General News McDonald’s employee fired after she paid to feed first responders

Hey, those corporations gotta eat too! *sarcasm*

 

Well if that McDonald's catches fire, they'll get the people out and watch as it burns to ashes. Oh well.

 

One can only hate Mickey D's, especially if they've worked there. I still will eat their food from time to time, but it was my first job that involved being on the payroll with deductions, and not just being paid for miscellaneous yard work out of pocket.

I think what this woman did was honorable. I remember that, when I worked there, a girl was clowning around with me when no customers where in ordering area and the manager told her to go home for the day. She told him she just plain wasn't coming back. I was once making myself my complimentary sandwich for my shift and the manager saw that I put a few extra pickles on, walked over, and took some pickles off. I was disgusted. I lasted 4 months and went to a higher paying job while still in high school. I kept that one for over a year. Some real nutty antics at that one.

However, based on how they treated their employees then, it's an organization I don't have a lot of respect for and, in large quantities, their food is not good for you. So I doubt some of their protocols, even if franchised, are good, either. After all, the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.

 

I can actually believe it, but it was probably the franchise, not the corps fault. My partner worked in fastfood when she came to this country. At 14 she was making $5 a hour, and working alone overnight although it was illegal and she paid under the table at times.
Franchise owners flaunt the law. It happens.

 

She needs to raise a stink for corporate to promote her or something or at least pay for her schooling or give a donation to the fire fighters.

 

Leave it to McDonalds to be a shining beacon of greed and disgusting business antics.

Seriously, they're the only people that even come close to rivaling Walmart in poor business ethics and worker treatment. I hope that this woman winds up with a real and fair job as a result of her decision to show kindness in this world.

I also have a feeling there is going to be a lot of firefighters who decide they won't be eating at McDonalds anytime soon.

 

"Ms. Levia believes this was the catalyst in the restaurant’s decision to fire her."

But no proof of it.

As opposed to the texting on company time (checking with head office), getting into a heated argument with a supervisor 'I didn't swear, I said 'freakin'' wouldn't cut it in most places and promising free meals to people when she wasn't authorised to do so...she didn't get fired because she bought lunch for the first lot, it's when the second lot came and she went out of her way to do it again but this time wanted the company to do it. If she wasn't in a position to offer them free meals (paid for by the company), she shouldn't have done it...

If it wasn't for the fact that everyone thinks McDonalds is evil (which I accept fully that it is) nobody would be complaining. Woman gets fired for not doing job properly and then wasting company time and arguing with supervisor about it doesn't sound so good.

 

I suppose it's all about perspective in that way.

Personally, any worker they have willing to cover anyone's lunch outta pocket should get a 'pass' on bothering the company for 5 minutes over whether or not she can talk them into doing the same. I believe there used to be a time when public service was rewarded by the businesses around the cities and towns. It used to be almost a requirement that if someone was out there risking their lives to keep you safe you'd give em a bite to eat on the house. Then everyone decided that being as selfish as humanly possible was more important, and now we demonize every single person who ever does anything for us.

We hate cops ( and now they hate us back ), we sue doctors every chance we get, and we clearly have no respect for military vets or they wouldn't be dying off in the streets as a result of no one helping to take care of them after all they did for us.

Our country should be renamed 'The Greedy Douchebags of America'

 

"Personally, any worker they have willing to cover anyone's lunch outta pocket should get a 'pass' on bothering the company for 5 minutes over whether or not she can talk them into doing the same. "

Why?

 

1.) She wasn't wasting company time. She was making a work based request.

2.) She either made the request before they ordered, or it didn't get made at all therefore for her not to waste 5 minutes to bother them about it closes the avenue for the question to ever be asked in the first place.

3.) I just like the notion that humans not be punished for attempting to bring kindness back into the world.

 

I'll give you the last one, but we don't know enough about what went on to substantiate the first two. She may have made a work based request, but this was AFTER she has been told no, which means she went over the head of her supervisor to argue something that wasn't store policy to begin with.

Moreover, all we have is this idea that a working mum who does two jobs and nurse training did something nice, and thus couldn't possibly have done anything else in the past to warrant being fired...for all we know she's the worlds worst employee and McDonalds got stung with some poor timing.

 

If this was a case of bad timing than this particular McDonalds has the dumbest manager in the world. Like seriously, anyone with even half a brain knows 'you don't fire the lady who just paid 80 bucks outta pocket to feed the firefighters' as soon as you do that you're basically putting a sign on your restaurant that says "Please come demonize us media!"

