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57
Company Plots To Dismiss Sick Employee Maliciously, Lady Overhears Them, Reveals All
There’s a widely held belief among netizens that, when it comes to hiring and firing, HR is not your friend. In today’s modern corporate landscape, the vast majority of companies aren’t loyal to their employees, but rather their shareholders.
While filming herself enjoying lunch at the airport, TikToker Lara Rule (@pogsyy) accidentally overheard some Texas Roadhouse corporate agents discussing the termination of one of their sick employees. She decided to share her video online in the hopes of warning the employee, but the company responded in a less than PR-friendly manner.
More info: TikTok
RELATED:
Woman accidentally overheard Texas Roadhouse managers plotting to terminate an employee who was in ICU
Image credits: pogsyy
Concerned for the employee, she decided to share her recording of the conversation on her TikTok
Rule’s story begins with a TikTok of her enjoying lunch at Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C. In her video, you can hear a faint conversation of a woman openly discussing how Texas Roadhouse is planning on terminating an employee who’s in the hospital because she hasn’t contacted them – they had to find out via Facebook
Apparently, the company was trying to send the sick woman a fake benefits package, but didn’t want her to know what it was, so they could terminate her in an underhanded manner. Rule told the community that if they knew someone who worked for Texas Roadhouse who is currently bed-ridden, they should let her know not to sign for the benefits package.
TikTokers in the comments shared their own horror stories of working for Texas Roadhouse and banded together in an attempt to identify the ill woman, thanking Rule profusely for her thoughtful post and saying this is the exact reason employees aren’t loyal anymore.
Image credits: pogsyy
Outraged netizens took the company to task, but the brand tried to deflect the negative publicity and even deleted comments on social media
In an update posted a couple of days later, Rule says that, while she was still trying to determine whether or not she had actually found the woman and her husband, Texas Roadhouse were supposedly replying to some comments on Facebook about her original TikTok.
Rule shared a screenshot with the community displaying the company’s reply to a Facebook user, which claimed Rule’s allegations weren’t true and that her post was inappropriate and misleading. They reiterated that they were a people-first company and entirely supportive of their “Roadies”.
Image credits: JJBers / Flickr (not the actual photo)
The TikToker addressed the company’s actions in follow-up videos, even offering to show them how to handle an online PR crisis at no cost
OP responds, “Hey, that’s my video! Happy to post more documentation if you’d like — you could alternatively have reached out personally to me instead of making inappropriate and rather odd comments regarding this situation. Or you could have even sent me a cease and desist if it wasn’t true, but you can’t send a cease and desist if it is true, so perhaps that’s why.”
Further on in her reply to the company, she added that she caught the conversation by accident while filming birds in the airport and there could be no expectation of privacy in public.
Image credits: DC Studio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Thanks to the help of netizens, she was able to get hold of the sick employee and warn her about the company’s deceptive plot
Rule then turns to the camera, saying that she doesn’t really give a damn if Texas Roadhouse is annoyed and that if her video is going to potentially save someone from wrongful termination due to a health condition, then it’s worth it to her.
A few hours later, she posted another update stating that she’d made contact with the hospital-bound woman and her husband and would welcome litigation with open arms because Texas Roadhouse could make no claim against her actions, and it would be a PR nightmare for them.
Watch the full video here
@pogsyy could be wrong but i listened to 3 diff convos about the situation soo #dystopian#latestagecapitalism#texasroadhouse♬ original sound – Tara Rule
In her final update, Rule celebrated the TikTok community for helping find the couple and invited Texas Roadhouse to have a civil conversation with her.
According to the Haeggquist & Eck website, medical leave provides employees with essential time off for health-related reasons. This time lets individuals attend to personal health concerns, recover from pregnancy, illnesses, or surgeries, manage chronic conditions, or attend to a family member’s medical requirements.
Medical leave policies differ by country, state, and employer, but always strive to support employees’ mental and physical well-being. In the US, the Families and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for specific medical and family reasons.
