[Nirvana]

Being self employed most of my life and also being the boss I have had little experience as an employee with peers. It has been almost a year working in the same department with the same 5 people.

The other day one of these people told me I was racist. I was insulted and it hurt my feelings. This person and I have been on very friendly terms never a cross word.

Background: 2 days before as a reward for no reportable OSHA incidents the company draws 6 names for a $250 bonus, from a bucket out of all shifts. My name was drawn. The day before that this person and I had a lovely conversation about how we both grew up and we have always [seemed to me] been on the same page as far as work etc.

This comment to me came about as I was trying to figure out why this person was not supervising the person they were training. I know they do not enjoy training new people and they mostly ignore them. This person and the person they were training are both black and at this time we were packing candy. It does get warm in the area but under no circumstance are we to have any fan pointing in the direction of the candy. New person is not going to know this and since no one else made the effort to explain to them I did and I also said maybe our supervisor could answer any questions they have.

Not 15 minutes later the fan was on again. This time it was in the path of the forklift traffic. So I made the comment to the person training that their trainee sure seems to like the fan. The words that came out of their mouth and I quote" You are really racist". I was taken aback and said what are you taking about. No response.

My job that day was relief so I was making sure no one on the line got behind and it is also my job to make sure the line runs smoothly plus I do the other person's job when they are on break.

I have to say I dunno what to do about this and is doing nothing the correct response? I am not racist. No one has ever said that to me in my entire life.