'So... below minimum wage?': Ex-manager offers $50 to a former employee, begging them to come back for one shift

Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor

Feb 28, 2024 12:00 PM EST

Managers will do just about anything to cover a wayward shift in the fast-food industry. With corporate goons breathing down their neck and a 70-hour week on their horizon, it's no wonder managers become desperately manic when an employee no-shows or calls out sick. They're at their brink. However, the manager in our next story proved to be more manic than desperate after begging an ex-employee to cover a shift after quitting, enticing them with a cash offer of $50–mere peanuts.

After two years of exploitation at his fast-food job, this particular employee had had enough, but only two weeks after they'd quit, they received a pathetic text from their ex-manager, begging them to come cover a shift that someone bailed on. For some, this kind of desperation would mean they could score a couple of bucks from the endeavor–you know, with supply and demand n' all–but the ex-manager had the audacity to offer cash compensation at an embarrassingly low amount.

Scroll for the entire story of how a guy fervently denied an under-the-table gig to help an ex-manager he despised, largely because $50 would hardly cover the gas to go clock in.