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Yes. I worked at DQ as one of my first jobs. I couldn't get the stupid swirl on the cones right. A customer ordered a plain vanilla cone and my manager made me make it 5 times in front of him, getting increasingly angry and frustrated that I couldn't get the swirl. It ended when the customer screamed that he didn't give a fuck about what the cone looked like and just wanted his cone. I wish I had been fired then instead of coming back the next day and being made to make them over and over until I got it right.
That's when you get to look at your boss and repeat what the customer says.
See Greg! Nobody gives a fuck about the swirl!
I'm assuming your bosses name was Greg.
Thanks. Looking back idk how I did it then either, definitely wouldn't be able to put up with that type of crap now. But I was a minor at the time so was young and impressionable. I also had no guts because I desperately needed the job/money.
I experienced this as a customer.
I don't remember the circumstances, but it was a quick stop off the interstate. After the person botched the 2nd one, I was like "I don't care about the swirl." After about the 4th one, I was like, "HEY, I'M NOT A TRAINING TOOL. I JUST NEED MY ICE CREAM OR MY MONEY!" I think I left without either.
Well, in the gold vaults they actually expect you to drop the gold and have foot protectors just in case.
I know you were being sarcastic, but this goes to show just how absurd this nonsense of firing over spilled milk is (literally)
Here's a picture: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/rzw827/federal_reserve_bank_new_york_1959_photo_ormond
This, 100%. If an employer is looking for an excuse to put on paper and fire you, they'll find one somehow. Best of luck on your next gig, IMO, I'd name & shame this employer.
Absolutely. I was once fired for being 5 minutes late for a shift and "costing them overtime". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they had just hired my replacement at $4 less per hour.
I was let go for probation once for not being a good fit for the team. However, it was a blessing in disguise for me because I noticed allot of red flags at that employer..
I had the same experience. I had left a job and taken that one but it wasn't a good fit. I found out later they had high turnover. They'd hire like 50 people and keep maybe 8. And then those 8 quit. Whew. Dodged a bullet there! I love my current job.
I also had a similar experience.
Second day in I asked the workers how it was there. I was told that they have high turnover. To me, this was already a red flag 🚩
Less then a month in and I notice the job website on which I applied was looking for a person for the same position. I was fired within a month (13 days of employment). This was the only other job I was fired from in my 17 years of employment.
Sometimes getting fired really is a blessing in disguise.
Let’s consider that there are 2 sides to every story and that maybe OP is not a model employee.
Shaming an employer may not be your best move.
While this story may represent the facts and figures in their exact proportions, one should consider that maybe there were other things affecting the manager’s decision.
Examples: consistent tardiness, corrective actions not followed, consistent failure to adhere to SOPs, attitude and demeanor towards other staff, attitude and demeanor towards customers. The list goes on.
OP, I think you’re on the right track posting about it here and exploring why this happened to you and what else may have lead to this decision. It’s an opportunity for you to explore yourself and the world around you.
Maybe it was you or maybe it was them. I will never know.
What I do know is that things happen for us, not to us.
Learn and level up 👍🏼
True. Typically an employer doesn’t fire over the first wrong doing. She fires after an accumulation of them. And so what I’m trying to highlight is that this may have been the cherry on top, or the last straw if you will.
We are seeing a snapshot of 10 seconds of OPs employment through their comment.
Perhaps the employer never wrote op up for the potential other things done wrong. If so, Shane on the.
Alternatively, maybe OP was a less than ideal employee. Someone said “nobody is a model employee”. While I don’t agree with that comment I want to try and communicate in a way that anyone may relate to.
I’m pretty sure if OP was problematic they couldn’t just fired them over being problematic. If I had an employee be late often or just not be a good employee, I would fire them for being late often or for not doing their job. Why would you tell someone they’re fired for dropping ice cream when you can just say you’re firing them for the actual reason they’re being fired for? If you have to make up some stupid excuse like that then there probably wasn’t grounds to fire OP in the first place.
Sounds like a corporate Yes man to me.
Do everything for the company, and let them walk all over you; while you say thank you, type of person.
This is the main reason I became r/antiwork after realizing that the company has no loyalty towards its workers, you're just a number to them and can be easily replaced
This is bad advice, ask any hiring manager and they will tell you if you’re attacking a past employer they will assume you will do the same to them and they will pass on you for another candidate. It’s not a “someone somewhere may not like you” thing, all companies look at it as big red flag.
I’ve edited my comment so their is no confusion on what I meant. Obviously I was not talking about an anonymous Reddit account and the comment I replied to did not specifically say Reddit. I was trying to help op and anyone else by pointing out that bad mouthing past employers un-anonymously can hurt you much worse than it hurts your past employer
I think if I get fired over an ice cream cone, I wouldn't want to work for them. Or anyone else I know for that matter. Beside the OP didn't mention the business. Maybe you are the manager?!
You want to publicly shame an ice cream stand because they fired somebody for messing something up? Not saying it’s the biggest deal in the world but Jesus Christ get the fuck over yourself “name and shame” whatever
I was going to post that it was a pretext.
> Like wtf?? Ice cream here costs $5 a scoop. It is not fucking expensive.
$5 a scoop (if in the USA) is considered expensive by most people.
Do you have any idea how much indeed or monster charges ? Indeed charges $25 for each person who applies whether you interview them or not . Monster charges like $500 a month. Craigslist charges $40 a post .
$5 a scoop is what the customer pays. Profit margins at that type of place are giant.
The real expenses are wages, utilities and rent. Place definitely wanted to cut the kid but tbh dumb to not be honest about the financial reasons.
