You may have read by now that many businesses will be open on the national holiday in an effort to squeeze out extra sales from holiday shoppers.
Pizza Hut is no exception and now the popular food chain is facing severe online criticism after one of it’s independent franchises fired a store manager for refusing to open Thanksgiving Day.
[FLASHBACK: WARNING! Oprah Thanksgiving Twitpics Inspired This Post? (PHOTOS)]
While Pizza on Thanksgiving may be a great alternative to Fried Turkey & Dressing (YUM!), Tony Rohr, the manager of a store in?in Elkhard, Indiana felt otherwise.
Rohr, was given instructions to open the store on Thanksgiving Day to boost sales. He refused… and he was fired!
Details below…
As more restaurants open on Thanksgiving to boost sales, one Pizza Hut manager decided that he’d had enough ? and it cost him his job.
After working his way up from cook to general manager at the company, Tony Rohr was fired, he said, for refusing to open his Elkhart, Ind., store on Thanksgiving, which he was told was mandatory.
“I just decided I wasn’t going to agree to it,” Rohr said. “All of these people the whole year had been told they were going to have the day off.”
After receiving the mandatory instructions to open Thanksgiving day, Rohr wrote a letter to his boss explaining his position:
I am not quitting. I do not resign, however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company.
I hope you realize that it’s the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible,” his letter went on to say.
He said that in his 10 years with the company, this was the first time any location has asked him to work on Thanksgiving.
“They just said it was a competitive decision and that everyone was open, so we will be too,” Rohr added. “I said, ‘Why can’t we be the company that stands up and says we care about our employees, and let them have the day off?’ ”
He has not been in touch with the chain since his termination, he said.
One of Rohr’s bosses, the Director of Operations, was contacted and seems to feel that Rohr’s decision not to comply with company instruction means that he quit.? He said opening on Thanksgiving wasn’t ‘an individual’s decision it was a company decision’.
Pizza Hut’s corporate offices heard about the situation and responded via it’s facebook page, stating:
But that doesn’t mean Rohr got his job back.? He hasn’t heard from his employer since being terminated and despite being laid off right before the holiday season, Rohr said he has no regrets about the decision that cost him his job, stating:
“No, not at all,” he said. “I’m glad I did that.”
[Sidebar: Who da hell eats PIZZA on Thanksgiving any dayum way?!?! :shock:]