17 Wendy's Employees Leave on the Spot by Taping Sign to Drive-Thru: 'We Quit' The workers cited lack of upper management, 85-hour work weeks and low wages.
By Emily Rella Edited by Amanda Breen
Mass exodus from jobs have been anything but uncommon amid the rise and fall of the Covid-19 pandemic, with some dubbing the new attitude towards the labor market as The Great Resignation, as many have taken the past year and prior to reevaluate their priorities and what truly makes them happy.
The fast-food industry undoubtedly was hit hard by the pandemic, with store closures and restrictions causing many employees to be let go or to walk out, many of whom did not return as things began to slowly reopen and readjust.
This, of course, has caused employees that still remain working at select chains to be faced with a nearly impossible feat — limited employees and a sudden mass return of customers demanding the same fast-pace and service that they've always been accustomed to.
For one Wendy's restaurant in an undisclosed location, this pressure lead to an alleged 17 employees walking out of the restaurant on the same day.
TikTok user @mintjuul.666 posted a video from inside a Wendy's that showed a drive-thru line "wrapped out to the streets."
@mintjuul.666 i got PTSD #wendys #unbearable ♬ original sound - fadedty
The video quickly cut to the drive-thru order screen where a handwritten "we quit" sign was taped to the drive-thru screen.
The employee followed up in a nearly minute and a half long video explaining what happened, voicing over clips of different chaotic scenes from working in the restaurant.
He said that when the pandemic began, many workers in the restaurant began to quit, including upper management, which resulted in his promotion to Assistant General Manager.
However, this promotion was not a joyful one.
"I had no GM for about three months and I was working about 85 hours a week, every week, with no day off," the former employee said in his video. "I made $14.77 [per hour] as an AGM keeping this store up and running."
@mintjuul.666 since people wanted to know it's pretty interesting btw #wendys #unbearable #fyp #foryoupage ♬ original sound - fadedty
He then went on to explain that he was eventually given a new manager, but that she "completely ruined" the work environment, claiming that nearly 34 people working on his schedule wanted to quit.
"No upper management helped me at all during those three months that I was alone," he said. "I did it all alone. One day I just came in and said I'd had enough and I couldn't do it anymore, so I told everyone and about me and 17 other people quit that day. We didn't clean up, we closed down around 8 o'clock at night."
Many in the comments were shocked that the former fast-food employee was working for such a low wage with more than double average work week hours, calling the situation "stressful" and "horrible."
Related: Disturbing Video Shows Wendy's Employee Being Verbally Harassed By Manager: 'Clean, B*tch'
"Corporate culture is cancer," one user wrote. "You kept that whole restaurant alive for $14.77 per hour with insane hours."
"And people wondering why there's an employee shortage," said another. "[These] places don't care about you so why should you stay there and make them money."
The follow-up video has since garnered over 1.5 million views and nearly 280,000 likes.
Wendy's has not yet publicly responded.
This isn't the first instance of a mass quitting of fast-food employees since the pandemic began.
Earlier this summer, nine Burger King employees quit at once at a Nebraska location restaurant, citing uncomfortable working conditions and 50 to 60 hour-long work weeks.
Wendy's was down around 5.33% year over year as of Tuesday afternoon.