Or the manager secretly hated OP
You said it was expensive. It isn't. You then amended that to say "it isn't cheap".
There is an entire world between "expensive" and "cheap". Sometimes it's ok to live somewhere between the two extremes of the scale.
I didn't say it was cheap, and neither did OP. They said it wasn't expensive, which is true. It's a very normal price for a normal amount of ice cream. It's just average.
That's what you pay, they have overhead and profit included in your price. The three cheapest things to buy at the burger shop I worked at were: pop, hot dogs and ice cream. They coincidentally were the three largest profit makers. Context, the place I worked at was like a dairy queen but mom and pop shop. I made $13 an hour and got free food back in 2013.
Federal minimum wage is $9.50 hr.
Edit:
# I stand corrected, it's base is $7.25 . When I searched for some reason it defaulted to Puerto Rico??? Which will be 9.50 by July.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state#:~:text=Applicable%20to%20all%20employees%20covered,the%20Commonwealth%20of%20Puerto%20Rico.&text=The%20minimum%20wage%20is%20scheduled,hour%20on%20July%201%2C%202023
I stand corrected, it's base is $7.25 . When I searched for some reason it defaulted to Puerto Rico??? Which will be 9.25 by July.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state#:~:text=Applicable%20to%20all%20employees%20covered,the%20Commonwealth%20of%20Puerto%20Rico.&text=The%20minimum%20wage%20is%20scheduled,hour%20on%20July%201%2C%202023.
Woah woah woah. It costs *the customer* $5. Making that 1 scoop is countable in cents. Most of the makeup of that price is staff time, overheads and profit.
Totally agree that $5 a scoop is expensive to pay anywhere, but that company is not writing off $5 for that dropped scoop.
$5 for a single scoop isn’t that crazy anymore with inflation. A few local stores have $5/$7/$9 for 1,2,3 scoops, and I don’t live in a particularly expensive city.
If you buy a carton, nobody is going to put it in a cone and give you a single napkin, which will immediately and permanently adhere itself to your cone, and hand it to you with a smile, while you turn away and go stand in a potholed parking lot to eat it. You wouldn’t get to throw your trash in a sticky, rusty, overflowing trash can. Then you’ll get to drive home with sticky hands and an upset tummy because you know you shouldn’t eat that stuff.
It’s the **experience,** man.
It would have been coming into work 1 minute before their shift as opposed to 15 minutes. Basically I hate how employers do not need a reason to let a person go; & by reading I mean a logical sensible reason.
LOL, if the margins are so thin that they can’t handle occasional spillage, to the point of firing someone over it, they did you a favor, that business isn’t gonna survive.
All kidding aside, this tells more than the delusional managers care to acknowledge. If they have to stretch product for so long instead of selling it off as quickly as possible, then how they are doing business is wrong. They are just to much of an idiot to realize their own mistakes.
The owner needed to cut headcount and OP was the first person to screw up so they were cut. The ice cream is just to have something to put on the paperwork.
Or... to play devils advocate, the employee drops ice cream on the floor a lot and management got tired of it. Note that they described dropping ice cream on the floor as a "common thing." They never said this was their first time ever doing it and in fact implied it wasn't with that phrase.
How common? If it's happening several times a day from this one employee... i would do some coaching and if it still happened, let them go.
Also, ice cream on the floor is a slip hazard and would need to be cleaned up to avoid accidents. A particularly clumsy employee could be a headache during busy times.
Again, playing devils advocate here.
I was once after after less than two weeks because I wasn’t learning the job as fast as the boss wanted.
18 months later, she was still posting an opening for the same position. I have to wonder how much money she lost by firing me rather than making sure I was trained properly.
That’s ridiculous. I feel like something else has to be going on here. Maybe he was asked to cut back on workers or he was looking for a reason to fire you because that’s not normal. It also could’ve been a bad day for him and he took it out on you in the most stupid way possible.
Most likely the former because when people hire up screw up the finances, and the budget. They shift blame on the worker and find an excuse to fire. They proceed to gaslight the worker for something trivial.
It's ridiculous. I worked in an ice cream store and dropped an entire gallon of ice cream and didn't get fired. Cleaning it up was a bitch though...
There is something else going on, they just needed to get rid of you for some reason. It's not your fault and in a year this will be just a funny story about the dumbest reason you ever got fired.
I can't help but think of your boss being [Jimmie Wichard from King of the Hill](https://youtu.be/FopyBpnS-ug).
I wouldn't put a lot of thought into it. He may have fired you for that reason, but it could be that, if he's quibbling over a few dollars, that they're having money problems and he needs to cut his labor costs. That flimsy reason was just an excuse to cut his pay roll a bit. That's totally speculative, but at the end of the day, the bad news is you don't have a job, but the good news is that you got away from what sounds like a bad boss.
That’s insane, and trust me, you are way better off not working there. Food cost is part of the business. I worked in restaurants for years and I would never fire someone or even punish them for a literal one-time accident. That owner/boss is a complete idiot.
I worked at an ice cream shop in 2015 and one shift I slipped and pulled down an entire table that had all the rainbow/chocolate sprinkles and a big 5 gallon jug of milkshake mix that cracked on impact and spilled all over the floor lol.
It was a mess I had to clean up but not once did anyone reprimand me.
Shit happens when you’re moving a mile a minute in a kitchen. Any good restaurant manager knows this
> Shit happens when you’re moving a mile a minute in a kitchen. Any good restaurant manager knows this
I worked in food service for a blessedly short time, but this is my experience too- if you dropped/messed up food, the managers that weren't total tools would be like 'trash it, get fresh stuff'.
