Here’s a tip: Shaming a Wall Steet firm on social media can cost you your job.
A Manhattan sandwich slinger says he was canned after he called out the “good people” of Glass, Lewis & Co. on Twitter for placing a $170 order — and then stiffing workers on a gratuity.
Brendan O’Connor’s employer — the grilled cheese maker Milk Truck — got a call from the advisory firm about the tip-shaming tweet, and then sent out a public apology to its spurned customer the next day.
“I had embarrassed him and the company and that was that,” O’Connor, who declined to say how much he made, wrote on The Awl.com.
O’Connor said he was working at the Milk Truck stall at the South Street Seaport a busy lunch spot for hungry Wall Street titans — when a group from Glass Lewis placed a “huge order” requesting several different types of sandwiches and milkshakes.
“A line grew while we worked, and we had to tell other customers that their lunch orders would take longer than usual,” O’Connor said.
After the Wall Street workers paid their $170 tab, O’Connor said he asked his colleagues if they left a tip. They hadn’t.
“I asked some of the group as they were picking up their orders if they had intended to not tip,” O’Connor added. “They hemmed and hawed and walked away.”
The tipping fiasco angered some on social media, who’ve even called for boycotts against Glass Lewis and Milk Truck.
O’Connor told the Daily News that while he “knew the story would be provocative,” he didn’t realize how strongly people would react.
“Honestly, I’m not particularly surprised I got fired,” said O’Connor, a freelance writer who was hired part-time by Milk Truck in mid-May.
“Heck, I’d probably fire me!” he added, acknowledging that his boss “was well within his rights.”
Still, O'Connor notes the inequities involved.
"A part-time food-truck worker with 300 Twitter followers managed to shame some Wall Street firm into getting him fired," he wrote on The Awl. "What a world."
Glass Lewis didn't return requests for comment.
Milk Truck owner Keith Klein defended his decision to fire O'Connor, and said that if an employee is mistreated by a customer, he stands up for them. But in O'Connor's case, he had no choice.
"Because he didn’t receive the tip he felt he was entitled to, he abused our customer, first in person and then soon after, with his tweet," Klein told The News. "That’s why he was fired. It doesn’t matter who the customer was — company or individual — the outcome would’ve been the same."
He added that Milk Truck apologized to Glass Lewis "like we would to anyone who had had an unpleasant experience with us."
The tipping issue, meanwhile, has also brought up whether tipping at food trucks — like at sit-down restaurants — should even be expected.
Etiquette coach Tiffany Nielsen said it’s the right thing to do when eateries go out of their way on complicated or large orders.
“Why not tip a little extra? And if you don’t have the money, write them a thank-you note,” she said.
His entitled attitude lost him his job, but at least he realized it.
Edited by The King of All Cosmos, 01 August 2013 - 08:44 PM.
