Olive Garden Cans Kansas Manager For Sharing INSANE Call-Out Policy: 'If Your Dog Died, You Need To Bring Him In & Prove It'

When you’re here, you’re ~~family~~ f**ked if you want a day off unless you can PROVE your dog is dead…

Olive Garden is dealing with the fallout from one Kansas restaurant manager’s amazingly awful screed directed at their staffers. If you haven’t heard about this yet, get ready, y’all. This was a RANT!!! Earlier this week, a head employee for an Overland Park, Kansas branch of the popular Darden Restaurants chain went mega-viral. Their message to employees called them out on calling out of work, and the manager didn’t mince words when it came to slamming workers who no-showed during the restaurant’s busy hours.

The unnamed boss’ blow-up, which went viral on Reddit and Twitter over the last several days, started off like this:

“Our call offs are occurring at a staggering rate. From now on, if you call off, you might as well go out and look for another job. We are no longer tolerating ANY excuse for calling off. If you’re sick, you need to come prove it to us.”

Seems simple enough. Aggressive! But we kind of (?!) get it. That leader must be under the gun for the restaurant to perform in the holiday season, and they were just having a moment. But the “come prove it to us” line about people who call out sick sucks. We just went through a freakin’ pandemic! Come on! Stop forcing workers to show up to public places while sick!!!

Still, that wasn’t even close to the craziest part of the message. In the next section, the manager railed against other reasons workers have apparently used for not showing up for their shift!

The message went:

“If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us. If it’s a ‘family emergency’ and you can’t say, too bad. Go work somewhere else. If you only want morning shifts, too bad go work at a bank. If anyone from here on out calls out more than ONCE in the next 30 days you will not have a job. Do you know in my 11.5 years at Darden how many days I called off? Zero. I came in sick. I got in a wreck literally on my to work one time, airbags went off and my car was totaled, but you know what, I made it to work, ON TIME!”

WTF?!

What kind of s**t is that??? “Too bad” if a family emergency comes up?! “Prove it” after your beloved dog dies?? They want workers to bring in the dog’s dead body?! Crazy! The furious rant continued:

“There are no more excuses. Us, collectively as a management team have had enough. If you don’t want to work here, don’t. It’s as simple as that. If you’re here and want to work, then work. No more complainging [sic] about not being cut or not being able to leave early. You’re in the restaurant business. Do you think I want to be here until midnight on Friday and Saturday? No. I’d much rather be at home with my husband and dog, going to the movies or seeing family. But I don’t, I’m dedicated to being here. As should you. No more excuses or complaints.”

Yikes!!

By the end, they tried to soften the proverbial blow by ending on a (slightly) sweeter note:

“I hope you choose to continue to work here and I think we (management) make it as easy as we can on y’all. Thank you for your time and thank you to those who come in every day on time and work hard. I wish there were more like you.”

Gee, thanks…

But by then, it was too late. Like we said, a screenshot of that message made the rounds on Reddit and Twitter. Eventually, those images got back to Olive Garden’s parent company.

On Wednesday, a Darden representative confirmed to KCTV 5 News in Kansas City that the restaurant group had chosen to part ways with the supervisor who sent the message:

“We strive to provide a caring and respectful work environment for our team members. This message is not aligned with our company’s values. We can confirm we have parted ways with this manager.”

Oof. Not surprised tho. Not exactly good publicity for Olive Garden! Here’s more on the scandalous situation from KCTV 5 News (below):