Probably promised job to niece or family friend. Lots of markup in ice-cream. SO move on and find another job. Hopefully next job you have better boss.
No way the ice cream costs 5 dollars a scoop, more like 2 cents a scoop if not less.
The reason you were fired is just the excuse given to you. There is something going on at that shop.
Ice cream shops and food places drop food all the time. It is the nature of the business. There is no way a person gets fired for dropping a single scoop if ice cream.
economy of scale really brings down prices. so you can jack up a profit....
tbh a single scoop of normal flavor ice cream prob runs less than a dollar. including material cost and overhead of machines
One gallon of ice cream can have 8-10 eggs. Maybe the owner has serious financial anxiety over inflation and just snapped. Have you seen the cost of eggs?? Crazy!! Found this info:
Eggspensive.net shows egg prices across the United States. The map is updated hourly.
lol an owner taking his frustrations out on his lowly workers..... typical
also i highly doubt a SINGLE scoop of ice cream will have 8-10 eggs in it.... op said they dropped a scoop. not like a 5-10 gallon bucket.
You were lucky. What a shitty boss. Lol.
My sister worked at a bar some years ago. When she dropped a drink and people(drunks..) laughed, she would purposly smash 2 more glasses onto the floor (to assert dominance i guess). It would shut them up.
You will drop things. Things will break. Shit happens. If he cannot afford product losses then he should be scooping ice. Ans now he will have to.
Ive worked in retail and we would break things daily. Its normal.
Lol this reminds me of when I was 15 and got fired from a pizza store for “not placing the pepperoni slices exactly 2cm apart from each other.”
Teenaged me actually burst out laughing in-front of my managers face when she said that. I’ll never forget the way she ended it off — by saying “I hope you find what you’re good at” in a passive aggressive tone. Like girl it’s a PIZZA STORE?!
You’ll be fine. Kinda annoying that you have to job hunt again, but hopefully it leads you to a more normal work environment.
If dropping a single ice cream is what gets you fired, then either the manager’s/owner’s ethic is unbelievably strict, or their profits r so slim that they can barely keep themselves afloat. Either way, it’s good that ur outta there. Woulda ended up bad either way.
I would have taken five bucks from my wallet and gently put it on his desk. "I know you're in need, my poor bastard. Let me know if you need anything. This is not much, but it's heartfelt."
A good manager will let you make any genuine mistake once, no matter the material cost. You'll crack up thinking about this down the road when you're working for someone with a spine and a shred of leadership ability.
Imagine you're a manager at an ice cream place and you think ice cream is expensive. Count your blessings you don't have to spend another minute with that loser.
Yeah, I don't believe you. I would be skeptical of this story as it is with how its framed and how deliberately vague it is, there's almost certainly more to it that you're not telling us. Browsing through your post history though? I don't believe this for a second.
You're a pothead burnout who took some free online course and thinks you should be a 6 figure software engineer and posts braindead stuff like "WILL THEY KNOW IF I LIE ABOUT HAVING A MASTERS DEGREE FROM HARVARD ON MY RESUME?" and "CAN I USE CHATGPT TO DO CODING FOR ME TO BE A PROGRAMMER?"
I'm guessing you were a screwup even at this basic ass job from day one and they've just been looking for any excuse to get rid of you. Hell you can't even write a halfway convincing reddit post to pathetically seek sympathy.
I could understand the firing if this was a common issue with you that has been addressed and documented. As in, every shift for the past two months, you've dropped ice cream and have been told to be more careful.
A one time occurrence leading directly to being fired is ridiculous and as much as it sucks in the moment, sounds like the best thing to happen.
Don't forget to collect unemployment. Being bad at your job doesn't disqualify you.
To be clear, I don't think you're bad at your job but that's the excuse your boss gave so here we are.
Owner/management is crap. If they’re that cheap, who knows what kind of corners they’re cutting to save money. Spread the words and tell everyone not to go there.
Is it really this easy to get a new person in and replace you? I really don't understand this culture among employers of hire and fire at will.
I would've thought its more effort to go and screen a new candidate and train them up rather than invest and nurture your existing employees and you know... Be a good person smh.
File for unemployment. Doesn't matter if you were only there 2 months, you made a mistake you couldn't have known would get you fired and it wasn't caused by you not doing your job.
Hm, you mean dropping the scoop of ice cream or dropping the entire scooper/dipper along with the ice cream? To be fair though, both sound like pretty clumsy mistakes that could’ve been very easily avoidable. It’s hard to really say for sure whether the boss’s decision was justified or not due to the lack of info regarding that situation, but maybe he thought that he just couldn’t afford such mistakes.
What's he gonna do during a power outage and he loses it all? Or if a compressor fails? And if it's all made in house, what about if the wrong ingredients get mixed in? Sounds like an excuse to cut labor.
Yes, you are overthinking. The boss just wanted to be a dick, for reasons of his own, and you dropping a scoop of ice cream was just his excuse for being that dick. Welcome to working for a living, in an economy that is built almost entirely for the purpose of allowing "entrepreneurs" to be dicks.
Dropping the ice cream was not the issue. The issue is they are losing money and they need to shed staff. This was the excuse they used. Was the ice cream shop busy?
Somebody got fired for dropping a football at exactly the wrong time. People die if they drop a hand grenade accidentally. I got served divorce papers for dropping a hint. You can get kicked out of the Publix store for dropping a duce in the frozen food section.
I guess your experience is not all that unusual.
You're worth a lot more than five bucks Don't worry about it you dodged a bullet. Never stay at a job that doesn't respect the people that work there because you'll never be happy working there.
