Victorian venue fires staff member over sign taking bets on Ukraine invasion
A Victorian venue has been forced to apologise after outrage over a sandwich board sign about the Ukraine conflict.
Restaurants & Bars
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A restaurant worker at The Deck in Shepparton, Victoria has been fired over a sign on the venue’s sandwich board that appeared to encourage betting on the odds of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Over the weekend, outraged locals took to social media to condemn the sign. Taking to Facebook to respond to the backlash, The Deck explained the staff member responsible “no longer works” for them.
Nice to see that The Deck in Shepparton think it’s all a big game… as if people aren’t dying and families aren’t being torn apart. pic.twitter.com/AW6Tu0OwTk
— kate 🦕 (@KatyLovegood) February 26, 2022
“It has been bought to our attention of an extremely disturbing and unprofessional action from one staff member,” said the post. “This morning a sandwich board advertising very inappropriate and thoughtless wording was put out on display.
“The staff member who we will not name, has been sent home and no longer works for us.
“We apologise for their actions. We as a business apologise to have offended anyone. We are and this individual is extremely sorry and appropriate action has taken place.
The venue ended its apology with a plea to customers not to take out their frustrations on the remaining staff, as they claim the sign was the actions of one individual.
“PLEASE don’t take it out on our front of house staff. The photo … was one persons actions, Nnot [sic] the business, not the people serving you drinks or the people cooking your food.”
It’s a statement that they doubled down on after several commenters expressed doubt that no one else was around to notice the sign.
“I can’t imagine one person would have solely decided on that signage,” said one Facebook user.
“Only [one] person working? … so that [one] person was responsible for front of house, bar and the kitchen and kitchen hand for 13 people?” expressed another.
The Deck updated their statement clarifying “there was one individual staff member working” as they had an early booking of 13 people that “was manageable to be run by [one] person”.
They also explained that since photos of the sandwich board had gone viral, “staff of The Deck have been bullied, job-shamed, verbally attacked & have had promised threats of violence”.
It reiterated that this behaviour from patrons was not on, and that “none of the staff on the current roster at the deck are responsible for the message”.
However, some have commented The Deck should be taking responsibility for allowing just one staff member to run a function for 13 people, instead of using that staff member as a scapegoat.
“ … instead of just putting it down to one staff you need to take accountability for your actions in this and not a having a manager on duty to oversee these things was your responsibility,” said one user.
“Can’t you just say ‘we f**ked up, I’m sorry’. Stop blaming your staff,” said another.
Originally published as Victorian venue fires staff member over sign taking bets on Ukraine invasion