In her article for HRMorning on the 5 times it’s OK to fire an employee on FMLA leave, Carol Warner writes that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit highlighted five separate cases in which it threw out a worker’s FMLA lawsuit against an employer after finding “undisputed evidence that the employee in question would have been terminated even if FMLA leave had not been taken.”
What would you have done if you had found yourself in Rule’s shoes? And what do you think of the way Texas Roadhouse handled the matter? Let us know your opinion in the comments!
In the comments, TikTokers weighed in, castigating the corporate agent for having such a sensitive conversation in a public place and shared their own stories about abhorrent corporate behavior
Image credits: ANTONI SHKRABA production / Pexels (not the actual photo)
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What do you think ?
Sunny Day 1 year ago
Years ago, a vendor we worked with laid off a lot of field engineers (travelling tech support). The guy we worked with regularly still had his job. But he said another guy he knew was out on medical leave, and his boss called the sick guy and begged him to come back to work early, because they were so shorthanded with the layoffs. Sick guy got his doctor to agree to an early return. He shows up, clocks in, and is immediately laid off. (You can't lay off a worker who is on medical leave, but he's fair game when back to work.)
Lyone Fein 1 year ago
I think we need to vote more in state and municipal elections here in the United States. Too many people skip voting in non-federal elections. And we need to make labor friendly legislation more of a priority to our state governments.
Sand Ers 1 year ago
Never forget that even the scant legal protections employees in the US have are under constant attack. Elon Musk has launched a lawsuit trying to get the very concept of “employee protections regulations” declared unconstitutional. And there’s a very good chance that he’ll succeed, and the supreme court will simply erase the NLRB.
Load More Replies...
Sand Ers 1 year ago (edited)
“Recording and sharing false information”… . . I -really- want to see/hear their explanation for how a recording they concede is real and accurate constitutes “false information”. edit: Here’s another doozy. . “[because] she didn’t disclose she had a medical condition prior.”
Amelia Jade 1 year ago (edited)
Why on earth was this commented downvoted?Take my upvote.
Load More Replies...
greenideas 1 year ago
The cynic in me thinks they might get fired for getting caught, not for what they tried to do.
Load More Replies...
Alexa Saltz 1 year ago
It isn't illegal unless you get caught. A good service employee isn't likely to have the finances to deal with such sh!t. Texas Roadhouse got busted. Doubt this is the first time. They are not the only unscrupulous employer.
AnnwylTheBloodyLovesFerghus 1 year ago
At my last job before retiring, the owner, it was a family owned company, was a whiplash inducing nightmare. And he had the most atrocious hygiene habits. But, I digress. One of the truck drivers, who had worked for the company for many years and was considered one of the best, received a better offer (our company was notorious for low wages) of employment from one of our longtime customers. He gave appropriate notice and took the job. Soon after, the owner, my employer, reached out to him and offered him his job back at a higher salary. The guy accepted and came back. Only so that the hateful owner could lay him off the day he came back. It was all about payback for leaving. I hope there's a special seat reserved for him in the most horrible part of hades for that man.
Load More Replies...
Bisha Moten 1 year ago
The person who recorded the video and posted it to Tik Tok, is actually in legal trouble now, and facing potential charges, and lawsuit from the company for her actions. Washington D.C. is a one-party consent location, where while you can legally record a conversation that is taking place without others knowing about it; you can only do this if you are one of the people IN the conversation. You can't record a conversation between other people without them knowing about it. To do that, she'd need permission from one of the people she recorded... which she did not have. She's looking at 1000 dollars a day for every day the video is up, plus attorney fees and punitive damages, a minimum of a 10000 dollar fine, and up to five years in prison.
Ciel Gattens 1 year ago
Maybe the company should consider having such conversations in private if they don't want to run the risk of them being recorded. Regardless of state rules. And maybe people shouldn't be so quick to hope the person who posted it to Tik Tok gets in legal trouble because they want to defend a business that wouldn't care about them.
Load More Replies...
Stannous Flouride 1 year ago
I saw the first part on Igram and was very happy to learn this conclusion.