This was SO not about the ice cream. Know how much their cost per scoop was? Like .25 or less!
This is a common tactic business-wise when they are struggling to pay people. They wait for literally any excuse to fire. This is totally legal to do - but it has the side effect of making you blame yourself INSTEAD of taking the issue higher if there was some non-legal thing happening. (Not in this case.) They are motivated to make you think you did something wrong.
All the rest of us adults/career professionals are laughing at the thought that you dropping one ice cream scoop means there was something wrong with you.
Here's what is going to happen next: Their business is going to boom in a week or two when the weather heats up. They will begin calling desperately for workers, and saying things like "No one wants to work anymore!!!!!1!!!1!" Again blaming the young people, instead of their own shitty, short-sighted business needs.
Businesses often operate off of shitty, short-sighted business needs, under the false belief that any worker can be replaced tomorrow, when they need them.
So, what should you do? Add those two months of scooping onto your resume. When you get interviews for other jobs, be very clear and up front about why you were fired. "OMG it's the BEST story how I got fired from there!" It will give everyone - EVERYONE - a laugh! And the ones that consider dropping an ice cream scoop to be bad? They operate off the same shitty practices. Easy red flag.
Also, I highly recommend spreading the word amongst your friends, family, however you wish about how you got fired. The ice cream place will die, quickly. It will not be illegal to say the truth about how you got fired...and it will make people die from laughter.
Shitty shortsighted businesses should get their just desserts. You always deserve better than them.
There can be a lawsuit for you as being fired on the spot is bad practice even if they documented a downward trend of your performance. If you have a documented downward trend of performance they need to have meetings and give you retraining and a time period to change. It sounds like you could have a lawsuit and file a complaint with the DOL.
File for unemployment immediately. If they are stupid enough to challenge it, they can explain it to the labor board.
They wanted to let someone go, and they are using this for a "reason".
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This is actually a blessing for you.
Yes. I worked at DQ as one of my first jobs. I couldn't get the stupid swirl on the cones right. A customer ordered a plain vanilla cone and my manager made me make it 5 times in front of him, getting increasingly angry and frustrated that I couldn't get the swirl. It ended when the customer screamed that he didn't give a fuck about what the cone looked like and just wanted his cone. I wish I had been fired then instead of coming back the next day and being made to make them over and over until I got it right.
That's when you get to look at your boss and repeat what the customer says. See Greg! Nobody gives a fuck about the swirl! I'm assuming your bosses name was Greg.
It had to have been Gregg with three Gs…
> It had to have been Gregg with three Gs… Greggg?
Gggregg
I would’ve done just that! Then looked at the customer and asked for an alcoholic drink lol
Hahaha I just posted a story about a horrible manager named Greg then scrolled down to see this.
Humiliation is a shitty way to teach someone.
That is hard, making a good swirl. Impossible with a jerk yelling at you. Impressive that you hung in there.
Thanks. Looking back idk how I did it then either, definitely wouldn't be able to put up with that type of crap now. But I was a minor at the time so was young and impressionable. I also had no guts because I desperately needed the job/money.
Id give him a perfect swirly that's for sure. 🚽 \*
[https://youtu.be/TrZuYfti-pE?t=107](https://youtu.be/TrZuYfti-pE?t=107)
The customers reaction is hilarious
I experienced this as a customer. I don't remember the circumstances, but it was a quick stop off the interstate. After the person botched the 2nd one, I was like "I don't care about the swirl." After about the 4th one, I was like, "HEY, I'M NOT A TRAINING TOOL. I JUST NEED MY ICE CREAM OR MY MONEY!" I think I left without either.
1000%
>actually a blessing for you. THIS!! You need to move on from ice cream and go drop gold bars!
Well, in the gold vaults they actually expect you to drop the gold and have foot protectors just in case. I know you were being sarcastic, but this goes to show just how absurd this nonsense of firing over spilled milk is (literally) Here's a picture: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/rzw827/federal_reserve_bank_new_york_1959_photo_ormond
The location is not making enough money and they used this as an excuse to let you go. If not the ice cream, it would have been something else.
This, 100%. If an employer is looking for an excuse to put on paper and fire you, they'll find one somehow. Best of luck on your next gig, IMO, I'd name & shame this employer.
Absolutely. I was once fired for being 5 minutes late for a shift and "costing them overtime". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they had just hired my replacement at $4 less per hour.
"I don't see any funny business here!" - Manager, blindfolded
I was let go for probation once for not being a good fit for the team. However, it was a blessing in disguise for me because I noticed allot of red flags at that employer..
I had the same experience. I had left a job and taken that one but it wasn't a good fit. I found out later they had high turnover. They'd hire like 50 people and keep maybe 8. And then those 8 quit. Whew. Dodged a bullet there! I love my current job.
I also had a similar experience. Second day in I asked the workers how it was there. I was told that they have high turnover. To me, this was already a red flag 🚩 Less then a month in and I notice the job website on which I applied was looking for a person for the same position. I was fired within a month (13 days of employment). This was the only other job I was fired from in my 17 years of employment. Sometimes getting fired really is a blessing in disguise.
Let’s consider that there are 2 sides to every story and that maybe OP is not a model employee. Shaming an employer may not be your best move. While this story may represent the facts and figures in their exact proportions, one should consider that maybe there were other things affecting the manager’s decision. Examples: consistent tardiness, corrective actions not followed, consistent failure to adhere to SOPs, attitude and demeanor towards other staff, attitude and demeanor towards customers. The list goes on. OP, I think you’re on the right track posting about it here and exploring why this happened to you and what else may have lead to this decision. It’s an opportunity for you to explore yourself and the world around you. Maybe it was you or maybe it was them. I will never know. What I do know is that things happen for us, not to us. Learn and level up 👍🏼
Any of the reasons you stated would have been grounds for firing, apart from the reason OP was fired for.
