News
Aug 27, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
More In News
Editors' Picks
Popular Articles
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
the manager didn't have to enforce the rule and could of instead asked him about his situation to see if there was a way to schedule more hours or work with him in some way. If I was his manager and corporate rules were dictation my decision I would of paid for the damned sandwich myself and then had the sit down to come up with a compromise on how to help the fella out. I wouldn't fire him.
Here's my letter to SB:
"I recently read the story on SLOG regarding the firing of an employee for eating an expired product that had been thrown away (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…). I am disgusted by this (and not just because the employee ate garbage). You have an employee that is in such dire straits that he is willing to eat garbage and you FIRE him rather than offering assistance? For a company that works so hard to tout its charitable contributions to treat any human being this way is an especially disappointing turn of events. I will not be returning to a Starbucks store until I know that measures have been taken to restore this individual's employment (with hopefully a few extra hours) and prevent this from ever happening to another employee.
My suggestion would be to make food items available as free shift meals when they reach their pull dates so that employees wouldn't have the temptation to eat spoiled food out of the garbage since I know you aren't willing to pay a living wage. Your company certainly has the resources to give a starving employee a sandwich. Have some compassion, damn it."
Send SB some feedback of your own about this here: http://customerservice.starbucks.com/app…
What do their rights have to do with it? Just because you have a RIGHT to do a thing doesn't mean you're not a dick for exercising that right. I have the right to go to a nice restaurant, have great service, and leave zero tip. Just because it's my right doesn't mean I'm not a fucking asshole for doing it
I just don't understand why the manager followed the path chosen, to resolve this issue. 1) Lose a good, reliable employee; 2) Just try to replace the position with someone as capable, keeping in mind the cost of new employee training, uniforms(if supplied, most don't)!!! Last I knew, about $900.00 per new employee vs. a $5.00 sandwich from the trash??? That seems to be a lose/lose for all involved!!! I truly hope Coulson applies and gets unemployment comp. to the hilt!!!
Why don't all these mega corporations add another form with all the state/federal mandated forms for employment, stating they will not sue if they eat expired food??? Especially since I can go buy a McDonald's sandwich, place it on my counter and it only gets hard...GMO food does not mold or 'go bad' for years!!! Try the experiment yourselves, though most of you won't!!!!! COULSON, I AM SO ON YOUR SIDE!!! STARBUCKS YOU SHOULD BE SO ASSHAMED, and I hope this causes the company to either revamp or get pushed out of business, via the consumer. Your coffee prices are out of this world, that to me = SEVERE CORPORATE GREED...yeah, you employ x amount of employees but they are living at BELOW POVERTY LEVEL. I sure hope all you CEO's, COO's, CFO's, and whatever title's you've invented can sleep at night...YOU TRULY SUCK!!!!!!
@#110 Washington is an at-will employment state, they can fire you for any reason at any time and you can quit for any reason at any time
Anyone who's worked for any food service company knows that this is the pretty standard policy. It's because if you say that you can't eat anything, then employees (me included) only eat a little but. If the policy was more liberal, then the employees would eat more than they sold.
Places like Starbucks give you more hours if you perform, and less if the manager cringes a little when they put your name on the schedule. Want more hours? Be a better employee. Don't know how? Ask your manager. I imagine a lot of people feel like they're entitled to a minimum number of hours for whatever irrational reason, but that's never the way it's going to be.
sounds like a problem with the manager not the company.
also they call them partners because they offer stock to all employees
Still, it's not the sort of thing you should get fired for doing. If someone has a good track record with a company, they'd probably get a warning from the manager and maybe have to pay for the sandwich or whatever. If he really did have a clean record, the manager overstepped her bounds.
Yay! Fuck you, Starwood Hotels!
They went through the process and washed their hands of the matter. Process didn't work for him, or the 4-5 other people who got fucked in the same way.
If he does have a case that is winnable, that would mean that "spoilage" doesn't mean you can get sick. If he doesn't have a case, why have a policy to begin with? If it really just depends, you have to set a precedent to ensure your company isn't being sued for an error an employee makes, regardless of whether they are poor or polish leased cadillacs as a past time. Starbucks is cleaverly causious, the employee is simply unfortunate.
