“How Is That My Fault?” — Wendy’s New Hire Said She Was Fired After Not Being Told Start Date

A woman who'd been out of work thought she finally caught a break after getting hired by Wendy's. However, she said that after missing her start date, which she wasn't informed of, she ended up losing the job before even working her first shift.

Tyja (@tyjamiell) uploaded a viral TikTok that garnered over 795,000 views on the popular social media application. In it, she shared the events that followed her termination.

Tyja begins her video by stating that she experienced "the craziest" thing while attempting to look for a job. The TikToker goes on to state that she's been out of work for seven months. Her financial situation became so dire that she was ultimately evicted from her home and she couldn't afford to pay her bills any further.

Finally, things were starting to look up after she received a phone call from a Wendy's location. The employee in charge of hiring, who she says was the district manager for the chain in her area, called her on a Saturday, Tyja says.

During her interview, Tyja said that she essentially begged the person for the job since she's been out of work for so long. She added, to the audience, that she's more of a "warehouse" and "work from home" type of person, but she was willing to work in the fast food business in order to make ends meet.

"I'm grateful because this is what I got," she says to her viewers. She goes on to state "An hour after I leave the interview with the district manager, I get a call from one of the other managers telling me I'm hired an hour later. She's like, 'You need to come up here on Sunday and do your paperwork.'"

Tyja relayed the rest of her story and from the sound of things, everything was looking great for her so far. "So I go up there and I do my paperwork and it's a whole other shift manager that I haven't met. It's this white man. I do paperwork for like an hour and then I finish and he says, 'OK, somebody's gonna call you and they're gonna tell you your start date.'"

So at this point, Tyja's happy she was able to secure a job — again, all she needed to do was wait for her start date. "Mind you this was Sunday I did the interview on Saturday. Monday comes around I don't hear s--t."

The following day, Tyja receives a message that nobody, especially not a new hire, wants to pop up on their phone. "Tuesday comes around 12 p.m. I get a text message from the district manager telling me I was supposed to start at 12 p.m. Mind y'all, I have my phone records. I haven't received a call. I haven't received a voice mail, nothing."

"I explain to her that I haven't heard from anybody since Sunday when I did the paperwork. And she calls me immediately after I send her that message. She calls me, she's basically like, 'Oh yeah you were supposed to start today.' I explained to her that I hadn't talked to anybody and then she gives me the option to start today or to start and finish out the rest of the week starting tomorrow."

Tyja explained to the district manager that she wasn't going to be able to come in that day due to the call being "such short notice" and because nobody told her that she would be working on that day. The district manager didn't seem to like that response, however. "Even when I told her tomorrow she asked me why. Then I told her it's just short notice like I haven't heard anything."

"She says, 'OK, I'll see you tomorrow.' I said OK I'll see you tomorrow." However, it appeared that there was tension between the two of them because the manager ended up abruptly hanging up the phone and then texting the new hire. "She immediately texts me and says this," the TikToker says, before pulling up a screenshot conversation on the phone detailing her text message exchange with the Wendy's district manager.

"This message is for Tyla, you were supposed to start your first shift at 12 p.m. today."

Tyla responded with the following message: "Hi, good afternoon I was never informed on a start date I came Sunday to do paperwork he told the shift leader or manager for Monday would call me to tell me when I start and I never got a call until I received a call from you today."

It looked like the text message was simply a formality on behalf of the district manager, however, as they wrote back to Tyja that they were no longer going to require her services at the Wendy's restaurant.

"So unfortunately I don't think this is going to work out," they wrote to her.

Tyja responded with another message, stating: 'I'm sorry I genuinely didn't know I receive[d] a call or voicemail yesterday."

Upset that she had the newly secured job no longer on the table, Tyja spoke to her followers. "This s--t just drove me nuts. Because I haven't been able to find a job in seven f--king months. Like how is that my fault? Like your managers lack communication between yourselves like what the f--k do you want me to do?" she added.

At the end of the clip, she stated, "Moral of the story: keep your f--king job. Please. Yes, I've been crying," she says again at the video's end.

Numerous commenters replied to her video, offering sympathetic words of encouragement to Tyja.

"She did that on purpose. She was playing on your vulnerability and desperation and honestly, that was the best thing that could’ve happened to you. That rejection is a redirection," one said.

Another wrote: "Inform their HR department. Not for you but to let Wendy’s know about their managers and future staff."

However, there was another person who said that they would've stayed on top of the restaurant to find out when their first day of work was after she filled out her paperwork. "I would have asked, 'Can you let me know who reached out to me with this information and what day/time they called or texted so I can check with my phone company?'"

There was another user on the application who believes that Tyja could have a good basis for "a wrongful termination case."

What do you think?