“Stupid is, as stupid does,” but sometimes easily-described stupid behavior encompasses far more. A burger restaurant is closed after two employees posted a video of themselves cooking a rat on the grill. Obviously, the employees were immediately fired after the company learned of, and observed the posted video. Would ethics training have helped a disgusting story around a bigger ethical issue?
Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, on the island of Oahu, has temporarily closed its Mapunapuna, Honolulu location.
Said the company’s president “We are horrified that a former teenage employee would conduct themselves in that way and make such a video of which we are investigating its authenticity.”
Cleaning Both Messes
This type of scandal always creates two major problems. As for the “physical,” the easy part, the organization is completely sterilizing the facility, auditing the sanitation, replacing equipment, going overboard to invite in the public health people and calling in a pest control operator. The Department of Health probably won’t find much, as the restaurant has been thoroughly inspected and it received positive ratings.
Teddy’s Bigger Burgers has been in business for more than 20 years. They have several locations in Hawaii and on the mainland, in Texas, California, and Iowa. They are expanding and offering franchise opportunities. Here is where the second of the two problems fall into place: what the two employees managed to “accomplish” was to create a major crisis communications nightmare. Though one location was affected, it has rippled throughout the chain. Recovery from the second of the two problems is painful and often crippling.
While the company is exploring legal action against the employees, even that could create another nightmare. The employees are viewed as “kids” by the public, even though they may be 18 or 19. Nevertheless, the public could well ask why there was no supervision. Why allow stupid teenagers to cook a rat on an open stove?
Much Bigger Problem – A Disgusting Story around a Bigger Ethical Issue
In the last couple of years, there have been major debates about minimum wage payment for fast food workers. Indeed, most restaurant chains have a major problem in hiring good people and the retention of those employees. They must often resort to using employees who fall outside of the requirements of lower rung jobs in customer service and administrative positions. In some cases, employees who are under-educated or of lower IQ’s may be left unsupervised.
In other cases, immature high school or college students, “angry” at their work or uncaring as to the responsibilities put upon them act out in defiance to what they perceive as authority. Many of these students take some type of offense at having to work for what they perceive as inadequate wages. The result has been numerous scandals in the industry.
It needs to be stressed that poor employee behavior is not just the domain of “burger joints.” Starbucks, for example, has had baristas who have stolen credit information and money from the “tip jars.”
Who teaches ethics?
In the quest to find enough workers willing to work for lower (but certainly above minimum wage), training largely takes the tack of job-specific duties but it rarely includes ethical training.
The fast food or quick-serve worker sometimes sees the customer as an adversary and as a person taking advantage of their situation. They view their supervisor or shift manager as a mean-spirited authority figure.
In short, some fast food workers see an opportunity to strike back at the corporation. While their need to do so may be based on wages, it is frequently an anger problem where they are taking out that anger on anyone outside their small group. They rationalize their anger, perhaps in that, they somehow have the right to commit outrageous acts. It is a joke to them, disconnected from the reality of positive choices.
Unethical behavior will continue at such establishments unless intervention is routinely practiced and reinforced. If the demand for higher wages continues, then I maintain the corporation should also demand a higher adherence to ethical standards.
