Our first candidate for boss of the year goes to Luke Benjamin, franchise owner of Pizza Time in Lacey WA, got upset when his employees left the furnace on all night. So Benjamin shut off the heat, and point blank told employees that if they don't like working there, to find another job. Now what Benjamin doesn't understand is people make honest mistakes....and why he would take such action is beyond me.
Benjamin left this message to employees on the company white board according to King TV:
“If you don’t want to work here quit, otherwise shut up and do your job. The next person I hear complaining is off for two weeks. We don’t have heat!! You guys screwed up, not us. You want to blame someone, look in the mirror.”
The kicker is Benjamin's wife is the accountant for the restaurant, and has a space heater in her office...Benjamin says “It doesn’t look good, but she’s my wife and my boss and she tells me what she’s going to do and I’m not going to argue with her,” said Benjamin.
Strangely the State of Washington has no law protecting the rights of employees in this matter.
King5.com
Once again the name of the establishment Pizza Time in Lacey, WA, and this story on the net isn't going to help their business in a positive way. It appears Pizza Time is a franchise- here is the companies Web Site Pizza Time
Thanks to Sean Kelly over at Franchise Pick for making Benjamin one of his Franchisees from Hell! It's well deserved. I wonder what how business is for the Pizza Time chain?
The Benjamins have posted on the King5 web site, and Franchise Pick has that info
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The wife is the real culprit in this situation. Her company is named Accurate Accounting. Let's boycott this business.
Email address for the corporation is info@pizzatime.com.
Posted by: Gabriel Snyder | January 03, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Like how wifey, the "real owner", is afraid to appear on TV.
Posted by: Sean | January 03, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Thanks for this, Richard.
I've granted Benjamin an official Franchisee From Hell! award.
http://www.franchisepick.com/franchisee-from-hell-awards-luke-benjamin-pizza-time
Keep the great posts coming.
Posted by: Sean Kelly | January 03, 2009 at 03:29 PM
I love it. Love it, love it, love it! Masochists that actually get to make free pleas for pain and suffering via mass media. And they are going to receive plenty. I’ve already emailed the Lacey Chamber of Commerce and the Pizza Time corporate office. I hope crickets can survive such cold temps, because quite soon crickets will be the only thing to be heard at that Pizza Time, soon to be renamed Closing Time. Then the Benjamins can be as financially bankrupt as they are morally bankrupt.
Also, if any of those employees are minors, that may constitute prosecutable child abuse.
If we could engineer cars to run on stupidity, there would be an infinite supply. Morons such as these owners prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wait until the first employee files a workman’s comp. claim for frostbite, hypothermia, or pneumonia.
It’s fun to watch morons self-destruct.
Posted by: Cathy K. | January 03, 2009 at 03:29 PM
This is like one of those movies with no heroes... or even likeable characters
The owners obviously mishandled this. However, there's no evidence they kept it colder than 55 except Dan Butler's say-so. And despite what Butler says, pizza ovens throw off heat... even with exhaust.
Butler was already suspended, an employee with a DUI at a business based on delivery (and a fatality a few years earlier caused by a drunk Pizza Time delivery driver), and probably on his way out? Think he might have exaggerated just a bit?
Butler was on FranchisePick.com trying to solicit donations, and may have been pushing for a $10K+ settlement from the owners to make the controversy go away. My suspicions are posted here:
http://www.franchisepick.com/pizza-time-whistleblower-gets-fired/
Even Pizza Hut is sounding good right now.
Posted by: Sean Kelly | January 06, 2009 at 12:11 PM
I have done some pro bono advertising work to help Lacey Pizza Time get back on their feet. The campaign's called: Open the Door... It's Pizza Time! What do you think? See it here:
http://www.franchisepick.com/wordless-wednesday-open-the-door-its-pizza-time/
Posted by: Franchise Pick | January 07, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Yup. We boycotted them and haven't been back to date.
Posted by: Dana | October 31, 2009 at 07:10 PM