Fired Wawa Gas Attendant: 'I'm Overwhelmed' By Support

Maybe you can blame it on the tuxedo.

People remember Mike Cuzzo of Brick because of the tuxedo. They also remember him for his customer service.

“One of their core values is ’Delight Customers,’ “ he said. “I tried to do that every day.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” he said by phone Saturday. “It’s heartwarming to see all of the stories people have told about how I touched their lives.”

Cuzzo admits the reaction to his firing from the Wawa on Route 9 at White Street in Howell was something he never anticipated -- much like the firing itself, over a customer complaint about a “hibachi toy” he used to clean the rearview mirror of a van.

The toy, frequently seen in Japanese hibachi restaurants, shows a boy urinating, and is used to spray wine into the mouths of customers. Cuzzo sometimes uses one to spray windshield-washing fluid.

There have been job offers. A few people have sent the story to Ellen DeGeneres in hopes she will do a segment on her show. There are signs and logos expressing anger with Wawa.

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And there’s a protest planned for Sunday near the store where Cuzzo was fired, he said; people are planning a picket line nearby.

“They won’t be on the store’s property,” he said.

And part of the plan is for people to be holding cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee. People will be there from 9 a.m. to noon, he said.

“My family will be there,” Cuzzo said. “And I will be there in my tuxedo.”

It is the tuxedo that really started everything, he said.

Cuzzo started working for Wawa almost three years ago, after he parted ways with All-State and was hit with a noncompete agreement.

“Wawa didn’t want to hire me at first,” he said, “because I didn’t have a background in retail.”

Cuzzo, who has a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from Florida Southern University, eventually applied again for a job as a fuel manager at Wawa.

The second time around, the area manager decided to take a chance on him.

Lori Bruce, public relations manager for Wawa, said via email on Friday that the company would not discuss the reasons for Cuzzo’s firing.

“Our associate was with us for several years, known and esteemed by many of his customers. We treasure the special connection that our associates have with their customers and communities -- it’s a big part of the Wawa brand and experience,” she said. “That’s why we understand the outpouring of support around his departure. Unfortunately, we can’t share information or details regarding his departure. Out of respect for him, or any associate that separates from our company, we never share details of this nature. We hope you understand and we wish him all the best in the future.”

Cuzzo made that connection to his customers very quickly, earning the attention of the Wawa corporate offices for his customer service.

The tuxedo was a lark. He had been asked to go to the company’s new store in Old Bridge to assist with training new fuel court employees, and for the grand opening, he donned his tuxedo -- the tuxedo he wore when he married his wife, Joan, 18 years earlier. It was a hit.

“Corporate loved it, and the customers loved it,” Cuzzo said.

Cuzzo said he wore the tuxedo to grand openings of stores in Kearny, in Freehold and Tinton Falls, among others.

One woman told him he should wear it every day. He told her he couldn’t wear it every day, but asked her to pick a day and he’d wear it that day every week -- and that started the tradition of wearing his tuxedo on Thursdays.

“She would come in on Thursdays just to see me,” he said. “I would have a line of cars every Thursday, of people just wanting to come through my line.”

But it wasn’t just the tuxedo that people remember. Facebook comments on a variety of pages have included people recounting origami hearts he made -- something he did for one woman who was pregnant and was undergoing testing because her baby was thought to have a heart condition.

Others remember his pink socks.

”They are the kind soccer players wear in October for breast cancer awareness,” he said, and he continued to wear them after a customer who saw them burst into tears and thanked him.

“She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer,” he said. “I wore them all the time after that.”

He even dyed his hair pink at one point for that reason.

All of those gestures resulted in dozens of awards for fulfilling Wawa’s core values, from “Goosebumps” -- a points award given as a reward for a variety of good customer reviews -- to “Value Pins” that commemorated his customer service.

“They brought me out to corporate and gave me an award for customer service in front of 250 employees,” he said. And he said he is pictured in the company’s Values Book issued to all of its stores for employees to see. “I’m on Page 16, in my tuxedo,” he said.

Cuzzo said he had the blessing to wear it at every Wawa where he worked, he said, until the last store in Howell.

There, he said, the area manager and the general manager told him he couldn’t wear the tuxedo.

Customers -- including the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, Cuzzo said -- complained to the general manager when they learned that Cuzzo wasn’t allowed to wear it anymore, asking why, and Cuzzo said those complaints didn’t sit well with the general manager, he said.

“They called me into the office and closed the door, and asked me what was going on,” he said. It was not a pleasant conversation, he said.

Nor was the one on Wednesday, he said.

The incident began when a midsized van pulled up to get gas, he said. He was busy, so he didn’t have time to do the full windshield cleaning he usually performed, he said. But he took out his hibachi toy and started cleaning the mirror on the driver’s side door. The driver, a middle-aged woman, started laughing, he said.

“But then the passenger, who I hadn’t seen at first, leaned over and said, ’That’s sexual harassment.’ “ he said. He apologized to the passenger, he said, saying he hadn’t meant any harm by it.

Half an hour later, he was called into the office and told by the general manager that they had received a sexual harassment complaint against him. Within the hour, the area manager arrived, and as Cuzzo was clocking out to attend an off-site training program, the area manager and general manager told him he was terminated.

He lost his health insurance immediately, he said, and 18,000 Goosebumps points he had accumulated are gone now, too.

But the one thing he knows is that he had something special with his customers -- visible in the outpouring of support.

“They become your family,” he said. “And I am so grateful for all of them.”

“I will miss them very much,” Cuzzo said.

(Photos: The offending hibachi toy; Mike Cuzzo’s hat covered in Values Pins; Cuzzo with a customer. From Facebook; hat photo from Mike Cuzzo)