If he does have a case that is winnable, that would mean that "spoilage" doesn't mean you can get sick. If he doesn't have a case, why have a policy to begin with? If it really just depends, you have to set a precedent to ensure your company isn't being sued for an error an employee makes, regardless of whether they are poor or polish leased cadillacs as a past time. Starbucks is cleaverly causious, the employee is simply unfortunate.
If he does have a case that is winnable, that would mean that "spoilage" doesn't mean you can get sick. If he doesn't have a case, why have a policy to begin with? If it really just depends, you have to set a precedent to ensure your company isn't being sued for an error an employee makes, regardless of whether they are poor or polish leased cadillacs as a past time. Starbucks is cleaverly causious, the employee is simply unfortunate.
And just like maglaw states, and I'll take it a step further, this guy gets sick because his basil went bad, he sees a way to get off food stamps and sues the shit out of Starbucks because he now is permanently disabled, and that puts Starbucks in a pinch, so they cut back on labor and now you have 3 dozen guys on food stamps... Yes, that's how this works.
Don't shit where you sleep.
Starbucks is a giant corporation and it is incredibly difficult to fire people because they can't afford to have wrongful termination lawsuits. I find it nearly impossible to believe that eating food somebody else had marked out was his first offense.
Think instead of assuming that everybody is a victim.
Get ready for more of it, once the full force of the Affordable Care Act tsunami hits workers in 2014.
Dig deeper. Think about it. While the story creates a provocative headline and causes a viral reaction due to the intitial reaction this incident stirs; this is a matter of an employee NOT behaving in a way becoming of the establishment he is paid to represent.
As someone above mentioned; "who would want the barista to serve them after seeing him dig into the trash and eat a sandwhich?".
Alternative lifestyles, and colorful eccentricities are all great and fabulous. However; at some point the simple human basics and logic will prevail no matter how piercings you have.
Eating out of the trash is not civilized. There are DOZENS of soup kitchens and food banks throughout all of King County. To say you are starving is a ridiculous line. Try calling 211. Try a community outreach. There is way way too much "help" in Seattle.
Why can't people consider these things when they decide to be a barista? Why should the rest of society have to be involved in their dumpster diving because they are not resourceful enough to go get food at a food bank.
Dig deeper. Think about it. While the story creates a provocative headline and causes a viral reaction due to the intitial reaction this incident stirs; this is a matter of an employee NOT behaving in a way becoming of the establishment he is paid to represent.
As someone above mentioned; "who would want the barista to serve them after seeing him dig into the trash and eat a sandwhich?".
Alternative lifestyles, and colorful eccentricities are all great and fabulous. However; at some point the simple human basics and logic will prevail no matter how many piercings you have.
Eating out of the trash is not civilized. There are DOZENS of soup kitchens and food banks throughout all of King County. To say you are starving is a ridiculous line. Try calling 211. Try a community outreach. There is way way too much "help" in Seattle.
Why can't people consider these things when they decide to be a barista? Why should the rest of society have to be involved in their dumpster diving because they are not resourceful enough to go get food at a food bank.
Big corporations stay big,because they don't have to care.
As long as the top dogs keep their jobs,that's all that matters.
Everyone else are just meaningless,faceless people who do their bidding and are grateful for a scrap of bread. Sound like the Middle Ages?
Barring a few exceptions, the comments here are incredibly intelligent, very well articulated, hysterical, incredible works of storytelling...
But most of all demonstrate an immense big heartedness, a wellspring of compassion...that is so beautiful to see.
