Burger King employees are fed up: Inside the mass exodus from fast food

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic rages on, we continue to learn the effects of over a year of lockdown, resulting infrastructure change, and a massive death toll. One of the biggest industries to take one of the most harrowing hits from the pandemic was the restaurant industry. The pandemic’s effects on restaurants can still be seen, even as restrictions lift around the globe and restaurants reopen.

Small businesses took a giant hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, but fast food is seeing huge changes as well. Many fast food employees were forced to risk their lives to work for their massive corporate overlords during the early days of the pandemic when fast food joints went take out only.

After fast food conglomerates didn’t give their employees any substantial hazard pay, the people behind the counter are telling their bosses to take their job and shove it. This week’s fast food story comes from one of the big boys – Burger King.

Moving on to better things

If you’re like us, you’ve been glued to social media & news stories since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic back in March 2020. Since then, there have been a glut of viral posts showcasing fast food, chain restaurants, and other globalized company employees leaving their positions due to unfair practices.

Twitter lit up with images of handwritten signs in the windows of Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, McDonald’s, and more. The signs often say “closed because no one showed up”, “we quit”, or some other humorous & disgruntled phrase from its employees.

Many left their jobs because of being so criminally underpaid by corporations, that employees were better off applying for unemployment and receiving better pay from the government. 

As such, some employees haven’t gone back to their underpaid jobs until their unemployment benefits have run out. Who can blame them? Why work for pennies for the richest companies in the world, when you can get paid to spend time finding something better. This all makes sense to us, but we’re sure employees’ antics are causing a headache for corporate America. This week, Burger King was the latest victim.

We quit

The New York Post reported this week of a Burger King in Nebraska which took a hit from its frustrated employees quitting. The staff of the Lincoln, Nebraska Burger King all dropped their jobs together, and decided to prank their management with their final goodbye.

The story comes from an image gone viral of a Burger King sign reading “WE ALL QUIT . . . SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE”. Former general manager of the Lincoln Burger King, Rachael Flores, says she didn’t expect the sign to gain so much attention, but “then it went pretty crazy on Facebook”.

In & out

Flores says the decision to quit, and then dunk on management with the sign, didn’t come lightly. The employees of the Burger King only quit after being run down by management for some time.

Flores told reporters the Burger King had “gone through so many district managers since I’ve been GM . . . no one has come to the store to help me out. They’re so in and out”. Furthermore, Flores said at one point she ended up in the hospital for dehydration after working a shift in the Burger King kitchen with no air conditioning.

Moreover, Flores was only one among nine employees to quit on a dime. Another former employee, Kylee Johnson, said she only stayed in the poor working conditions of the location for Flores’s sake. Flores’s boss told her to turn in her keys and told her she was fired after seeing the sign, but from what reports say, we think she’s moving on to better things.

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Have you ever worked fast food? Tell us your horror stories in the comments below!