Andy Frobig 1 year ago
In 1997 I was hurt in an accident and stayed out on disability for three months. When I got back, all my benefits had been reset to day one: PTO, insurance, profit sharing. The HR manager told me I had been terminated and rehired, and that I was lucky because they didn't have to do that. She was fired shortly after this and my benefits were restored
Sunny Day 1 year ago
Years ago, a vendor we worked with laid off a lot of field engineers (travelling tech support). The guy we worked with regularly still had his job. But he said another guy he knew was out on medical leave, and his boss called the sick guy and begged him to come back to work early, because they were so shorthanded with the layoffs. Sick guy got his doctor to agree to an early return. He shows up, clocks in, and is immediately laid off. (You can't lay off a worker who is on medical leave, but he's fair game when back to work.)
Lyone Fein 1 year ago
I think we need to vote more in state and municipal elections here in the United States. Too many people skip voting in non-federal elections. And we need to make labor friendly legislation more of a priority to our state governments.
Sand Ers 1 year ago
Never forget that even the scant legal protections employees in the US have are under constant attack. Elon Musk has launched a lawsuit trying to get the very concept of “employee protections regulations” declared unconstitutional. And there’s a very good chance that he’ll succeed, and the supreme court will simply erase the NLRB.
Load More Replies... Sand Ers 1 year ago (edited)
“Recording and sharing false information”… . . I -really- want to see/hear their explanation for how a recording they concede is real and accurate constitutes “false information”. edit: Here’s another doozy. . “[because] she didn’t disclose she had a medical condition prior.”
Amelia Jade 1 year ago (edited)
Why on earth was this commented downvoted?Take my upvote.
Load More Replies... greenideas 1 year ago
The cynic in me thinks they might get fired for getting caught, not for what they tried to do.
Load More Replies... Alexa Saltz 1 year ago
It isn't illegal unless you get caught. A good service employee isn't likely to have the finances to deal with such sh!t. Texas Roadhouse got busted. Doubt this is the first time. They are not the only unscrupulous employer.
AnnwylTheBloodyLovesFerghus 1 year ago
At my last job before retiring, the owner, it was a family owned company, was a whiplash inducing nightmare. And he had the most atrocious hygiene habits. But, I digress. One of the truck drivers, who had worked for the company for many years and was considered one of the best, received a better offer (our company was notorious for low wages) of employment from one of our longtime customers. He gave appropriate notice and took the job. Soon after, the owner, my employer, reached out to him and offered him his job back at a higher salary. The guy accepted and came back. Only so that the hateful owner could lay him off the day he came back. It was all about payback for leaving. I hope there's a special seat reserved for him in the most horrible part of hades for that man.
Load More Replies... Bisha Moten 1 year ago
The person who recorded the video and posted it to Tik Tok, is actually in legal trouble now, and facing potential charges, and lawsuit from the company for her actions. Washington D.C. is a one-party consent location, where while you can legally record a conversation that is taking place without others knowing about it; you can only do this if you are one of the people IN the conversation. You can't record a conversation between other people without them knowing about it. To do that, she'd need permission from one of the people she recorded... which she did not have. She's looking at 1000 dollars a day for every day the video is up, plus attorney fees and punitive damages, a minimum of a 10000 dollar fine, and up to five years in prison.
Ciel Gattens 1 year ago
Maybe the company should consider having such conversations in private if they don't want to run the risk of them being recorded. Regardless of state rules. And maybe people shouldn't be so quick to hope the person who posted it to Tik Tok gets in legal trouble because they want to defend a business that wouldn't care about them.
Load More Replies... Stannous Flouride 1 year ago
I saw the first part on Igram and was very happy to learn this conclusion.
Andy Frobig 1 year ago
In 1997 I was hurt in an accident and stayed out on disability for three months. When I got back, all my benefits had been reset to day one: PTO, insurance, profit sharing. The HR manager told me I had been terminated and rehired, and that I was lucky because they didn't have to do that. She was fired shortly after this and my benefits were restored
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