Food truck employee fired for rage tweeting about a $0 tip

Anatomy of a social media disaster

Social media is both a great amplifier and equalizer. Business communication may have been forever changed because of the use of social media and we seem to see weekly examples in the national media of the growing pains individuals and companies face in acclimatizing to their new voices and exposure.

While there seems to be a constantly growing roster of teachers getting fired for posting something online their students shouldn’t see and an open list of shame to which some companies appear to be attracted like moths to flames, few social media snafus highlight the complete array of communication failures like this week’s firing of a food truck employee in New York because of his Twitter shaming of the company (Glass Lewis & Co.) whose employees failed to tip on a large order.

The employee failed, the offended company foolishly damaged their own reputation, and the employer who fired the food-truck worker could have done better as well. Let’s examine each of their behavior briefly:

• The Employer (The Milk Truck): The owner of the food truck was the middle-man in this exchange, but probably holds the greatest responsibility. In the employee’s blog-column about the incident after being fired, he mentions the owner told him he “thought he understood” the company’s way of doing business. Why any company would fail to have a code of conduct baffles me in this day and age. This business, in particular, encouraged engagement with social media, so some rules should have been very clearly set for the employees. The employee later said that he knew there was a chance of getting fired for his tweet – he should have known exactly what the expectations were for his use of social media and his dealing with customers who don’t tip.
• The Employee (Brendan O’Connor): This guy should grow up. But he also states that he knew that he might get fired prior to following through on his actions and being unsatisfied with the job, did not care much if he got fired. Still, he could have done a better job representing his company and his own character had he handled it more maturely. He addressed some of the non-tippers verbally and got no response. He could have stated the impact of their actions more clearly, or he could have talked with his boss about the possibility of adding automatic tips to large orders the way many restaurants do.
• The Customer (Glass Lewis & Co): Beyond the jerky behavior of not tipping on a large order, this company’s reaction is the only reason we all know about this incident. I might have heard of the company prior to this, but didn’t know what they did and had no feelings toward them one way or another. Their actions, though, provided them more mentions in social media in a couple days than they likely had received in the past couple years – and it was all negative. Offended by the tweet mentioning their non-tipping employees, they called the owner of the truck and complained. Knowing that might get the employee fired, what did they think the employee would do next? This employee happened to have a regular column on a New York online publication which only magnified the ineptitude of their mistake. The employee had a relatively small number of followers – none of whom were likely customers of this company that handles proxy voting for corporations. Had they done nothing, that one, little tweet would have been the end of the story.

As you consider your own company’s use of social media, take a lesson from each of the above. Set clear rules for your employees and more often than not, they will follow them. Don’t react like Brendan to annoying customers – nothing positive was accomplished for Brendan or his company by his actions. And don’t be Glass Lewis & Co. and hurt your own company by acting in a manner which has a likelihood of magnifying a small incident.