As a small business owner who has struggled with hunger his whole life (27 years now), and who sometimes still goes a month or more without a full meal, just because he all of his resources are going into a business and something to serve his small community,
As someone who has dumpstered dived for years, A top of his class, valedictorian 4.o student who did volunteer work all through high school (still does), who turned down a full ride scholarship in preference to a dean's scholarship @ an equally great private college whose curriculum fit his needs better - who grew up with a dystopian wasteland Fiery- Inferno-Hell-hole-of-a-family the eldest of 6 kids, who used to beg and plead with his mother in order to get her to go to the dumpsters and who dived with his mother who was on meth/heroin (whichever was her drug of choice @ the time), in order to feed his starving baby brothers (who were 1 and 2 years old - and drank orange drank from bottles rather than milk because his mother and her drug dealer boyfriend traded her foodstamps for drug funding),
~Who has worked in numerous branches of the service industry (dishwashing, construction, participatory action research projects, as museum docent(s), art gallery curator, janitorial, etc, et al, et al), and dumpster dived across this great nation (I still do nearly every week), in Seattle, In Portland, in Chicago, Boston, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.
Who has nearly gotten arrested by Trader Joe's in Boston for dumpster diving (I was a private college student at the time - a medically defined starvation case - Of their daily garbage disposal, Tj's in Brookline that night had probably 250 pounds of green grapes, and 2 pallets of their pre-packaged tasty "mandarin orange chicken" - which had an expiration day of 2 days before they were disposed of- which I estimated dispensed @ a pound for each person could feed upwards of 650 - 750 people !) -
-And that was only one part, of one day, at one store, in one neighborhood, of one city of 9 million people and how many thousands of places that dispense food -
-!!!-
Why are Americans Going Hungry?? There isn't any reason or logic to it. It is Madness.
when there was a pizza place nearby who purposefully left their dumpster unlocked with dozens of pizzas available to homeless and malnourished college students alike (a small franchise middle-of-the-road pizza pipeline- all the locations had a similar practice! - that WAS policy for them!) -
I haven't finished reading what you all have said, but I certainly will, and I just find it all so refreshing, encouraging and beautiful you care about this stranger, and the plight of hungry people.
Obviously, my story in no way compares to Mr. Loptmann's; but I am no stranger to summon all of one's powers to do the best one can do to survive a horrid situation, I am no stranger to starvation, chronic hunger and chronic under-employment. -
If the MO of Mr. Loptmann's management was to use "constructive dismissal" - why did they use the "theft breaking policy" as the final Reason to Fire Him??
In the heat of a needle-that-broke-the-camel's-back moment, perfectly good people who are supervisor's or middle management on up, or otherwise have power make poor decisions. We all make mistakes.
But why is Mr. Loptmann so hungry?? People who aren't hungry don't eat food from the "garbage." Eating from the garbage takes a lot of courage. It is an extremely humiliating and demeaning thing. Even if there wasn't one person in a 12 block radius, eating from the garbage can just feels so dehumanizing. A citizen who is gainfully employed should not go hungry.
"Constructive Dismissal" is atrocious; and Post WWII Planned Obsolescence is an American Branded Evil.
Irregardless, I am with you in problem solving how to feed hungry people. No one should go hungry, and even more so someone who is working for their living.
Thanks so much for keeping the discussion going. I am so grateful for all of your thoughts and musings.
Jus' Weighing in,
Frank L. Buttons
Washington State
Not to drop an incendiary into the room.
But it would be neglectful of me not to mention that many, if not all of the comments weighing in against Mr. Loptmann dangerously resemble those of all of the persons I have known personally in the Analog World who have never faced the prospect of Chronic Hunger. Many of whom were once close friends and acquaintances of mine.
Although one who has not experienced chronic hunger first hand (a living hell that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy) cannot truly understand what it is like -
This Discussion illustrates that there are many people in Our Great Country who have a HUGE HEART and INTELLIGENCE, in spite of never experiencing hunger personally.
thank you, thank you
http://www.change.org/petitions/make-foo…
http://www.change.org/petitions/make-foo…
http://www.change.org/petitions/make-foo…
And it's nice to see where HR is, instead of complying with ACTUAL issues in stores, like SMs and AMs being abusive towards workers. But money keeps talking, life keeps dropping.
First of all, you're completely believing every word.
Open your mind.
