Maxime Lee. Image: Chris Totana/Facebook.
A Port Elizabeth Tekkie Town supervisor has been suspended for humiliating a saleswoman after she forced the employee to stand in the store’s window with a degrading note.
The note, according to HeraldLive, read: I don’t listen to my supervisor now I’m in the naughty corner.
The supervisor Thozama Spielman was suspended pending an investigation after having the employee Maxime Lee, 18, write the note and stick it to her shirt.
On Friday afternoon, Lee was laughing with a colleague when Spielman called her to the back of the office and instructed her to write the note.
The 18-year-old initially thought it was a joke but after a while realised people were taking pictures and laughing at her as she stood at the window.
She apologised to her supervisor and pleaded to be moved from the window. He supervisor refused and taped Lee’s mouth shut after she shouted she wanted to get back to work.
A photo of Lee in the display window was shared on social media.
The store reportedly issued a statement on its Facebook page confirming that the matter was being investigated.
Police have confirmed a docket for defamation was opened on Monday.
Faeez Van Doorsen on Facebook said Lee was “shamed, humiliated, and dehumanised by her employer at Tekkie Town in Baywest Mall in Port Elizabeth.”
“Her hands were tied behind her back and she forced to stand in the shop window where she was paraded and branded (what the sign on her shirt is tantamount to) like a slave,” he said.
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