In a post on Reddit shared by user taquitos4me on Monday, the cook shared the story that now has more than 21,000 upvotes.
The user explained: “I work at a homeless shelter as a cook and I make lunch and dinner. Someone else does breakfast. Apparently, the last cook didn’t put much effort into it because when I started making meals, my boss asked, ‘You’re making that homemade? You know how to make x?’ I thought it was weird ‘cause like why else would I apply for a cooking position if I didn’t know how to cook. But then one day I made enchiladas and she said, ‘well now you’re just spoiling them.’”
Confused by the remark, the Reddit user said: “I thought it was so weird and rude but I didn’t say anything. Such a weird lady.”
According to End Homelessness, there are more than half a million people in the U.S. experiencing homelessness, either living in temporary shelter, transitional housing or sleeping in a place not meant for habitation.
The state of California currently has the highest population of homeless people, with an estimated 151,278 people experiencing homelessness—making up about one-fifth of the total homeless population in the U.S.
Men are more likely to experience homelessness than women, out of every 10,000 males in the U.S., 22 are homeless, compared to 13 for women.
Shocked by the story, Reddit users flooded to the comments to express their feelings. One user wrote: “Everyone deserves to be treated with humanity,” and another commenter said: “This right here is the problem, this is the bias people have. That if you are homeless you didn’t work hard enough, thus you don’t deserve to be treated to anything nice.”
But some users disagreed and said that they would have taken the woman’s comments as a compliment. One comment said: “I think it was one heck of a compliment, but instead you decided to take it like an insult,” while another user wrote: “She’s just trying to make conversation. You don’t need to take everything so literally. It’s a joke.”
The poster disagreed with these comments and provided an update: “To clarify, I do take ‘you’re making that homemade?’ as a compliment because homemade pizza dough to feed a crowd is quite the task. But the other, I don’t find it funny. Maybe that’s just not my taste in jokes or sarcasm. The kitchen manager has said several times ‘I’m gonna move in here just so I can eat!’ I’m sorry, but I find it insensitive to the people there, rather than a compliment to my food.”
One Reddit user who had first-hand experience of homelessness praised the poster and wrote: “When I was in a homeless shelter there was one cook who did the same and good food gave me something to look forward to. The cook was super understanding about my food allergies and would make me separate things on nights I couldn’t eat. The little things add up.”
Newsweek has reached out to taquitos4me for comment.
