Hero Pizza Hut manager gets fired for refuses to open on a Thanksgiving day. He later gets offered his job back after his story hits local news
In 2013, a Pizza Hut manager was fired for refusing to open on a Thanksgiving day. He wanted other employees to spend time with their families instead. Shortly after, the story hit local news, when Pizza Hut offered Tony his job back.
Tony Rohr was a 28 years old, working as a manager at a Pizza Hut franchise located in South Blend, Ind. Ten days prior to Thanksgiving, it was decided that all the stores were going to remain open, as part of competition, even though this has never happened before. As expected, it fell on Tony's shoulders to not only work on Thanksgiving, but also make sure other employees show up and work their usual hours.
Tony decided to go against it. On the day of Thanksgiving, neither Tony, not other employees showed up to work. As a consequence, Tony was fired. Well, not literally. He was told to write a letter of resignation. Tony replied, "Being fired and resigning are two different things, and I'm not you to do either."
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Tony went on to write a letter explaining his situation. He emphasized that he wasn't quitting, nor resigning. "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."
In the management's defence, they have already asked Tony to join back three times. Meanwhile the story hits the local news, making people angry and the store mildly famous.
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To respond to the public, the Pizza Hut store post an apology statement on their Facebook page. "We feel strongly that the situation involving our independent franchisee and the local store manager could and should have been avoided. We fully respect an employee's right to not work on a holiday, which is why the vast majority of Pizza Huts in America are closed on Thanksgiving. As a result, we strongly recommended that the local franchisee reinstate the store manager and they have agreed. We look forward to them welcoming Tony back to the team."
While Tony may have taught these corporate stores to eliminate greed and understand true meaning of "caring for employees," he has refused to return to the store. "It was kind of the last straw," he said. He shall be looking for another job henceforth.
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