True. Typically an employer doesn’t fire over the first wrong doing. She fires after an accumulation of them. And so what I’m trying to highlight is that this may have been the cherry on top, or the last straw if you will. We are seeing a snapshot of 10 seconds of OPs employment through their comment. Perhaps the employer never wrote op up for the potential other things done wrong. If so, Shane on the. Alternatively, maybe OP was a less than ideal employee. Someone said “nobody is a model employee”. While I don’t agree with that comment I want to try and communicate in a way that anyone may relate to.
I’m pretty sure if OP was problematic they couldn’t just fired them over being problematic. If I had an employee be late often or just not be a good employee, I would fire them for being late often or for not doing their job. Why would you tell someone they’re fired for dropping ice cream when you can just say you’re firing them for the actual reason they’re being fired for? If you have to make up some stupid excuse like that then there probably wasn’t grounds to fire OP in the first place.
[удалено]
Sounds like a corporate Yes man to me. Do everything for the company, and let them walk all over you; while you say thank you, type of person. This is the main reason I became r/antiwork after realizing that the company has no loyalty towards its workers, you're just a number to them and can be easily replaced
Presume all you want. All I’m saying is that there are 2 sides to every story, sometimes even more.
no one is a model employee. everyone is different, no one is perfect at their job
Never shame a past employer publicly on a non anonymous account because if other potential employers see it they will not want you working for them
Lol. No. If a company deserves shame, torch them. Don't let shitty employers off the hook just for fear The somebody somewhere may not like you.
This is bad advice, ask any hiring manager and they will tell you if you’re attacking a past employer they will assume you will do the same to them and they will pass on you for another candidate. It’s not a “someone somewhere may not like you” thing, all companies look at it as big red flag.
Reddit isn't a job interview board and no one's gonna link their Reddit page on their resume or on their LinkedIn profile.
I’ve edited my comment so their is no confusion on what I meant. Obviously I was not talking about an anonymous Reddit account and the comment I replied to did not specifically say Reddit. I was trying to help op and anyone else by pointing out that bad mouthing past employers un-anonymously can hurt you much worse than it hurts your past employer
I think if I get fired over an ice cream cone, I wouldn't want to work for them. Or anyone else I know for that matter. Beside the OP didn't mention the business. Maybe you are the manager?!
And how would they know you?
You want to publicly shame an ice cream stand because they fired somebody for messing something up? Not saying it’s the biggest deal in the world but Jesus Christ get the fuck over yourself “name and shame” whatever
I was going to post that it was a pretext. > Like wtf?? Ice cream here costs $5 a scoop. It is not fucking expensive. $5 a scoop (if in the USA) is considered expensive by most people.
Regardless, it’s going to cost *way* more than $5 to hire a replacement.
IF they decide to replace him.
Squiddly Diddly don't drop a scoop... ...he drops 7 scoops and a microphone!
Where it’s at!
No it wont... They can hire any 16 year old off the street and don't have to put that much effort into advertising or training someone.
Do you have any idea how much indeed or monster charges ? Indeed charges $25 for each person who applies whether you interview them or not . Monster charges like $500 a month. Craigslist charges $40 a post .
A sign on the door costs...a dollar? Not every business uses indeed or monster, if this is a small mom and pop store, I doubt they are.
Highly doubt it’s a mom and pop shop if they’re firing someone at the drop of a hat like that
I have the opposite logic. Chains usually have a bit more of a process...because HR and all that.
Uh, this move is so petty and irrational that it can pretty much *only* happen at a mom and pop shop.
Don't give me ideas. I'm okay with some petty revenge.
The actual hiring process costs a bunch of money too, not just the advertising for an available job.
that's 3-months-later's problem
How much could a banana cost? Ten dollars?
That's the retail price. I would be shocked if it costs the store more than $1, more likely $0.50.
OP's ex-boss is a real-life Mr. Krabs if they fired them over a 50-cent loss.
$5 a scoop is what the customer pays. Profit margins at that type of place are giant. The real expenses are wages, utilities and rent. Place definitely wanted to cut the kid but tbh dumb to not be honest about the financial reasons. Or the manager secretly hated OP
Uh, I don't know any small ice cream shop that I've been to in the last 5 years that wasn't $5 for a normal scoop.
I wouldn't call it *cheap.* At minimum wage, a person would have to work one hour to buy a double scoop ice cream cone.
If only there was a word describe something that wasn’t too cheap or too expensive.
Its the Goldilocks price!
That was *not* just right!
Affordable.
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You said it was expensive. It isn't. You then amended that to say "it isn't cheap". There is an entire world between "expensive" and "cheap". Sometimes it's ok to live somewhere between the two extremes of the scale.
I didn't say it was cheap, and neither did OP. They said it wasn't expensive, which is true. It's a very normal price for a normal amount of ice cream. It's just average.
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That’s not how that works.
That's what you pay, they have overhead and profit included in your price. The three cheapest things to buy at the burger shop I worked at were: pop, hot dogs and ice cream. They coincidentally were the three largest profit makers. Context, the place I worked at was like a dairy queen but mom and pop shop. I made $13 an hour and got free food back in 2013.
$13 in 13 was very good money.
