Restaurant manager tells 16-year-old employee to leave after blaming her for something she didn’t do, then tries to fire her for actually leaving not realizing it was all on camera: 'That sounded like approval, didn't it?'

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
May 23, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

There's something so formative about your first high school job. Whether it was scooping ice cream at the local parlor, folding jeans at a retail store, or working the fryer at your neighborhood fast food joint, those early gigs were less about climbing the career ladder and more about learning how to show up on time, survive an eight-hour shift, and maybe save up enough to buy concert tickets or gas for your used car. I can vividly remember my first job and the people I worked with back when my parents had to drive me to and from work because I was too young to have a license. But with every job that employs teen workers, there's always a manager on a total power trip.

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  • Teens are still kids. They're fresh to the workforce, often shy, awkward, and clueless about how to handle conflict or navigate a workplace. At least I was. Yet, some shift leads and general managers expect them to work like they have a college degree in the industry and a decade of work experience. In this story, a 16-year-old pizza joint employee showed up to her shift only to be berated for something she didn’t even do. So when she was told to leave, that's just what she did. 

  • Эт pizza
    via Polina Kuzovkova For Unsplash+

  • “If you don’t want to be here then leave, because I don’t need you”

    The shift lead who said it, Adriana 20-something, tried to get me fired after dismissing me from my shift. I got the job at 16 because I was dating one of the other shift leads, already off to a terrible start I know.
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  • My boyfriend was one of those characters that people either loved or hated. mostly hated if you come from a loving home, because he was admittedly a terrible. person. And Adriana
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  • especially hated him. I'm sure she had her reasons. One Saturday morning I showed up to work to find Adriana yammering about my bf calling out that day. He didn't tell me he was calling out, and
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  • since Adriana was visibly upset already about his absence, I texted him to ask "what's up? Why did you call out? Adriana is really mad about being short staffed on a Saturday and now she's going to be yelling at me about it all shift. "
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  • My boyfriend was a real sh stirrer and I was somehow incredibly J oblivious to this at the time. I texted him mostly to vent, but of course he used this as an excuse to start an argument with Adriana.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10508133888
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  • He texts her something accusing her of "talking sh", which for the record I DID NOT say she was doing, and I can hear from the kitchen she immediately started yelling into oblivion about how if I have something
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  • to say I should say it to her face. And how I'm a "stupid II dumb b "literally so stupid" "this b is the dumbest girl I've ever met why are you even with him”
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  • So valid queen, I was a little dense back then I guess Amidst her tirade about how stupid she thinks I am, she comes into the office, where I'm eating my pre-shift breakfast of boston market macaroni
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  • in total silence. This whole time I was just dissociating into my mac, because what the ever loving f else would I do? No only did I come from a home where yelling often lead to me dodging flying lamps and drawers, but I was
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  • genuinely scared she'd have her cousin jump me if I ped her off, well before this even happened. So she's standing there, I'm eating, kinda smiling out of discomfort, just
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  • watching her tear into me even more about my intelligence. Why? Because my boyfriend called out of work. It was honestly so bizarre, had escalated so quickly, and I was so dissociated, life kinda felt like it was
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  • moving in slow motion in that moment. She eventually says the magic line that snapped me out of my dissociation and freed me from my wage slave chains that lovely Saturday morning.
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  • "if you don't want to be here then leave, because I don't need you". Now again. This is Saturday morning. At a Pizza Hut. That is already short staffed. I knew for a fact that she was bullshitting not needing
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  • me. But I also knew that she said it right in front of the office cameras. So I'm thinking, that sounded like approval to leave early didn't it? Especially after being berated for 15 minutes
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    via Getty Images For Unsplash+
  • straight, AS SOON AS I WALKED IN THE DOOR, for something I DIDNT EVEN DO. She later tried to get me fired for walking out on my shift, and the first thing I did was tell the
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  • general manager to check the cameras. I should've just let them fire me honestly. Adriana, if you're out there, I live every day thanking god that I didn't have to experience a
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  • phase of life that included screaming at 16 year old girls first thing in the morning at my big fancy Pizza Hut shift lead job. I heard you also got fired for assaulting a customer. It's okay, I understand
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  • that being a shift lead at Pizza Hut is a very high stakes environment to be working in. No really, you don't look insane at all screaming your head off inside a fast food joint on a near daily basis. Completely sane and very intelligent behavior right there.
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  • Tamalene I just want to give 16 year old you the biggest hug right now.
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  • LemonKing5 Quite the work environment...but solid MC
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  • AbleWay 16 Glad you stood up for yourself. You handled that way better than most people would. Toxic
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  • managers like that don't deserve good employees like you. No one deserves to be treated like that.
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  • Coronis- I mean, I have actually worked an identical job, and yes it can be a very high stress job (though only really in
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  • peak night hours not the morning ?) but yeah you never yell at your employees. Also what, you can't control their personal relationships nor blame them for other workers actions lol.
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  • SituationSad4304 I wish I'd had your guts at 16
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  • Toaster Oven Pastry At sixteen I too walked out of my low wage job at a mom and pop diner that was going bankrupt the next day, I apparently sparked a movement with
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  • all the rest of the staff leaving shortly after me except the manager. As I left they all asked me where I was going, my response was "home cause they won't be opening
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  • tomorrow and they won't be paying me for working today either so f ."
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humor shift employee manager malicious compliance pizza hut work fire petty revenge restaurant comedy workplace Horrible Bosses karma entitled people
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