Burger King Employees Declare ‘WE ALL QUIT’ in Viral Sign Photo

Employees at a Lincoln, Nebraska Burger King all quit, leading to a viral photo of a sign reading, “We all quit, sorry for the inconvenience.” Two former employees put the blame on management, saying they were overworked and the kitchen needed repairs. One employee said she was working 50 to 60 hours a week. They also said the restaurant was understaffed.

“They wanted to put up a sign to say, you know sorry there’s really not going to be anyone here,” former general manager Rachel Flores told KLKN on Sunday. She called the sign a “laugh” to upper management that was put up before they opened on Saturday morning. “I didn’t think anybody was going to notice it, because we did just one sign, and then it went pretty crazy on Facebook,” Flores said. “I got a call from my upper management and they told me I needed to take it down.”

Flores was hired in January. After she put in her two-week notice, eight of her co-workers followed. She said she dealt with several district managers since she was hired and no one came to help. “They’re so in and out,” she said. The employees worked in a kitchen without air conditioning for weeks, she said. At one point, it reached 90 degrees in the kitchen, and Flores was hospitalized for dehydration. Her boss said she was being a “baby,” she told KLKN.

Another former employee, Kylee Johnson said she helped out Flores, her best friend, as much as she could before quitting. “I knew what was going on staffing-wise. We were just waiting for more people to come then and we got nobody,” she said. According to Johnson and Flores, the restaurant was understaffed, with just three to four people working around lunchtime. Flores said she worked up to 60 hours a week. They both believed it was unsafe for the restaurant to have a small staff.

The two employees told KLKN upper management did not know about their plans to put the “We all quit” letters on the sign. After they found out, Flores’ boss told her to hand over the keys to the restaurant and she was fired. Meanwhile, the Burger King location is still open, but Flores and Johnson believe it remains understaffed.

Restaurants were among the hardest-hit businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, and many are still understaffed. The industry had 1.7 million fewer jobs filled than before the pandemic started, The Washington Post reported in May. While some Republican politicians have suggested the federal unemployment insurance supplement dissuaded people from returning to the industry, former employees told the Post there were many other reasons. Some said they were not being paid enough to live, while others said disputes with managers over safety, pay and other concerns made them less interested in going back to restaurant jobs.