Customer Praises Fast-Food Worker Who Walked Out & Closed The Restaurant After Being The Only One Scheduled To Work All Day
"I don’t even think she locked the door behind us."
Nicoleta Ionescu | Shutterstock A customer is proudly standing behind a fast-food employee who decided to close up the restaurant midday and told him that she was off to get drunk.
While other hungry patrons may have had a fit over not getting their tacos for lunch, the customer revealed a perfectly good explanation as to why the employee left in the middle of her shift and never looked back.
And we can guarantee that had you been in her shoes, you would have walked out too.
The fast-food employee left and closed the restaurant in the middle of her shift because she was the only one scheduled to work for the entire day.
Taking to the subreddit r/antiwork, the customer shared that he stopped at a local Taco Bueno fast-food restaurant for lunch when he noticed that the young cashier was wearing a headset. He quickly figured out that she was managing the drive-thru as well as the front counter.
She appeared to be the only employee in the entire restaurant.
Nicoleta Ionescu | Shutterstock
“Once she was ready to take my order, she said, ‘I’m sorry, but I hope your order is to go. After you, I’m leaving,’” the customer wrote. “I was going to eat there, but I said sure I’ll take it to go.”
The customer said that after the employee had filled all the drive-thru orders and the restaurant had emptied out, she started closing up.
“I grabbed my order and walked out with her right on my heels,” the customer shared. “She seemed perfectly giddy, chatting with me. She told me she was leaving and not coming back because she always had to work alone.”
The employee also told the customer that she had been scheduled to close at 11 p.m. that evening by herself. Since it was 1 p.m. at the time, the customer assumed that she had been scheduled to open that day as well.
“Then she said she’s ‘gonna get so drunk.’ I gave her a thumbs up,” the customer wrote. “I don’t even think she locked the door behind us. I drove around the back and saw that she put a closed sign in the drive-through window.”
“The manager will certainly have a surprise tomorrow. Go, girl.”
Even though some customers might have been disappointed that they wouldn’t be having their Taco Bueno dinner, the employee made the right decision to close up for the day.
Most people applauded the worker for refusing to put up with her unfair hours and doing what was best for her.
“I refuse to work by myself for safety reasons. Good on her,” one Redditor commented.
“Reminds me when I got hired at a local Subway. Took this job literally just to make some extra cash as I had time to spare. Instead, the owner had me open the store and then left. For the entire day. I was there by myself from a 9 AM open till a 7 PM close without lunch or any breaks. Needless to say, I didn't go back the next day,” another user shared.
“I don’t get it!! Why businesses don’t shorten their opening hours if they’re short-staffed rather than burnout what’s left of their staff and make them leave?!” another noted.
Even if you are a dedicated employee, no one should be operating a business from open to close entirely on their own.
Managers are highly discouraged from scheduling their employees to work these “clopening” shifts since it can lead to worker burnout and fatigue, a high turnover rate, and the violation of labor laws in some regions.
Still, even if you are with co-workers, these shifts are just cruel to schedule.
Think of it this way: a server is scheduled to work a clopening shift at a restaurant that operates from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. That is 10 hours straight of taking orders, filling drinks, cleaning spills, figuring out payment methods, fulfilling special dietary requests, and dealing with the general public, which is not always pleasant.
If the restaurant closes at 9, most of the staff do not even physically leave the building until 10 since they have to perform their closing duties.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock
By the end of the day, they are exhausted and frazzled and may find little enjoyment in a job they used to love.
Some servers are even expected to wake up the next day and do it all over again, giving them very little room for a healthy work-life balance.
Doing all of the restaurant duties solo for the entire day is nearly unimaginable if you want to keep your business functioning properly.
A poll conducted by Gallup found that 63% of employees quit their jobs due to being overworked. Some managers fail to realize that just because they hired an employee to do a job, that employee cannot be expected to work days on end from opening to closing, and they should certainly never be working alone.
It is important for workers to set boundaries before letting their managers take advantage of them.
We can confidently say that walking out of a shift and never looking back when your manager schedules you to work the drive-thru and dining room all on your own is worthy of celebrating.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.