I really love Cookbook, I truly do, but I just had such a dehumanizing and upsetting experience…read morethat I do feel like I have to say something.
On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, around 6pm, I was waiting in line to purchase a few things at Cookbook. The customer in front of me put her basket on the register and then went to grab a few more items. No worries.
I moved toward the register to pay for my purchase while that customer grabbed her other items, but I was intercepted by another customer, a man (who apparently didn't see me waiting?) who cut in front of me to buy a loaf of bread. The cashier let him do so, cashing him out and answering his questions about some other items while I continued to wait. Once his transaction was done, he noticed me and apologized for cutting in front of me in line. Again, no worries.
As I went to move up to purchase my items again, the first customer hopped in front of me, back to purchase her items. Or so I thought! She actually put more items on the counter and turned to me saying "I'm going to grab one more thing", before taking off to, assumedly, grab one more thing. I waited for a bit longer, while the cashier simply waited on the woman to come back to her items instead of letting me purchase my items. Annoyed, I turned to the friend who I was shopping with and mentioned 'I kinda just wanna put this back and take off'.
This apparently enraged the woman who had all of her items on the counter, who was shopping behind me for her additional item, because she remarked "Really? You have that much rage in your body?".
Of course, she hadn't witnessed that I had already been cut in line and had been waiting to cash out for nearly 5 minutes. However, as a Black woman, I knew exactly where her comment was coming from and that she would've absolutely never made a comment like that to me if I didn't have the color skin that I have.
At no point in the whole saga did the cashier, nor any of the other employees, take any steps to intervene on my behalf, letting either of the customers who were so rude to me know that I should be next in line.
It probably seems petty or minor, but the whole situation did ruin the rest of my day. And it think it was hurtful enough to warrant a conversation with whoever was working at that time. With customer service jobs, the core of your responsibilities are kind of self-explanatory. They're in the title!