Dairy Queen Manager Faces Backlash After Punishing Teen Employee With Cake

It's never a good feeling when you find out that your boss/manager isn't happy with the way you've been performing at work. Maybe deep down inside you know that you aren't doing your best, but it still sucks to be called out for your behavior. However, there are managers who go about disciplining employees in different ways.

You've got some folks who seem to take pleasure in the act of disciplining someone just for the sake of disciplining them because they're getting off on a power trip. And then you've got managers who don't really enjoy the act of reprimanding employees but have to do their jobs and implement specific rules because that's what the situation calls for.

And then you've got managers like the one in this viral TikTok who decide to make their write-ups a little more "fun." That's what TikTok user @dqshelbytwpmi did for one of their employees who called them "annoying" and walked out of a shift at Dairy Queen after being asked to clean up.

In an interview with Daily Dot the TikToker in question, Miranda, talked about the incident: "He’s [the employee] been working for me for over a year and is normally a great employee. So this was definitely out of character for him."

The text over the now-deleted video explains: "When your employee walks out during their shift cause they said you were being ‘annoying’ cause you asked them to clean something so you have to write them up but they’re still your favorite employee and don't want them to quit so you print their write up on a cake."

The clip features the worker's write-up sheet as a design on a cake. Here's what went down: the worker was asked to clean up some chocolate splatter several times, until they apparently became fed up and left their shift prior to clearing the mess.

"I have a good relationship with my employees and we like to have fun at work. So he signed the real write up then we made a cake with the other one together," Miranda said.

However, there were a bunch of TikTokers who seemed to have a problem with the fact that she was asking the young employee to clean up a mess and then issue a discipline report for walking out in the middle of the shift because they didn't like the fact that they were being asked to perform their job duties.

Miranda gave further context on the incident as well: it appears that the worker in question is a teenager and she contacted him privately in an attempt to explain more effective means of workplace communication. The actual incident report was signed by the young worker and they used an "edible image printer" to make the design for the cake together.

The conversation in the comments soon shifted to fair wages for workers and Miranda said that because so many businesses are short-staffed after the pandemic, she does her best in order to promote employee retention. "As a leader it's my job to teach him. I’m passionate about teaching my staff the importance of hard work and grit to produce the results we want and therefore a greater reward." she said.

What do you think? Did Miranda handle the situation in a "cool boss" way? Or do you agree with TikTokers who criticized Miranda's action?