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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCracker Barrel fires 73 yr. old vet
for giving away a muffin to man he thought was homeless. Cracker Barrel , in its defense, stated that Joe was in the habit of giving away their product and had been warned. So the muffin was their last straw (ouch) and they terminated the veteran.
I used to work at a fast food place in my green years in the Pittsburgh area and the manager would tell us we would be fired if we gave away food. However at the end of the night, he would put leftovers in separate bags - fries in one, chicken in another, etc. - and put them beside the dumpster, not in it. He followed company policy and enforced it, but he had a soul also. Admired him for this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/cracker-barrel-fires-veteran-joe-koblenzer_n_5538382.html
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)If this was a one time incident, I would be all over Cracker barrel, but he was warned numerous times. And being a vet has nothing to do with working at Cracker Barrel. I say this as a person who served 24 years in the military. What I find worse is that restaurants aren't allowed to give food at the end of the day to food kitchens. They have to throw it away. I find that to be terrible.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)It was breakfast. Every single one of us were sick as dogs that night.
Michigander_Life
(549 posts)But go to a fancy, high end place like the Olive Garden on the other hand, and it's a pukefest for at least 24 hours.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)fancy or high end LOL!
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)Michigander_Life
(549 posts)Michigander_Life
(549 posts)Keep your 1%er prejudice to yourself!
Aerows
(39,961 posts)of one who grew up in New Orleans and knows the difference between good food and bad. High end and fancy don't automatically mean expensive - either just means you know where to go to eat.
Cirque du So-What
(25,812 posts)and I hold chain restaurants like Olive Garden in contempt as well. No matter where one lives, if there are chain restaurants like those in the vicinity, there are almost certainly privately-owned establishments who serve much better fare. With rare exceptions (Chipotle being one of them), I patronize non-corporate restaurants instead of the bland, homogenized profit centers.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Best High End Italian restaurant in Manhattan.
Michigander_Life
(549 posts)trumad
(41,692 posts)They actually make salad at your table. Those 6 inch breadsticks are at least 2 inches longer that those fake Italian places in Little Italy. I ate in Little Italy last week and they had the audacity to serve my calamari with squid heads. I much prefer the bagged calamari that OG serves.
Oh and don't get me started about the fake Italian language in Little Italy. Nope... I prefer my servers speaking good grammar so I can understand the word Ziti when they say it.
I'm with you on Olive Garden. ..much prefer the chain over those 100 year old Little Italy joints.
endless overly salted bread sticks, salad bowl with a sprinkling of olives and soup. Don't care what you say, I love that Olive Garden - then again I used to love Chef Boyardee mini-raviolis in the can with that thick, pasty tomato sauce.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Many many years ago when I lived in Mobile, I would go to restuarants with co-workers..
Cracker Barrel, Olive Gardens and Red Lobster were their top choices.
I preferred Ruby Tuesdays, cause back in the day they had a decent side of babyback ribs and a salad bar.
The other joints served obviously pre-frozen food, esp. Red Lobster...what a shame.
packman
(16,296 posts)needs a comma according to the Oxford rules - good eye.
from
"overly salted bread sticks, salad bowl with a sprinkling of olives and soup"
to
"overly salted bread sticks, salad bowl with a sprinkling of olives, and soup"
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)but when it does it REALLY DOES...
sP
randys1
(16,286 posts)this is AMERICA for christ sake, doesnt he know we HATE THE POOR
madville
(7,397 posts)Sounds like his heart is in the right place but his tactics need some work.
He could have bought an order of corn muffins for the gentleman in need instead of giving it away for free. Almost any business would fire an employee for something like this and probably wouldn't have given him 4 previous chances/warnings. And the needy looking gentleman didn't ask for any food, the former employee was giving away company product unsolicited it sounds like.
And what does him being a Vet have to do with anything? We fired a Veteran at work a few years ago, he was filling up his and his girlfriend's personal vehicles with his company gas card, his veteran status meant squat.
packman
(16,296 posts)but the other half- welllll. Being a vet should not enter into the whole thing, but still .... Seems like Cracker Barrel could have given him a job in some other capacity. I see their viewpoint but jobs for 73 yr. olds probably aren't that plentiful.
I really believe a person with compassion and a liberal outlook should never take a job where those values are going to be tested. I believe if I worked in such a place and saw a homeless person who was hungry, I would probably slip something into a bag for him and , yes, I would be a thief.
randys1
(16,286 posts)a decent company would have found a way to use his generosity, albeit technically against the rules, to their own benefit
i can think of half a dozen awesome public relations campaigns that could increase their business using this, but instead they decided to be the typical fucking corp assholes
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)Could they have made a due process decision to deduct it from his pay upon discovery? Yes, they could have. Now, they look like a place I'll NEVER venture into. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd cost them more businesses, due to this really, really bad PR.
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)other places i worked at. supposedly this is to prevent cooks messing up pizzas deliberately so they can eat them. it's BS and corporate scroogism at its worst. the managers that do it (and it's not all of them) do it voluntarily too; nobody is forcing them to.