So much of what the franchise administration and top management did ultimately was the cause of their demise, which also made front page news.
This is a bit long and reworked from a prior retelling – definitely a satisfying outcome to see abusive ownership/management get theirs. TLDR at bottom.
Over twenty years ago my life and plans that I had to stay in my hometown were drastically uprooted and found myself moved to another city. Pounding the pavement almost every day looking for work wasn't getting me any results and would from time to time find myself relaxing at a cheap diner and reading a complementary newspaper… and there it was a job opening for an assistant manager for an expanding well entrenched fast food franchise in town.
So I called and basically set up my own interview (one of many more omens I seemed to have missed) and tadaa got the job. About 4 or so months in I started seeing clues that I should have picked up on that this operation had some serious issues. That started when they had a custom built location created in the city's more desirable west end closer to the university and they made so many mistakes causing needless delays, to top it off the restaurant district manager was driving the small bobcat front loader while teenage new hires who have never experienced physical labour were laying grass sod, on the sidewalk. Not hiring capable crew for the work required was the least of the concerns that I managed to miss, overlook or otherwise dismiss… also note that the owner and his head office was based a 4 hour+ drive north and for all intents and purposes was an absentee to his own operation.
For a two year period, I personally witnessed the following;
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general manager (my boss) smoking in office and food prep area even after being told repeatedly to stop
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harassing phone calls to people from owner's assistant when health department visited the above location and cited the blatant health violations
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deep fryer catching fire and disciplining/terminating employees for calling fire department.
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the above mentioned owner's assistant at the up north head office writing up employees with disciplinary action for breaking non exisent company policy and making it visible to everyone before that person even saw it for a non existent policy. … and then dismissing their actions as an oopsie even though this was yet another blatant law (privacy laws) violated by them.
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disciplinary action against hourly wage employees that don't attend unpaid meetings on their days off, this is also a blatant violation of our provincial law that I should have looked up, internet access wasn't something I had then as we all do now.
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that's just stuff off the top of my head that I personally experienced. Upper level managers were fired after stealing substantial amounts of money, at least one of whom who was vocal in his dismissal of my concerns of how bad things were – he was finally fired after he came in after hours and submitted multiple fraudulent refunds on the new debit machine. While I was a manager there, a long prolonged pattern emerged of multiple managers along with regular staff quitting suddenly and outright no-showing leading me and others to routinely do 16 hour shifts to cover absences – somehow we were lead to believe this was somehow normalized.
And there's more, so much more.
I kept doing my best and upper management still complained and told me I have all the tools I need to do things better, on the same day the deep fryer caught fire again. I want to call what they did gaslighting for how inadequate I was made to feel when also they kept ignoring my pleas for them to do things right including hire competent maintance services. Despite my best efforts, pleas and other attempts at pointing out serous problems with equipment and logistics, it was on deaf ears.
Another omen that I missed was that the locations in owner's town and base of operations got shut down, but hey he was a professor of business at the local university… more on that later.
The day came when served a paper saying I was the squeaky wheel, and I got greased – the wagon was rolling on without me. Initially it sucked, a day off to myself and I started feeling better and chatting with friends had them saying I should've said something earlier when I told them of the terrible things people experienced there and how much it violated so many laws. A week later I was working a better job with better people I kept in touch with, in a few months I'd leave that industry and that city behind as family needed my help at their home. I would also take solace in realizing it seemed I was the only manager that left who wasn't dealing drugs, stealing or carrying on other questionable acts.
Life went on and got much much better, even getting licensed in a trade that includes investigating employment violations, using my skills to prevent others having to experience what I endured and/or seek appropriate remedy has been very fulfilling.
Some years pass, and it's Halloween 2007, I find myself back for a friend's party in the city where those terrible franchises are run… or as I was to abruptly find out were run. Prized mall location, closed. West end location, abandoned. Original place I started, closed with pending construction nearby. Signs posted in windows are for a multinational holding company, mall staff say the location there is under renovations. I call bs, owner was adamant about running 24hour operations and wouldn't close down like this – and All of his franchise locations are shut down. After some discrete inquiries and getting as far as I'm willing at the time, I reach out to local newspaper with what I found and the contradictory information been thrown about from various sources. Along with the recent finds I share my documentation and experiences which makes both the reporter and I wonder how that franchise even lasted that long.
About two weeks later around mid November it's front page news about how corporate SEIZED all the assets and locations of the franchise owner in August 2007. The reason, many of the same problems I warned the franchise owner and his admin about! Their own files recording their misdeeds were also used against them in proceedings.
Assets seized totaled about $10 million.
To highlight even more of the shadiness of the owner and his operation, when legal notices were served, the owner told frightened workers it's a mistake and to ignore it and keep working… and then, shortly later, about 200 people were out of work and wondering about getting paid. From gathered files and reporting on civil proceedings, junior managers were shocked to open letters saying the business locations were being shut down, and the owner was trying to reassure otherwise. The owner filed an injunction against the asset seizures, but that was aborted – probably because their own records documenting how they conducted operations and treated (see mistreated, and worse) employees (re: prior examples listed above of wrongful/illegal punishments).
I sat back and laughed a bit. I felt horrible for the workers, but I was also told they were compensated by corporate as part of the proceedings. Later on I would go on to speak with another worker who told me that prior to the franchise getting shut down, the very same assistant of the owner who harassed and yelled and snapped at me and other employees broke even more laws. This so-called operations manager at head office was recorded threatening the worker and telling her to return to work when she was off on workers' compensation! For those unaware up here, that's a serious offense and pretty much on brand for how they ran their now terminated business. I'll admit to making an honest error or two while working for that franchise, but holy hell I'd never conjure committing blatant wrongs and unlawful acts like they did on the regular and with what they probably thought they could get away doing with impunity – it's safe to say that a pattern of dishonesty, abuse, and incompetence can have a high price tag as it did here.
A few years back a buddy I kept in touch with showed me the owner's LinkedIn account, instead of accepting responsibility for his involvement with the franchise time period cited in news article he fraudulently claimed to be involved in government consulting instead… account got suspended. Petty? Maybe… providing some well needed accuracy to LinkedIn? Definitely.
TLDR, I get hired by crappy restaurant franchise and somehow allow myself to join in their descent without realizing how terrible they are even after so many blatant labour, privacy, health and safety law violations. Get fired after speaking up countless times warning them about same stuff corporate would cite as reasons a few years later to seize all franchise assets totalling about $10 million from shady AF owner and have that make front page news.
An ongoing project continues onward going through records and talking to witnesses, unknown in what media format it will finally take, but the journey has certainly been an interesting advenure. Thank you for reading.