this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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[–] stephen@lazysoci.al 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In the United States I worked for Darden, which owned several popular restaurant chains. People working in the kitchen who would taste a chip or a piece of fried shrimp would be fired for stealing food. We sent out plenty of food that might be slightly under cooked or slightly over cooked simply because we could do the very common kitchen practice of doing quality assurance on your own food.

So - fuck miserly capitalism.

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What's the point of running a restaurant if the staff doesn't even know what the hell the slop they're selling tastes like. Free staff meals don't cut into profits, and only have benefits for the long term. Damn greedy capitalists

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

I know a few chefs and/or bartenders and...they all taste the things they make because they have to. How can you possibly know it's correct if you don't taste it. It's not like they're eating off every plate or checking every drink but if I was a restaurant owner I would want to know that my employees are only sending things out that are correct. If they send out bad food that's a customer gone forever, and possibly many more if that customer tells their friends or leaves a bad review.

I would absolutely never eat at a place where the staff isn't tasting what's going out to tables

Darden owns Olive Garden and most of that crap comes in frozen. It doesn’t matter what it tastes like, it’s the same frozen diners they sell everywhere.

They also own Red Lobster and I feel like the quality is higher there but I’m really not sure.

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The following day, a store manager discovered the bottle next to the checkout and suspected it may have been consumed in breach of store policy. After reviewing CCTV footage,

True Detective: Bodega

[–] booty@hexbear.net 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you think of being a manager as an actual job (in this case it seems like it isn't since they had the time to waste on this bullshit) then the money spent paying the manager's wages vs the amount of money "stolen" by the employee must lead us to the conclusion that the manager position should be abolished and the worker should be allowed to steal product as they wish. Just from a penny pinching ghoul capitalist perspective. It's literally cheaper.

Fuckin losers can't even evil correctly.

[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fuckin losers can't even evil correctly.

Yes they can, making an example out of workers is much more important than a few hours of the manager's wages. The more trivial the case, in some ways, the better. The reward is not the 17p bottle of water, it's having your workers terrified for their livelihood at all times.

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

If you see the objective as efficiency, you will misunderstand it.

If you see the objective as labor discipline and reification of class divisions and other social hierarchies, you will have a more accurate model.

A 17p discarded bottle which now wasn't going to be sold anyway is more important than a person's life and livelihood.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They could've just detracted the water bottle from the salary 🫩

Cruelty is often the point

[–] D61@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

Store managers will talk about "profit margins" ... then have their buyers order so much shit that it fucks up their profit margins by thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in cash and labor, then pull some "moral hazard" bullshit and fire somebody for drinking water.

[–] alexandra_kollontai@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The scare quotes around "dehydrated" are baffling

[–] godlessworm@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

the weak lying baby claimed he needed water. who has ever heard of such a thing? that's not real.

[–] demeritum@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think I once told a story about how lidl or aldi burned down an protected historic tobacco factory because it stood in the way of their new headquarter.

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

At minimum wage, 17p is 80 seconds of labor. I bet dehydration costs the company a lot more.

The grocery store I work at has decided that providing their stockers in the loading bays with $0.14 bottles of water is a much better deal than having them walk 60 seconds to the drinking fountain.

Anyway capitalism is not efficient, and a well-run workers' enterprise would blow away all the crooks.

the candy room at blockbuster didn't have a camera. the cage with all the portable handhelds was back there too. but i definitely didnt do anything with that. Also the the security system ran on a VCR, and every morning we had to use that same VCR to rewind the previous days tape which led to a 5 to 10 minute gap in security footage every day. this is all simply informational.

[–] take_five_moments@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

i worked at a grocery store for a bit in the early 00s and we had to tape our receipts to the waters we bought (with employee discount ofc) so we couldn't be accused of stealing them

[–] Commiechameleon@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

You guys are getting an employee discount?

[–] avoid_the_noid@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

The only way I survived my 20s was by working at a grocery store and stealing 90% of my food. Wasn't paid enough to afford anything other than ramen or beans and rice so I'd have to steal everything. Luckily I worked in a pizza/deli area so I could at least have a hot meal once a day.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

Bourgeois society in a nutshell.