All she wanted to do was go to her friend’s funeral, services for a man who died in a crash that hospitalized seven others. But a supervisor for New Jersey restaurant she worked for explained the suprising consequences.
In now-viral a text message exchange, the supervisor told the employee at the Cafe 72 restaurant in Ewing Township that it would have to “let you go” for wanting to go to the services of one of the eight victims in a terrible crash involving College of New Jersey students.
Now Cafe 72 has since recanted the remarks made by the supervisor that have garnered widespread condemnation on social media – just as friends and families continue to deal with the aftermath of a fatal crash that injured seven others. Efforts to obtain comment from Cafe 72 were not immediately successful.
The crash killed Michael Sot, 20, of Clark, a College of New Jersey student who was apparently a friend of the Cafe 72 employee and a driver in the two-car collision. An allegedly impaired driver was reportedly passing cars when he hit Sot’s vehicle head-on, according to authorities. Read more: Impaired Driver Was Trying To Pass Cars Before Crash: Police
Here is how the text exchange went down:
The Cafe 72 employee discussed the situation with the supervisor who was only identified as “katie cafe 72,” saying: “Someone close to me just passed away and I’m trying to find a cover for my shifts so I can attend the funeral service rather than call out and leave you guys hanging,”
The supervisor said: “Oh wow thanks. Just don’t come back to work. I like you but I’m sick of all staff not taking their job seriously and just f— expect me to cover all of your shifts. I have a business to run at the end of the day. And a family.”
After the employee explains more, the supervisor says: “I’m not playing this game. If you can’t work and there is no one to cover the shift in order for the restaurant to operate I have to let you go. Sorry”
The restaurant later released a statement, signed by “Ben and Katie,” comfirming the exchange took place but also saying the employee was not fired.
“Her last shifts were this weekend before leaving for holiday break to be with her family and friends until January 28th,” the statement said.
The statement says the text exchange was displayed “completely out of context” by a friend of the employee and “drastically misrepresents Katie and our establishment.”
However, the statement does say that the resturant recognizes “that there is NOTHING that excuses it” and they “carelessly” let the stresses of family and business replace “the professonalism, respect and empathy that every employee and person deserves.”
The restaurant says it has received countless hate emails and bad reviews. Cafe 72 has asked for all of it to stop. The restaurant also has taken down its Facebook page.
The restaurant also apologized and said it would like to contribute $1,000 to Sot’s GoFundMe page. The restaurant also will donate another 10 percent of all sales for the remainder of the week in his honor.
Here is the complete text exchange:
Here are some of the reactions on social media, noting that the story was first published by NJ Advance Media:
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