As Chick-fil-A corporate rakes in about $10,000,000,000 a year in revenue, franchise locations remain fairly profitable, with lunch and dinner times resulting in lines well into the street in many places. So, when a franchise location up in North Carolina was in need of some employees during their infamous weekday lunch rush, they decided to post a laughable offer on Facebook. For every hour of time worked during the lunch rush, volunteers can earn … five whole entrée vouchers at the restaurant.
The post has since been deleted after well deserved mockery in the comments. In breaking the story, Motherboard contacted the location in Hendersonville, North Carolina and spoke to a manager named Ryan on the phone. He failed to see this as an issue and said people were eager to participate:
What happens with some brands in a community is that they establish a relationship with the community. As a result, there’s an expression of desire from the community to be more a part of what that brand is doing […] We get people all the time that want to be a part of what we’re doing. This is designed to be an opportunity for that.
Maybe this town is taking Chick-fil-A vouchers as a form of community currency that can be used to pay rent or gas? Because that’s the only way this would be less bad. Before the post was ultimately deleted, the page noted that the payment scheme is optional, and the location is still hiring. If you can’t keep someone for $12–19 an hour (this is starting pay, depending on age and hours), then a few chicken sandwiches aren’t enough.
If it’s not a toxic workspace, or something else, another likely culprit is poor scheduling. Retail and fast food jobs will give people weird hours and very short shifts as needed, making it impossible to make ends meet or even hold a second job, all to avoid providing legally required benefits. I, like many others, know this from personal experience and because it’s been highlighted in the news as an alleged tactic in Starbucks’ union-busting.
Good news for a one-term candidate
Five years before winning his first and hopefully only time serving as a member of U.S. Congress, Madison Cawthorn actually worked at this very Chick-fil-A. (This is very on brand.) Until Motherboard made the connection, his early years were only associated with misleading statements about supposedly being accepted into a military school. (He wasn’t.)
This information really fleshes out his origin story—and may be important to his future.
Recently, news broke that the Republican from North Carolina was in (more) deep financial trouble because he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars he was legally required to return, due to his failure to win the Republican primaries. Money raised for the general election is required to be returned if you fail your primary. A Cawthorn campaign source told The Daily Beast money was spent on a variety of things. One of the most frivolous and connected to this story is roughly $1,500 just in trips to Chick-fil-A alone.
Depending on what location he went to, maybe he can call up a manager and work out a situation to pay some of that money back, or at least volunteer for some free entrées to not worsen this clustercluck situation he’s allegedly in.
(via Motherboard (VICE), featured image: NBC)
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