Texas Roadhouse server and TikTok influencer @pimpvanillaslim, known for viral menu hacks that gave customers heralded advice for savings and selection, says she’s been fired from her Springfield, Missouri restaurant.
She posted the news Wednesday afternoon in a now-deleted video. In an interview with The Daily Dot via Instagram DM, she says she was removed from the schedule after attending a wedding last weekend instead of her 11am to 3pm morning shift—despite asking two managers in advance if it was OK to miss a shift, posting about her looming outage on a staff Facebook group, and a strong sales record. Not to mention generating millions of views in brand-friendly content.
“At Texas Roadhouse you can’t request shifts off, you just get another server to work it for you or trade shifts with someone. You can also help out the kitchen when they are understaffed which is what I did prior to this shift but I asked for a ‘walk out check out’ card which is a slip you get when you do something good in the restaurant such as upselling. I texted both the managers 2 days prior to the wedding day asking if I could get the shift off in exchange for working salad since I didn’t redeem my walkout checkout or ever receive it. Neither manager replied and I ended up calling in the morning of the wedding apologetically,” she said.
She said she was then taken off the Facebook group and had her shifts canceled. She was called into a meeting on Wednesday with the owner. She said her “heart sank” but that she wasn’t expecting to be let go.
“I figured there was no way I’d be fired and my friends who work there also reassured me. There’s no way I’d be fired because I just got 100% shop and I was just top 20 in the market. I haven’t called in since the beginning of the year I believe. I show up early to work and win competitions all the time within the store such as selling smothers and upselling. In fact, the last time I worked, our competition was selling shrimp smothers and I won the competition and was rewarded in Andy’s frozen custard after the shift,” she said.
But no, she was effectively let go in this meeting, which took place on-site in a Texas Roadhouse booth.
@pimpvanillaslim Mom leave me alone i wanna be famous
♬ I WANNA BE FAMOUS – eaija ✯
“He said I posted the day before on the private Facebook (where we request shifts to be swapped) which was untrue I posted twice: once a couple days before and again the day before in a last minute panic that i’d have to call in. he said I didn’t try hard enough to get it off. He then compared me calling in for this wedding to someone calling in to go watch a football game,” she said.
It didn’t seem to be an issue pertaining to her viral TikTok, either: “none of my coworkers had anything negative to say about my tiktok. In fact, they were excited as well, and we’re asking me what my next tipper hack was going to be. corporate commented on one of my tiktoks, and just said to review the social media policies and not to reveal any proprietary information.”
And in an era where social media has become a sounding board for complaining about the workplace, @pimpvanillaslim found purpose and pride working for the store, she said.
“I love Texas Roadhouse and this summer I went through a lot. My fiancé and I broke up and because we lived together I had to move out and moved in with my friend. We got in a fight and she ended up throwing my things into her yard so I had to move back in with my parents 2 hours away. I still showed up to work happily every day despite the drive. I also lost two of my grandmothers. Through all of this, I fell in love with my job because it was a distraction from all the stress. Since I had so much passion for Roadhouse I tried to funnel that into tiktok,” she said.
She said she’ll miss the camaraderie and meeting new people most about her job, along with the talent she developed for the job after two years of Roadhouse shifts. As for her TikTok, Roadhouse had become central to her content creation.
“I posted server related things before I blew up and after I made the pulled pork blossom video I got really excited and focused my tiktok just on Texas Roadhouse content because I finally found my niche,” she said.
A student, she says she’ll begin looking for graphic design work next with a May graduation looming.
So, does she have any Roadhouse hacks for the road?
“my last food hack will probably make the servers mad but if you get two sides, and also want to add a salad, the salad by itself is $4.99, while the other sides are $2.99. so make sure if you want a salad to listed as one of the original size and then add the other side that wasn’t the salon on after such as if you want green beans, corn and a salad make sure you say I like the green beans salad and then can I add a side of corn. This way you can save two dollars,” she said.
And it doesn’t look like she’ll stop frequenting the restaurant either.
“my roommate actually works at Texas roadhouse as well and I texted her last night to bring me home some rolls and snakebites,” she said.
We’ve reached out to Texas Roadhouse corporate via email and the managing partner listed for her restaurant on Texas Roadhouse’s website via Facebook friend request and Messenger.
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Source: https://www.dailydot.com/news/texas-roadhouse-server-fired-after-asking-2-managers/