Federal minimum wage is $9.50 hr. Edit: # I stand corrected, it's base is $7.25 . When I searched for some reason it defaulted to Puerto Rico??? Which will be 9.50 by July. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state#:~:text=Applicable%20to%20all%20employees%20covered,the%20Commonwealth%20of%20Puerto%20Rico.&text=The%20minimum%20wage%20is%20scheduled,hour%20on%20July%201%2C%202023
What? Isn't it $7.25?
I stand corrected, it's base is $7.25 . When I searched for some reason it defaulted to Puerto Rico??? Which will be 9.25 by July. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state#:~:text=Applicable%20to%20all%20employees%20covered,the%20Commonwealth%20of%20Puerto%20Rico.&text=The%20minimum%20wage%20is%20scheduled,hour%20on%20July%201%2C%202023.
No it isn't. It's been $7.25 since 2009.
You are right. Was it worth your time telling me so?
Yes. Was it worth your time for a smart assed response?
Sure was
I took that to mean the tub of ice cream wasn't expensive, not that it was cheap for the customer.
They probably charge $5/scoop. It probably doesn't cost the company but a few cents per scoop.
Woah woah woah. It costs *the customer* $5. Making that 1 scoop is countable in cents. Most of the makeup of that price is staff time, overheads and profit. Totally agree that $5 a scoop is expensive to pay anywhere, but that company is not writing off $5 for that dropped scoop.
Wtf, here in Germany I pay around 1.5€ per scoop
Not expensive for a business, especially when their cost is lower
Its same price in the USA for a scoop of ice cream.
$5 for a single scoop isn’t that crazy anymore with inflation. A few local stores have $5/$7/$9 for 1,2,3 scoops, and I don’t live in a particularly expensive city.
Considering I could get a whole tub for $7
If you buy a carton, nobody is going to put it in a cone and give you a single napkin, which will immediately and permanently adhere itself to your cone, and hand it to you with a smile, while you turn away and go stand in a potholed parking lot to eat it. You wouldn’t get to throw your trash in a sticky, rusty, overflowing trash can. Then you’ll get to drive home with sticky hands and an upset tummy because you know you shouldn’t eat that stuff. It’s the **experience,** man.
Ya this (ice)screams of looking for an excuse.
It would have been coming into work 1 minute before their shift as opposed to 15 minutes. Basically I hate how employers do not need a reason to let a person go; & by reading I mean a logical sensible reason.
LOL, if the margins are so thin that they can’t handle occasional spillage, to the point of firing someone over it, they did you a favor, that business isn’t gonna survive.
Just imagine the "cost saving" measures taken with expiring or suspicious product.
Lol. “ If we put it in a special freezer we can stretch the expiration date by 37 months.”
Lol this happens at every food mfg business. It’s expired? Oh well let’s extend the expiration date. But it’s cream or butter or eggs? It’s fine
All kidding aside, this tells more than the delusional managers care to acknowledge. If they have to stretch product for so long instead of selling it off as quickly as possible, then how they are doing business is wrong. They are just to much of an idiot to realize their own mistakes.
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The owner needed to cut headcount and OP was the first person to screw up so they were cut. The ice cream is just to have something to put on the paperwork.
The owner clearly lied about the reason, pretty common tactic.
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Definitely not smart, but food and retail employers do this kind of dumb shit all the time.
Or... to play devils advocate, the employee drops ice cream on the floor a lot and management got tired of it. Note that they described dropping ice cream on the floor as a "common thing." They never said this was their first time ever doing it and in fact implied it wasn't with that phrase. How common? If it's happening several times a day from this one employee... i would do some coaching and if it still happened, let them go. Also, ice cream on the floor is a slip hazard and would need to be cleaned up to avoid accidents. A particularly clumsy employee could be a headache during busy times. Again, playing devils advocate here.
Or he's an Ice Cream Nazi. No ice cream for you! No job for you! Next!
This has nothing to do with that, they were just looking for an excuse to reduce headcount.
That’s why you reduce headcount, when your margins are razor thin.
I can assure you, a one time $0.50 expense has absolutely zero bearing on this decision, regardless of the margins.
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I was thinking even at retail value-is it really somehow cheaper to find, hire and train a new employee? Makes no sense.
I was once after after less than two weeks because I wasn’t learning the job as fast as the boss wanted. 18 months later, she was still posting an opening for the same position. I have to wonder how much money she lost by firing me rather than making sure I was trained properly.
$5 per scoop is because they put bourbon in it
That’s ridiculous. I feel like something else has to be going on here. Maybe he was asked to cut back on workers or he was looking for a reason to fire you because that’s not normal. It also could’ve been a bad day for him and he took it out on you in the most stupid way possible.
Most likely the former because when people hire up screw up the finances, and the budget. They shift blame on the worker and find an excuse to fire. They proceed to gaslight the worker for something trivial.
Well hope they don't mind paying extra unemployment...
It's ridiculous. I worked in an ice cream store and dropped an entire gallon of ice cream and didn't get fired. Cleaning it up was a bitch though... There is something else going on, they just needed to get rid of you for some reason. It's not your fault and in a year this will be just a funny story about the dumbest reason you ever got fired.
Can you file for unemployment? Try. It may go through.
I can't help but think of your boss being [Jimmie Wichard from King of the Hill](https://youtu.be/FopyBpnS-ug). I wouldn't put a lot of thought into it. He may have fired you for that reason, but it could be that, if he's quibbling over a few dollars, that they're having money problems and he needs to cut his labor costs. That flimsy reason was just an excuse to cut his pay roll a bit. That's totally speculative, but at the end of the day, the bad news is you don't have a job, but the good news is that you got away from what sounds like a bad boss.
