'We All Quit. Sorry For The Inconvenience.': Burger King Workers

LINCOLN, NE — The difficulty restaurants across America are having in finding employees was summed up in a Burger King sign over the weekend.

“We all quit,” the sign outside the fast-food restaurant near 59th Street and Havelock Avenue in Lincoln, Nebraska, briefly read. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The message was posted by the store’s employees, all of whom have resigned over claims of a bad work environment, KLKN and others have reported.

Rachel Flores, the store’s now former general manager, told KLKN upper management and inadequate staffing is to blame.

She said employees had to work in the kitchen with no air conditioning for weeks, and the kitchen reached 90 degrees at one point. When Flores ended up in the hospital for dehydration, she told the news station, her boss reacted by calling her a “baby.”

“They have gone through so many district managers since I’ve been GM,” Flores said. “No one has come to the store to help me out. They’re so in and out.”

Eight of Flores’ Burger King employees also quit and followed her out the door, leading to the sign.

While Flores said putting the sign overlooking Havelock Avenue was at first a bit of a “laugh” at upper management, part of the motivation was legitimately to let customers know there soon wouldn’t be anyone working there. The employees did give two weeks notice, KLKN reported.

“I just stayed to help Rachael out,” Kylee Johnson, another former employee, told KLKN. “I just want to help her as much as I can. I knew what was going on staffing wise. We were just waiting for more people to come then, and we got nobody.”

After the public quitting, Flores was anticlimactically told she was fired, she said.

The "We all quit" message on the sign has since been replaced with one noting the location is hiring, with "flexible schedules."

Patch has reached out to Burger King's corporate office for comment.