'Fire me? Have fun dealing with the FSA!': Chef unfairly fired after only 12 days, concocts plan that puts restaurant on the chopping block

Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor

Jun 17, 2023 7:00 PM EDT

When a restaurant owner keeps their place in atrocious conditions and assume their staff will keep their mouths shut about it, how can they possibly think it's okay to pull one over on any of their employees? That's just poor planning on their part. Why would they think for one second they won't get reported?

Well, that's exactly what went down with this particular restaurant. The chef had just been hired and was working hard to whip the place into shape. And it need a lot of work. There were healthy violations all over the place. She went to work cleaning the place up to be sparkling and getting the employees to start following the rules. She was very excited for this new job since she had the freedom to completely create the menu. It was her baby. However, after only 12 shifts in, she gets a call that she's being let go. Why? Well, the owner kept it vague, but basically blamed it on how she took her pre-approved time off and then asked if she should close early on a slow day. Basically, she had already had six days approved to take off even before she got hired, it was already agreed upon in her interview. Then, while she was working a very slow day—only $150 in sales, and the owner closed at only $300 in sales one day, so made since—she texted the owner asking if she should close up early and he said no, so she kept it open.

However, only a few days later she saw her position up on Indeed but with the pay sliced in half. So, no, she was not fired because she was doing anything wrong like they made it seem. She was fired because the owner couldn't afford to pay her their agreed amount. If the owner would've just been a decent person and asked her if she would stay with a pay cut, she says she would have done it because she loved her freedom. But nope, he couldn't take responsibility and fired her out of the blue. Well, cue her reporting all of those grotesque health code violations. Scroll on to read the entire story!