Bartender Applauds Manager for Buying Her Hotel Room During Ice Storm to Avoid Driving Home

"WORK. FOR. PEOPLE. WHO. CARE. ABOUT. YOU!!!" that's the message a bartender and TikTok user named Faith (@faithmers) had for her followers in a viral clip that she posted to her page that's accrued over 1.1 million views on the app.

In her video, Faith discusses the wildly different experiences she had with her employers: the initial one that she speaks about terminated her employment for not looking excited enough to be working her shift.

The new bar she works with, by comparison, cared so much for her safety that they didn't want her driving 40 minutes to get home after a bad snowstorm, so management instead booked her a local hotel. She said that the gesture made her feel like she was working for a business that actually cared about her as a person and now just a body to cover a shift so they can turn a profit.

Faith begins her video by stating: "A year and a half ago I got fired from a bartending job after a 14 hour shift on Valentine's Day, their busiest day of the year which the shift was only supposed to be seven hours I was pouring drinks like this," she says, demonstrating how upset she was to be on the clock at that time — pantomiming pouring a drink in a deadpan fashion.

"Instead of my happy go lucky self, my manager pulls me into his office, slams the door so hard the walls shake and tells me I've been an entitled brat and they're going to let me go," she says.

The TikToker continued," Fast forward I not currently am bartending at a new restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri, where it has been snowing and icing all day and I was so scared to drive home because I live 40 minutes away from work and all back roads which are all twists and turns I was so devastatingly scared to drive home that my manager bought me a hotel room so that I would be safe and sound," she penned.

"That is on good management," she said, highlighting the stark difference between her previous work environment and the current establishment that employs her.

"That is on working for people who care about you as a person and not just an employee and that is for going where you're valued. So shout out, Stone Summit in Winsville, Missouri, you guys are the freaking best and I would die for you. I love you," she says at the end of the clip before making a kissing gesture towards the camera.

The comments section of her video sounded off with a variety of different responses. There were some folks who said that they, too, feel fortunate enough to work under an employer that they feel sincerely cares about them and their safety.

"My manager called my husband after I had a ruptured ovarian cyst and she took me to the ER and told him to meet us there. I felt so safe," they penned.

Someone else wrote that the importance of great managers at any establishment cannot be overstated: "Good management makes it breaks a company and how loyal employees are!"

However, there was someone else who said that the room wasn't as altruistic of a move as she may have originally thought, as the manager was just making sure that they were going to have someone ready to cover a shift nearby the following day: " I feel like he wanted to be secure you’d show up next shift. Coming from a bartender of 11 years"

Another person said that they unfortunately were terminated at their own serving job simply because they were looking out for one of the customers: "I got fired from my bartending job in Aug’22. A week before my bday..bc I refused to over-serve someone who knew the owner. The guy was trashed and didn’t need any more alcohol."

"the owner of a restaurant I used to work at would rent a van and pick us up when the weather was bad so we didn’t have to drive," someone else wrote.

And then some shared anecdotes from their own workplaces that demonstrated how much they cared for their employees.

"We forced a bartender to go to the ER (kidney infection) on a busy FRI night at a sports bar, home game wkend. Health was priority," another TikTok user wrote.

Sometimes, the support wasn't even a physical gesture, but a verbalization that they had your back during a trying time.

"i was cheated on and my managers wrote me the sweetest note saying not to darken my spirit for anyone," they wrote.

Have you ever had poor experiences with employers, or only realized how bad of a job you worked until after the fact, when you saw what a great work environment could actually be?