Happy Monday. Allow me to beat the fun out of the drunk bro making himself food at Waffle House story.
If you haven’t heard, Alex Bowen was a bit tipsy when he hit up a South Carolina Waffle House around 3 a.m. and waited around a bit before realizing staffers were nowhere to be found. Figuring they were catching some shut eye, which was later confirmed in photos, he proceeded to make himself a snack.
He cleaned up, paid the next day and, according to his account on Facebook, seems like he was just having a good time.
But this part made me a bit sad:
“For safety reasons, our customers should never have to go behind the counter. Rather, they should get a quality experience delivered by friendly associates,” Waffle House said in a statement to ABC News. “We are reviewing this incident and will take appropriate disciplinary action. In a related note, obviously Alex has some cooking skills, and we’d like to talk to him about a job since we may have something for him.”
It makes sense that the company is looking into disciplinary action against the snoozing workers, but let’s point out a few things here:
While sleeping at work is understandably frowned upon, it looks like this worker had been studying? Also, it was 3 a.m. and these workers are paid like garbage to be treated like garbage by drunk people:
Also, while Bowen was all LOL about the whole thing, a photo posted by his friend (above) that shows someone sticking food in a snoozing worker’s face is just obnoxious.
Oh, and another thing: working overnights sucks. Often times, employers rotate people in and out of these shifts, making it impossible to get into any sort of rhythm. Being awake while your body wants to sleep is really bad for your health, and in the case of people working minimum wage jobs like ones at Waffle House, it’s possibly their second (or third) gig.
Hopefully, these workers don’t lose their jobs. Also, if you ever find yourself in Alex Bowen’s situation and really need your scattered and smothered hashbrowns, you could just say “excuse me” to the sleeping worker.
Or ask your Lyft driver to take you to the Taco Bell drive-thru like a normal human being.
DISCUSSION
jeeeesus...this article is obnoxious.
What the guy did was admirable since he paid and could have been much worse. When you work at ANY establishment, it’s your duty to at LEAST stay awake while doing your shift.
was he a bit douchey about it? sure. but when you walk into a restaurant, you expect service. not a single sleeping staff member. furthermore why was there only 1 person there? shouldn’t there be at a minimum one waitstaff and one cook?
sorry but we can’t excuse poor work cause “oh they must be tired” it’s inexcusable. I’ve been through rough schooling and struggling to make ends meet so there is no excuse. and the fact that they slept SO HEAVILY that they didn’t wake up when someone came in? absurd. that person should lose their job.