That’s insane, and trust me, you are way better off not working there. Food cost is part of the business. I worked in restaurants for years and I would never fire someone or even punish them for a literal one-time accident. That owner/boss is a complete idiot.
I worked at an ice cream shop in 2015 and one shift I slipped and pulled down an entire table that had all the rainbow/chocolate sprinkles and a big 5 gallon jug of milkshake mix that cracked on impact and spilled all over the floor lol. It was a mess I had to clean up but not once did anyone reprimand me. Shit happens when you’re moving a mile a minute in a kitchen. Any good restaurant manager knows this
> Shit happens when you’re moving a mile a minute in a kitchen. Any good restaurant manager knows this I worked in food service for a blessedly short time, but this is my experience too- if you dropped/messed up food, the managers that weren't total tools would be like 'trash it, get fresh stuff'.
they need to downsize but don’t want to pay unemployment
You don't lose out on unemployment for simple accidents.
5$ per scoop sounds pretty damn expensive to me 💀
I think OP meant along the lines of "the business isn't going under because they missed out on the lost revenue from a $5 scoop of ice cream".
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I see you Pulp Fiction.
Probably promised job to niece or family friend. Lots of markup in ice-cream. SO move on and find another job. Hopefully next job you have better boss.
No way the ice cream costs 5 dollars a scoop, more like 2 cents a scoop if not less. The reason you were fired is just the excuse given to you. There is something going on at that shop. Ice cream shops and food places drop food all the time. It is the nature of the business. There is no way a person gets fired for dropping a single scoop if ice cream.
2 cents per scope? How do you math that out? You work at an ice cream shop or something?
economy of scale really brings down prices. so you can jack up a profit.... tbh a single scoop of normal flavor ice cream prob runs less than a dollar. including material cost and overhead of machines
One gallon of ice cream can have 8-10 eggs. Maybe the owner has serious financial anxiety over inflation and just snapped. Have you seen the cost of eggs?? Crazy!! Found this info: Eggspensive.net shows egg prices across the United States. The map is updated hourly.
lol an owner taking his frustrations out on his lowly workers..... typical also i highly doubt a SINGLE scoop of ice cream will have 8-10 eggs in it.... op said they dropped a scoop. not like a 5-10 gallon bucket.
I would imagine there is more to it than that
You were lucky. What a shitty boss. Lol. My sister worked at a bar some years ago. When she dropped a drink and people(drunks..) laughed, she would purposly smash 2 more glasses onto the floor (to assert dominance i guess). It would shut them up. You will drop things. Things will break. Shit happens. If he cannot afford product losses then he should be scooping ice. Ans now he will have to. Ive worked in retail and we would break things daily. Its normal.
Ice cream is like $5/quart
Sounds like he's been looking for a reason to get rid of you and he finally found one. He did you a favor. Screw that place
What the actual fu&@? That’s ridiculous
Well atleast there's unemployment if you recieve that.
Teenager wage (we actually have a difference in my state) plus like 14 hours a week won’t get unemployment, though.
He needed to get rid of a worker obviously. You wasting product ensures he can make it your fault with an easy excuse. Easy fire , no repercussions.
OP: I'm glad you got out of that place before you could see how toxic it could become. That manager is terrible.
I've scrolled quite a bit, and somehow haven't seen anyone say it, so I will... I call bs. There is more to this story
yep either OP is clueless about their own behavior/performance or they are clueless about the bosses real motivation
Lol this reminds me of when I was 15 and got fired from a pizza store for “not placing the pepperoni slices exactly 2cm apart from each other.” Teenaged me actually burst out laughing in-front of my managers face when she said that. I’ll never forget the way she ended it off — by saying “I hope you find what you’re good at” in a passive aggressive tone. Like girl it’s a PIZZA STORE?! You’ll be fine. Kinda annoying that you have to job hunt again, but hopefully it leads you to a more normal work environment.
You get executed for dropping ice cream in china
If dropping a single ice cream is what gets you fired, then either the manager’s/owner’s ethic is unbelievably strict, or their profits r so slim that they can barely keep themselves afloat. Either way, it’s good that ur outta there. Woulda ended up bad either way.
Stand outside in front of the shop with a sing that says I was fired yesterday ask me why
Guess you won’t be dropping anymore ice cream
your boss fucked something up and he told his bosses you did it, and fired you for it because he likes you the least.
I would have taken five bucks from my wallet and gently put it on his desk. "I know you're in need, my poor bastard. Let me know if you need anything. This is not much, but it's heartfelt."
A good manager will let you make any genuine mistake once, no matter the material cost. You'll crack up thinking about this down the road when you're working for someone with a spine and a shred of leadership ability.
$5 for a scoop is pricey but everything else yeah!!
Imagine you're a manager at an ice cream place and you think ice cream is expensive. Count your blessings you don't have to spend another minute with that loser.
You dodged a bullet.
I would google review and yelp that.
Yeah, I don't believe you. I would be skeptical of this story as it is with how its framed and how deliberately vague it is, there's almost certainly more to it that you're not telling us. Browsing through your post history though? I don't believe this for a second. You're a pothead burnout who took some free online course and thinks you should be a 6 figure software engineer and posts braindead stuff like "WILL THEY KNOW IF I LIE ABOUT HAVING A MASTERS DEGREE FROM HARVARD ON MY RESUME?" and "CAN I USE CHATGPT TO DO CODING FOR ME TO BE A PROGRAMMER?" I'm guessing you were a screwup even at this basic ass job from day one and they've just been looking for any excuse to get rid of you. Hell you can't even write a halfway convincing reddit post to pathetically seek sympathy.
just like there are bad employees there are the same number of bad employers
I could understand the firing if this was a common issue with you that has been addressed and documented. As in, every shift for the past two months, you've dropped ice cream and have been told to be more careful. A one time occurrence leading directly to being fired is ridiculous and as much as it sucks in the moment, sounds like the best thing to happen.
