Chipotle Employees Must Prove to a Nurse That ‘It’s Not a Hangover’ Before Using Sick Days

December 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, nearly 700,000 people will lose access to food stamps under the Trump administration, and more news to start your day

Chipotle requires sick employees to pass a wellness check with a nurse before taking a day off

Have to call in sick at Chipotle? Apparently, you have to pass a check with a nurse, first.

“We have nurses on call, so that if you say, ‘Hey, I’ve been sick,’ you get the call into the nurse,” Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol revealed at a conference on Wednesday, as reported by Insider. “The nurse validates that it’s not a hangover — you’re really sick — and then we pay for the day off to get healthy again.”

The burrito chain highlighted this policy as part of its improved food-safety measures, implemented to help prevent the kind of foodborne illness outbreaks that have tainted the brand’s reputation for years (an internal investigation found that a norovirus outbreak in Virginia in 2017 was the result of a sick employee whose manager failed to enforce the sick policy).

“We have a very different food-safety culture than we did two years ago,” Niccol said, per Insider. “Nobody gets to the back of the restaurant without going through a wellness check.”

You have to give Chipotle some credit for even offering paid sick leave, compared to competitors — as surmised from Reddit posts and job-posting sites like Indeed, the chain’s hourly workers get 24 hours, or three days, of paid sick time, compared to the more typical fast food norm of sick workers having to find colleagues to cover their shifts. But being required to pass a wellness check in order to use those sick days seems fairly draconian, and the CEO suggesting that workers would play hooky due to hangovers comes off as callous.

Besides, calling in sick because you’re hungover isn’t so outlandish! Better they stay home and heal than puke in the guacamole.

And in other news…

• Nearly 700,000 recipients of food stamps will lose access to the SNAP program thanks to the Trump administration’s new USDA work requirements. [NBC News]
• A Long Island-based seafood processor pleaded guilty to selling more than $1 million worth of squid mislabeled as the more expensive octopus. [New Food Economy]
• Following Papa John’s founder John Schnatter’s claim that the chain’s pizza has gotten worse since he was ousted as CEO (and the revelation that Schnatter has eaten “40 pizzas in the last 30 days”), Papa John’s current CEO clarified that the company has not changed its pizza recipe. [Insider]
• Some of the fastest-growing brands in 2019 are food brands and delivery services, according to a survey-based report by research data company Morning Consult. Among the top five are DoorDash, White Claw, Postmates, and Impossible Foods. [Morning Consult]
• How much would you pay for this artwork that consists of a banana duct-taped to the wall? The asking price is $120,000 at Art Basel — and two editions have already been sold. Art!!! [Artnet News]
• KFC has brought back its holiday firelog, for anyone who wants to fill their room with the smoky scent of fried chicken. [Hypebeast]
• Ben Shapiro trying to order a pizza gets the “Daily Shouts” treatment. [The New Yorker]
• I love Hantama-kun the half-a-boiled-egg mascot:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]