When we’re trying to secure some work, we quickly learn how valuable creating a good first impression can be. It’s for this reason that I borrowed a nice-looking briefcase to carry my portfolio and why I didn’t let a sudden illness stop me from showing up on my first day.
Sure, a lot of these precautionary steps turned out to be unnecessary, but it’s not like we know how laid back a place really is until we’ve worked there for a while.
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So the decision that one contractor made before he turned up for a job should seem obviously wrong to us, but the full video shows that the risk he was taking hadn’t occurred to him.
Allison and Zeke Brown of Atlanta, Georgia have a golf cart that needed some new brakes, so they shopped around for someone who could install them.
As Zeke told Yahoo Lifestyle, he had spoken to a man named Michael about the logistics of the job for about three days and nothing about that conversation seemed unusual.
When Michael, showed up, however, Zeke saw a large Confederate flag flying from the back of his vehicle.
As Zeke said, “The flag was absurd — I had to walk back into the house to calm myself down.”
He then went into the bedroom he shares with Allison and said, “God is testing me.”
Once Allison became aware of what was going on, she assured Zeke she would handle it.
As Yahoo Lifestyle reported, her college-aged son left the house before she spoke with Michael because he apparently anticipated an extreme reaction.
Instead, Allison was polite and direct at the same time, saying, “Hi, you know what, I do apologize, I know you’ve come from a very long way, but we’re going to use someone else.”
Zeke explained that she was upset about the flag, to which she added, “I’m beyond upset about the flag.”
As she said, “I didn’t want to be the ‘angry black woman’ but I wanted him to learn and feel that bottom-line loss. You don’t go to Germany and wave the Nazi flag. It’s the same thing.”
It’s for this reason that Allison held firm on her decision when Michael offered to take down the flag.
As she put it, “No, you don’t need to take it down. You can continue to believe what you need to believe, sir. But no, I cannot pay you for your services. Thank you, have a good day.”
After Michael drove off with his flag in tow, he sent Zeke a message saying, “I didn’t know the flag offended y’all.”
To this, Zeke replied, “Yes, it is extremely offensive to anyone of color. I understand it is part of American history, but that flag stood for a time in history where people such as myself had a very bad way of life.”
He added, “Micheal, I hope this small interaction causes you to do a little research on how several Americans feel about the Confederacy. I know it’s part of history, so is Nazi Germany…”
Michael said he had the flag on his truck to celebrate the Fourth of July and that his younger siblings had bought it for him at a Flea Market.
It’s hard to grasp the logic of celebrating America’s independence with a flag of a rebel faction, but Michael added that neither he nor his siblings “support slavery.”
He went on to say that he won’t take it down since his siblings asked him to fly it and if the Brown family wants to take offense, they can.
Even so, Zeke said he’s holding out hope that the firing will be educational for Michael
As he said, “I thought, ‘Maybe there is hope for someone like him or an opportunity to save him from this way of thinking.”
He also simply wanted the flag off his property.
The exchange between the family and Michael was captured by their Ring app and you can see it in the full video.
