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A Burger King sign went viral after workers at a Lincoln, Nebraska facility used it to announce they were quitting “all.”
One of the site’s former employees told TODAY Food the sign came after months of staff shortages, management turnover and “choppy” working conditions.
“We had just gotten really fed up with senior management and those who didn’t come to help us and didn’t care about the employees,” said Rachael Flores, the former general manager of the Havelock Avenue site, who said TODAY she had put in her two weeks. notice alongside several other employees at the end of June.
Flores said she started working at the restaurant in August 2020, after losing her job as a representative for Capitol One at the start of the pandemic. She said she had worked in restaurants before, including other Burger King establishments, and was ready for the job, but was surprised by the behavior of senior management.
“It was pretty hectic. They were already understaffed (in August) and the GM was quite loud and crazy, very argumentative,” said Flores, who was promoted to CEO in January after that employee left. “As I became general manager, it just got crazier and crazier. I had several different bosses.”
Flores said that sometimes teams that were supposed to have five or seven employees only had two or three. She also recounted an incident where she was hospitalized and several other employees felt sick due to the lack of air conditioning in the facility’s kitchen.
“At the start of summer when it was extremely hot it was extremely hot in the kitchen because the air conditioning was not working and the temperatures were reaching the mid-90s most of the time,” said Flores. “It was causing a lot of problems with the employees, they got dehydrated.… It took three or four weeks to fix. One of the days I was extremely delusional, I was very dehydrated.”
Flores said she left work at the request of other employees, which caused her to miss a management meeting.
“When I was two minutes late my boss called me and when I told him what was going on he told me I was a baby and I was looking for excuses and I had to do my work, ”she said. “I ended up going to the hospital that night for dehydration. I was supposed to get IV fluids and everything. I called my boss’s boss and told him how I was treated, how my boss had hung up on me and everything he said to me, and he said I was lying, he never said that. “
Over the weekend, Flores said she was fired for her role in laying the sign, days before she was supposed to leave her post. At least six other employees have also left the facility at the same time and, according to the location’s website, they are hiring for positions that include a cook, hourly shift coordinator and general manager, the same position Flores held. .
Havelock’s location declined to respond to TODAY’s request for comment. A Burger King spokesperson told TODAY they are aware of the situation.
“The work experience described here is not in line with our brand values,” said the spokesperson. “Our franchisee is reviewing this situation to make sure this does not happen again in the future.”
Flores said part of the sign language was also meant to apologize to patrons who relied on restaurant staff.
“We also wanted to make a real apology to the customers because a lot of people have been working there for years,” she said. “One was there for 18 years, the other was there for eight and another was there for seven, so they’ve seen a lot of the same customers for years. Part of that was a real apology for the customers and the ‘We all stopped’ was in senior management. “
Many restaurants have struggled to maintain enough staff to operate during the pandemic. Flores said she didn’t want diners to see herself and her colleagues as lazy or demotivated, noting that she was surprised by the response on social media.
“It was a lot more positive than I expected as there are a lot more people who think we quit because we weren’t making enough money or because flipping a burger was a bit too much. hard. It was nothing like that. was the top management that was shit, “she said.” Seeing the amount of support that we, the employees, actually received was actually really nice, to know that we get people to re-evaluate their self-esteem when it comes to a job, that’s really good.
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