Everywhere you turn it seems there’s a cell phone waiting to capture your every move, whether it’s your roommate chronicling the epic blob of food on your face or a savvy customer catching a restaurant worker in the act of doing something that’s just plain gross. To wit: A cellphone pic of a taco restaurant manager in Iowa preparing food while barefoot is causing quite the stir.

According to the Des Moines Register, the 31-year-old team leader at the restaurant mowed the grass outside the franchise on Aug. 8, and then walked into the food-preparation area which is visible to any customer at the counter. She then started making food for herself and friends, says the report.

And a customer did see her — and snapped a photo of the barefoot woman and posted it to the company’s Facebook with the caption noting the location and adding:

“This woman was preparing food with bare feet, no uniform, her bra and chest hanging out all over the place, she was pouring sweat, wiping it off with her hands and not washing them. I asked for the manager — she WAS the manager!! She was extremely rude because I was upset with her appearance and behavior.”

That’s all it took for the photo to spread to the restaurant’s Facebook page, prompting the franchise owner to look at the security footage of the incident. The owner then fired the employee for her behavior, which included failing to pay for the food she’d made for herself and friends, which violated company policy as well as state health regulations.

This is all leading to a bad spate of business for the restaurant, as the owner testified at a public hearing that business has gone down 25% to 33% since the photo went viral. The parent company might also decide to revoke her franchise agreement.

Meanwhile, the fired worker filed a request for unemployment benefits after she was fired, but the owner contested that claim. A judge denied the request, citing health code violations and that the theft of food “had a negative impact” on the restaurant.”

Keep your shoes on at work and pay for food, people. You never know who’ll be watching, and they probably have a cell phone with a camera.

Photo of manager leads to her firing [Des Moines Register]

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