Today on March 1st, 2022, I was greeted by a District Manager named Greg (he did not provide us with his last name, but claimed to oversee 5 other BK stores in the Tampa Bay area) who promptly insulted my wife and I during our interviews at the Fletcher Ave location here in Tampa, FL.
My wife experienced inappropriate touching and language, including inappropriate touching of the shoulders, arms, obliques and !!!the small of back nearing the bottom!!!… and over-touching of hands while she was holding her pocketbook in front of him, seated, and facing him during her interview then hugging her after the interview was complete.
She was applying for a crew position and this man bragged about selling his restaurant, not sleeping with anyone but his wife (supposedly, according to him, his wife was and is the only woman in his life that he had kissed besides his birth mother), cursed at her with profanity and lewd jokes, and even offered to sponsor/facilitate a nursing apprenticeship with my wife “to make up to 97$/hr pushing buttons all day in an air-conditioned room”… thus taking away a valuable asset (and future qualified personnel in the form of our family and friends) from the Burger King organization.
TL;DR: Guy was a creep.
As for myself, Greg immediately insulted my appearance… berating me for “coming in with baggy jeans, a backwards cap and open-toed shoes” for a management interview despite others in the area, notably women, wearing similar dress-down styles while interviewing with him and not receiving such harsh and culturally-insensitive treatment. He bragged to me about his tenure at the restaurant stating he has “worked for Burger King for over 40 years” and that “it's the best job I've ever had”.
Then he cited how he sold an independent restaurant not affiliated with Burger King for over $1.6 million and lamented not having enough time with his wife to stay in business: “I was working 7 days a week, no time off, and the wife said 'You can be married to your restaurant or me', and of course I sold that restaurant and came back to Burger King.” Sounds like a cognitive dissonance/conflict of interest/outright lie there if he was working at a restaurant of his own and concurrently working for over 40 years for BK with no breaks, lol.
After that, he asked me about how I would solve standard employee/manager interaction scenarios before heading into the kitchen area and helping the on-site GM perform her duties. Not very professional. Was the GM not able to delegate her duties? Was it him? Was there a training/personnel issue that needed to be resolved? The world may never know.
Once he retreated to the kitchen and began “doing the grunt work” as he called it, my wife pulled me aside (as we were slated to do our onboarding together today after my interview with Greg) and told me she never wanted to work for this man as he immediately creeped her out, she noticed how aggressive he was being when first meeting with me and how he apparently only wanted to hire women in his restaurants (insecurity issue? or classical male chauvanism?)
I assented and agreed. We immediately left the property to head home and recuperate after this ordeal of a day.
Not more than 30 seconds after parking our car, Greg called my wife and asked if “we still want the job”. She flatly refused. Then she began listing many of the complaints I have laid out here, all of which he promptly denied. After this, he decided to terminate his invitation to hire and told her to “have a nice day” with as much smarm and vitriol as he could muster.
This man is atrocious in both behavior and sentiment. I have never experienced this level of unprofessionalism, abuse and mistreatment during an interview process in my 20 years of living in Florida. And this is my wife's first year here. I don't think she is as enamored with the idea of living here let alone working anywhere in the state nor working for BK after the day we have just had.
Greg claimed, during my wife's interview, to be a Christian and constantly emphasized the importance of having all of his employees demonstrate the values of promptness/attendance, professionalism, family-friendliness, politeness, courtesy and refraining from profanities/cursing while doing the complete inverse while interviewing us and barking orders like a madman at his kitchen staff.
Now, my wife and I are Christians and for this man to claim to espouse Christian/family values as a REQUIREMENT for all staff and hypocritically demonstrate the opposite during two 30-minute interviews is just appalling and disgusting. Not only does this *requirement* violate anti-discrimination laws and State/Federal hiring practices, but this man is not acting like a Christian, and I hope that one day he can see the error of his ways.
However, my concern for him as a human being does not mitigate the ugliness he has shown to my wife and I today.
As a result of these bungled interviews, I am proceeding to add yet another negative review to the litany of poor reviews about this BK location and seek legal counsel regarding the inappropriate treatment/harassment of my wife.
I am not seeking damages for this or legal action. I merely want the truth about this horrid man to be found out and known to our community so that others cannot fall into the same trap that my wife, myself and Greg's unfortunate employees have found our/themselves in.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
God bless you and may you have a better day than I did.
Sincerely,
Mark-Anthony Hilbay Viado
03/01/2022
Tampa, FL 33613