Taco Bell has fired an employee photographed licking food, despite saying the food was never served to customers.
Young workers still haven’t quite grasped the consequences of sharing everything on social media - another story has emerged of an employee fired for poor sharing decisions.
When a picture of a Taco Bell employee licking a stack of hard taco shells made headlines this week the company went straight into investigation mode.
The shells were reportedly part of a training exercise and were on their way into the garbage, but Taco Bell responded by firing the employee anyway.
The company said by posting the photo to Instagram the employee had violated Taco Bell’s social media policies. It said the photo was taken for “an internal contest” but was never entered in the contest because it violated its rules.
“This image was clearly unacceptable – it violated the rules and spirit of the contest, and the employees never submitted it,” the company wrote in a statement. “But an employee posted it on a personal social media page in violation of the franchisee’s policies, and it emerged online in social media.”
The company said the employees did not intend any harm, but it “deplore[d] the impressions this has caused to customers, fans, franchisees, and team members.”
The franchisee suspended the employee and was in the process of terminating his employment.
