot of brushing me under the rug.”
Rose, who was mistakenly referred to by some outlets as Lola Price, insisted that she wasn’t the one who wrote the insult on the coffee cups, and then did everything in her power to make the situation right.
She said she noticed the “PIG” label on a blueberry muffin Thanksgiving morning during the store’s “rush hour.”
“I saw the label on a food item because I was like ‘no, that’s not right,'” Rose recalled. “I jumped into action, apologized then I thanked him for his time and for his service.”
Rose said the officer told her it was “no big deal” and that he was a longtime friend with the employee.
The barista had used the opportunity to pull a prank on another co-worker in the store, she said.
“The barista was trying to play a joke on her co-worker to see if this co-worker would call these drinks out [as “Pig”],” Rose said.
Rose said she was unaware that five cups handed to the officer also had “PIG” labels, otherwise she would have replaced them, she said.
The supervisor claimed she confronted the barista after the incident and “let [her] know this wasn’t okay.”
But an hour later, she received a call from the officer’s boss, Kiefer Chief of Police Johnny O’Mara.
“He was upset, which was completely understandable,” Rose said.
Lola RoseFacebook The company’s policy prevents her from taking back orders, but she offered to give the officers new drinks.
“I offered to buy the entire department, come up here and eat whatever you want to eat,” Rose said. “He felt that wasn’t good enough for him.”
She then provided him with the appropriate company contacts to reach out to about the situation.
“I thanked him for his time and asked if there was anything I could do in my scope of abilities to help him,” she said.
But she claimed that the police chief never reached out to the Starbucks honchos and instead went directly to Facebook to bash the store in a post, which swiftly went viral.
“Not to discount the situation, and someone needs to be reprimanded for it but I feel like we could’ve handled this like adults, it created a very threatening situation for this store,” she said.
She spoke to her direct managers Thursday night about the incident and filed a report, but was notified the following day that she was being let go after nine months on the job.
“I was hysterical. I lost it, truly,” Rose said. “I was driving to get the money order to move into my first apartment. My whole world crashed in front of me. I begged them to let me speak to one of the higher-ups.”
Rose, who is a transgender college student, said that she had always wanted to work for Starbucks because of how they treat employees.
She applied more than five times to secure her dream job, which provided specialized healthcare for transgender people and offered college tuition assistance, she said.
Rose now fears how she will cover her hormone treatments and pay for her rent.
“It was supposed to be my guardian angel,” Rose said. “They were supposed to be there for me as much as I am there for them but it’s gone because a small-town officer was offended by something [and couldn’t think like an adult] and posted to Facebook.”
Starbucks didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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