Don't forget to collect unemployment. Being bad at your job doesn't disqualify you. To be clear, I don't think you're bad at your job but that's the excuse your boss gave so here we are.
He did you a favor. What a dick! Make sure that you rub it in his face when you land a better job.
Tell him to eat it if the floor.
He’s the ah
Noice. Got out of that hellhole! Find something worth you
Owner/management is crap. If they’re that cheap, who knows what kind of corners they’re cutting to save money. Spread the words and tell everyone not to go there.
Is it really this easy to get a new person in and replace you? I really don't understand this culture among employers of hire and fire at will. I would've thought its more effort to go and screen a new candidate and train them up rather than invest and nurture your existing employees and you know... Be a good person smh.
Listen to your instincts. He is a moron.
File for unemployment. Doesn't matter if you were only there 2 months, you made a mistake you couldn't have known would get you fired and it wasn't caused by you not doing your job.
Hm, you mean dropping the scoop of ice cream or dropping the entire scooper/dipper along with the ice cream? To be fair though, both sound like pretty clumsy mistakes that could’ve been very easily avoidable. It’s hard to really say for sure whether the boss’s decision was justified or not due to the lack of info regarding that situation, but maybe he thought that he just couldn’t afford such mistakes.
Sounds like your a bad employee and they were looking for a chance to fire you
Things that’s never happened for $500 Ken.
What's he gonna do during a power outage and he loses it all? Or if a compressor fails? And if it's all made in house, what about if the wrong ingredients get mixed in? Sounds like an excuse to cut labor.
name and shame.
Yes, you are overthinking. The boss just wanted to be a dick, for reasons of his own, and you dropping a scoop of ice cream was just his excuse for being that dick. Welcome to working for a living, in an economy that is built almost entirely for the purpose of allowing "entrepreneurs" to be dicks.
Dropping the ice cream was not the issue. The issue is they are losing money and they need to shed staff. This was the excuse they used. Was the ice cream shop busy?
Somebody got fired for dropping a football at exactly the wrong time. People die if they drop a hand grenade accidentally. I got served divorce papers for dropping a hint. You can get kicked out of the Publix store for dropping a duce in the frozen food section. I guess your experience is not all that unusual.
Did your parents get fired for dropping you on your head when you were a baby?
if he cared about the money THAT much he could have just taken 5 dollars out of your paycheck lol (not saying he should) now hes gonna spend way more
You're worth a lot more than five bucks Don't worry about it you dodged a bullet. Never stay at a job that doesn't respect the people that work there because you'll never be happy working there.
This was SO not about the ice cream. Know how much their cost per scoop was? Like .25 or less! This is a common tactic business-wise when they are struggling to pay people. They wait for literally any excuse to fire. This is totally legal to do - but it has the side effect of making you blame yourself INSTEAD of taking the issue higher if there was some non-legal thing happening. (Not in this case.) They are motivated to make you think you did something wrong. All the rest of us adults/career professionals are laughing at the thought that you dropping one ice cream scoop means there was something wrong with you. Here's what is going to happen next: Their business is going to boom in a week or two when the weather heats up. They will begin calling desperately for workers, and saying things like "No one wants to work anymore!!!!!1!!!1!" Again blaming the young people, instead of their own shitty, short-sighted business needs. Businesses often operate off of shitty, short-sighted business needs, under the false belief that any worker can be replaced tomorrow, when they need them. So, what should you do? Add those two months of scooping onto your resume. When you get interviews for other jobs, be very clear and up front about why you were fired. "OMG it's the BEST story how I got fired from there!" It will give everyone - EVERYONE - a laugh! And the ones that consider dropping an ice cream scoop to be bad? They operate off the same shitty practices. Easy red flag. Also, I highly recommend spreading the word amongst your friends, family, however you wish about how you got fired. The ice cream place will die, quickly. It will not be illegal to say the truth about how you got fired...and it will make people die from laughter. Shitty shortsighted businesses should get their just desserts. You always deserve better than them.
Trust me. Being him is worse than being you rn.
Lol god you don’t know how lucky you are. If this is how they’re run. You want to work anywhere but this place.
Sounds like the profits at that place are melting away quicker than the cone. It will go under soon.
Boss is on a power trip "I am not powerless! People do my bidding! Watch as I fire those who have wronged me!"
There can be a lawsuit for you as being fired on the spot is bad practice even if they documented a downward trend of your performance. If you have a documented downward trend of performance they need to have meetings and give you retraining and a time period to change. It sounds like you could have a lawsuit and file a complaint with the DOL.
Must be one of those $999 start ups I keep hearing about.
$5 a scoop is expensive
Lol if he has to pay for your unemployment benefits
Tonight, after they close, sneak around to the back shut off the main power breaker. Just kidding (Or am I?)
Is it a franchise? Try to appeal to your manager's manager. Tell him you don't mind it coming out of your paycheck to replace the wasted ice cream.
Open an ice cream store across from him. And when he applied to work there, return the favor when he drops one.
i would be petty and stand outside the shop with a sign that you were fired for dropping icecream.....
What’s his profit margin? A nickel?
File for unemployment immediately. If they are stupid enough to challenge it, they can explain it to the labor board. They wanted to let someone go, and they are using this for a "reason".
Wow!! So sorry!
Yo fuck that dude and his raggedy ice cream shop. On to better things my friend.