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A Starbucks employee in Alabama was attacked by a customer’s pet monkey when it jumped through a drive-thru service window.
The employee was working at the drive-thru when the monkey - identified as an Aotus Monkey, otherwise known as a Noisy Night Monkey - which was inside a customer’s vehicle, got free.
A police statement said: “The monkey then leapt from the vehicle, through the window of the business, and attacked an employee.”
A co-worker rushed to help and pulled the monkey off the employee.
“The monkey then re-entered the customer’s vehicle before the customer drove away. The owner of the animal could face charges. This remains an active Animal Services investigation.”
Monkey see, monkey do
Aotus monkeys, a genus of nocturnal monkeys, are native to Central and South America. It’s not clear whether the incident happened in the am or the pm and how the monkey’s mood would have been affected by either scenario. If in the morning, when it’s not usually up and about, it might have been craving a (monkey breed gag alert) capuchin-o boost. If in the evening, hot chocolate.
While Starbucks no doubt takes worker safety seriously and has rigorous training and guidelines in place, monkey attacks may be an eventuality it quite reasonably hadn’t considered.
HR departments typically focus on mitigating common workplace hazards, but the incident shows that certain risks fall outside conventional safety planning and thinking.
Potential banana skin
If the monkey had bitten the worker, however, the incident would likely have escalated to a more complex scenario involving potential liability for the employer, workers' compensation claims, and health concerns such as the risk of disease.
HR teams would then need to coordinate medical treatment, assess the workplace's risk exposure, and evaluate whether additional safety measures, and although on the spot monkey passenger checks may be difficult to enforce, they would help prevent similar occurrences in the future.