This article is majority written off of information "ACCORDING TO LOPTMANN."
a.k.a, the guy who got fired.
You don't think he made himself look like the victim?
In a later article, reporters have discovered that Loptmann has multiple violations issues that have been documented over the past year.
You honestly think that they would fire him for just a ONE-TIME slip in the trash?
It's false. I know many people who are employed by large corporate food industries and have done the same- Starbucks included. People either have been warned or not caught.
It is so clear that this article is written with a complete close-minded biased mentality - media desperate for a story.
In reality, it is this irresponsible worker who has violated many policies.
As a worker, you are hired because they trust you. They trust you to be responsible. They are a corporate company who cares about their customers and workers more than your average corporate company.
Anyway, my main point is that none of you know the entire story. Neither do I.
Don't make false accusations are assume you know that this newspaper is your average newspaper that writes articles without opinion. Newspaper article are meant to state fact. They may rearrange certain factors and therefore, indirectly support a side.
But not The Stranger. They are not like Wall Street Journal or New York Times. You don't pay to read this newspaper - it's free. This newspaper is filled with unprofessional remarks and opinions. It is fun and entertaining.
Read a real newspaper and confirm this biased-written story.
As for the manager: I was having some money struggles while I still worked with her and I told her that I really needed hours and she went out of her way to help me find them. Talking about money troubles is hard but as soon as I did she helped me out.
There is a limit to the types of jobs employees can get on the side, nothing coffee related in the slightest, even if it's a breakfast place that serves black coffee.
That said, this guy was a shit employee and that's why he was fired.
Apart from that, it is not merely Starbucks being a stickler for rules. If anything is wrong with the food that the employee consumes from the trash, Starbucks could be sued or otherwise made to be liable for it. They need to cover themselves, just like everybody else.
1. When they say out dated food products , they mean a one day shelf life. Breakfast sandwiches have at least a week in them I'm guessing or more.
2.even thought starbucks employee get benifits like health care and stock , they work hard as hell to get them. Also there healthcare is too expensive on the wage that they pay you. (I guess they just don't unstand that most of the people they hire like in one bedroom apartments or studio apts and most have food stamps.also food stamps only gives you 200 dollars in and that's if your making like 500 month. So think about how much your parents spent on food in a month alone)
3. Also starbucks throws away or markout at least 40-50 products a night sometimes even up to a hundred. Its a joke they we have that some third world countries to live off of out markout. So think about how many starbucks locations there are just in the usa alone and everyone had to do there markouts of 50-100 items. Yeah, its totally possible.
I have a feeling that something else was happening behind the scenes with this partner and this was the excuse used to resolve the situation.
They start out their employees at JUST min wage ... with maxium expectations.The place is run like a prison. They are a group of sadistic pricks. They way that they have cut the staffing and keep increasing the work load. How does it make you feel to know that the person who just made your $5.00 drink just cleaned up someones shit off of the bathroom wall of the stores restroom? Or that they were on their hands and knees scrubbing mold out of a floor drain , before restocking that lovely slice of $3.00 lemon loaf, of that they were just in the bushes picking up cigarett butts , because when the district manager comes he counts them , and flips out if there are more than five.
You see the ppl that are serving you are not just there to serve you , they are Starbucks bitches. Starbucks are masters of minipulation, and double standards and have reinvented the exploitation of the minimum wage worker. Basically Starbucks is a hibrid cross between Mcdonalds and WalMart, they are the child of the practices of theses two.
But never the less ppl will continue to go into these monster businesses and nake them richer and stronger. In the 50&60 The HOWARD SCHULTZ of the wotkd made 20 times more than their average employee, now they make 151 times more than the average emplyoee. There has to be a change made to theselarge companies that exploite workers , and that can only come from the working class ppl, through boycott and trade unions. Money is power, and if you take away their money you take away their power.
Judgment and common sense don't apply to retail Starbucks employees---since Starbucks doesn't allow their "partners"---err, employees, to think.
(By the way, Starbucks did reimburse them for the waters, and presented them with an apology letter.)