TacoTime Canada fires employee who flipped off customer
TacoTime Canada says it’s fired a Vancouver employee after she flipped off a customer at the chain’s Pacific Centre location.
The employee gave two middle fingers to a customer, who snapped a photo and shared it to Facebook September 6.
“Instead of simply correcting their mistake on a food item, she felt this was the solution. After requesting to speak to a manager, she claimed she was the manager,” the customer, who goes by Alyssa Mac on Facebook, wrote.
The photos were re-shared widely on Facebook and Reddit, quickly spreading around the internet.
In a letter issued September 7, TacoTime Canada said the employee misrepresented herself as the manager and “acted out with degrading gestures.”
“We do not condone this behaviour and don’t take this lightly… Please accept our sincere apologies to the victim and her family.”
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Although the employee is now without a job, she’s garnered some support online from people who sympathize with fast food workers.
“I support taco girl. Flipped off a camera that was shoved in her face can you blame her? Minimum wage food service and has to deal with entitled Karens that whip out their phone and blast this poor girl’s face on the internet,” Sophia Lakshmi said in a comment on TacoTime’s Facebook post.
“I am inclined to side with the employee here, because… the customer is not always right, and in fact the customer is usually a moron and an asshole,” one user said on Reddit. “Anyone who would escalate things to the point of filming and pushing an employee to give them the finger… must be a special piece of work.
“If you point a camera in my face because you wanted a combo but forgot to order it I would be sharing two birds as well,” another user said.
“Karen got some minimum wage worker fired and gets rewarded for it. Ridiculous,” said another.
Daily Hive has reached out to the man who posted the photo for further comment but has not yet heard back.
Editor’s note: This piece originally credited the photo from Pacific Centre to a Vancouver-based artist. However, that man was not there and only re-shared the photo he found on Facebook.