I would've been smart enough to know that it wasn't going to do any positives for public opinion. >.>

As for not knowing the exact circumstances...I agree. I'm working off what I know about the situation. If more information is offered later it'll be incorporated into my decision making process and perhaps I'll have a change of viewpoint. Til then from what I know that is my take on it.

 

Yes she did. The first time. "When some firefighters in Olean, New York, came in to order to food after fighting a house fire in freezing temperatures, Levia paid the $83 bill herself." I don't dispute that fact in the least. But at the same time, I don't contend that THIS part of the story had anything to do with her dismissal.

It's THIS part "When another round of food was ordered by a different fire department, she asked if the McDonald’s would cover the cost." That does it.

See nothing happened the first time round, because as you say there is no rule and no reason for someone to be in trouble for buying food for somebody else. Why would McDonalds care about that, her money is as good as anybody else's, which is part of my point. The manager would have to be literally insane to fire an employee for spending $83 in the restaurant.

"Heather then texted her boss to see if the restaurant would pay the bill, since they regularly gave free meals to police officers. Her boss said no." See this bit here is where it starts going downhill. You will note how the article says NOTHING about her doing this the first time round. So the first lot of food was never coming from McDonalds, it was her doing something nice. Now she is texting her boss to see if she can dish out free food. Since she had to ask it's fairly safe to assume she wasn't in a position to offer out free food in the first place. "Her boss said no."

When your boss tells you 'no' for something, especially something that ISN'T store policy you accept that. It's the lot of the underling to do what the boss-man says. Instead she decided to go over her bosses head to corporate and was, once again, told 'no'. At this point they did a whip round to pay for it among the staff.

Now this might seem a minor point, but most people I know who have ever worked at McDonalds didn't do it because they could afford to be paying for other peoples food. It's not a question of being nice, it's a question of 'if I pay for this, can I afford to eat tonight'. Now imagine being the one person who really couldn't afford it and said 'no I won't pay for the firemans meals'. That guy is getting ostracised immediately. So now there is pressure on the rest of the employees to pay for the meal.

It then goes on to say the firemen heard about this they decided to start calling in complaints about how she had felt pressured in to paying for it. Paying for HER OWN IDEA. As I said before, it wasn't store policy to give out free meals to firemen (yes I know they give them out to policemen, but perhaps the boss just likes policemen more or considers their job more important). She wanted to do it and was happy to then a second crew came in and she couldn't afford to do it twice. Yes there was pressure, but it's not like the boss had said 'guys, we are all going to pitch in and buy these guys dinner'. The idea started with her.

She is also supposed to have been swearing. " “I did say this is ‘freaking’ ridiculous" is her defence, could be true, or it could also be the same cover-up every person who ever let a curse-word slip has used since...well ever.

Moreover, as I said before neither you nor I have any idea what this persons work record is like. Nice person doesn't necessarily means good employee. For all any of us know, she was a crap employee in the first place and this instance of undermining the boss, causing a potentially hostile work environment and 'swearing' or not at a superior could have just been the last strike on an existing record. For all you or anyone else knows it's unfortunate timing.

It is mentioned above that the manager would have to be an idiot to fire someone so soon after doing this, but if I were a manager and needed to fire someone, I would be fairly pissed off at being potentially held over a barrel just because that employee did something newsworthy. It wouldn't fly anywhere else, just because you do a good deed doesn't erase the things you did wrong.

Neither you nor I know anything about this person, nor do we know anything more than the very brief article tells us.

I'm not sitting here saying the McDonalds is in the right here. Perhaps they did fire her just because of this incident. I don't know. Which is sort of the point here, I don't know and neither do you. The best we have is that she 'suspects' it has something to do with it. SHE doesn't even know.

I don't have a problem with disagreeing about the motives here. I also fail to see how any of the above, or the posts I made prior are 'illogical'. If they are, kindly highlight for me where my points fall flat.

 

There was a story a little bit like this at a Subway, a homeless man was sitting outside and was starving, and a worker said 'hey come in and i'll pay for your food' and she got fired for that :L

 

(eye roll) So much for being a good Samaritan.

 

When I read stories like this, I always ask myself "What did she really get fired for?" It always feels like the person who got fired over something like this actually got fired over something else, and now are trying to act like the victim. I mean it may all be true, but it always sounds really fishy to me.

 

This is why we can't have nice things with rabid capitalism.