A video of a female employee at a Daiso store kneeling and apologizing to a customer went viral on social media, sparking controversy. While the incident was initially portrayed as a one-sided act of “bullying,” the reality was quite different.
JTBC’s ‘Case Chief’ covered the ‘kneeling apology’ controversy that recently occurred at a Daiso store in Korea through its broadcast on the 28th.
The controversy ignited on the 21st when a post and video were uploaded to social media of a woman abusing a middle-aged female employee. The writer stated, “The woman’s child was running around in the store, and the employee apparently said something like, ‘It’s dangerous to run.’ Then, the child’s mother suddenly became angry and started yelling, causing chaos. She verbally abused and threatened the employee, who was old enough to be the child’s mother, and the employee knelt down to apologize.”
However, contrary to the author’s claims, the incident actually began with a customer’s statement, stating that an employee “suspected theft.” The customer, who was visiting the store with her children, mistakenly scanned the barcode while checking out items at the self-checkout counter, causing two alarms to sound. An employee then approached and began searching through the customer’s basket.
When the customer said, “What are you doing? I’m taking a good picture,” the employee glanced at the customer’s child and said, “I’m sure.” Even after the customer finished paying, the employee’s suspicions persisted. He even printed out the receipt again and looked through the items he had purchased one by one. Displeased, the customer questioned the employee, “Why did you look at the receipt?” However, the employee persisted in his suspicions, saying, “I usually print out all my receipts to check,” and, “Someone stole something a few days ago and the police came.”
Regarding this, the employee stated, “If an error occurs during calculation, the manual is for an employee to go and check. Since there was an error, we reprinted the receipt and checked it again.”
Eventually, after the customer demanded, “Are you treating me like a thief?” the employee reportedly knelt down and apologized. The customer responded, “When did I ever ask you to kneel?” but the employee said, “I’m sorry,” and crawled towards the customer.
The customer complained to the ‘Case Team Leader’, saying, “I have a bit of a dialect and I’m not very pretty. If someone throws a rock at me, I could take it all, but it seems like the children are getting hurt for no reason.”
He continued, “I also felt sorry for doing that to that employee at the time. I also thought that maybe he was harmed in some way.”
Regarding the restraint of the child in the video posted on social media, the customer stated that the child was touching the Christmas tree decorations because they were pretty, but the employee told them, “Don’t touch them” and “Come back.” When the employee tried to restrain them, the high school-aged daughter told her mother, who then told her, “That person is just doing his job, so don’t worry about it and just quickly pay and leave.”
In response, the employee stated, “It is true that we stopped the child from playing in front of the automatic door because the Christmas tree decorations were near the automatic door and he was worried that he might hurt his hand.”
The employee also admitted some of his wrongdoing to the “Case Team Leader.” He stated, “I’m also at fault, so I hope there won’t be any more talk.”
The current employee is reportedly on paid leave due to psychological instability following the incident, which has become a major controversy.
Daiso said, “We hope that there will be no further damage to customers or employees.”
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