Should the Wareham Wendy’s Manager Have Been Disciplined?

When news broke that a Wendy's District Manager had blasted Wareham for having "little to no talent pool to hire from," I thought that there would be zero debate in public opinion.

"Most (applicants) are recovering addicts, and we cannot hire them," wrote the manager in an email response to a complaint about the service at the Cranberry Highway Wendy's. I couldn't imagine anyone in the world defending that. And, as luck would have it, the world did end up getting wind of the story as it gained international status after being picked up by the Daily Mail in the UK.

However, I was stunned to read that a majority of the comments on the Fun 107 page supported the manager, who was suspended by The Wendy's Company pending an investigation. I'm embarrassed to say that it never even occurred to me that this might be a counter opinion. You'd think that after doing this job for nearly 25 years, I'd have learned that lesson. Apparently, not.

One comment after another supported the manager's position. There were some commenters who found the manager's email distasteful, but a vast majority of the feedback on the Fun 107 Facebook page were defending the manager for "speaking the truth" and getting punished for it.

In a Fox Business piece about the Wareham Wendy's incident, the article included some statistics about opioid abuse in the state. "Massachusetts ranked among the top ten states with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths involving opioids,” according to Drugabuse.gov. "In 2017, there were 1,913 drug overdose deaths involving opioids in Massachusetts—a rate of 28.2 deaths per 100,000 persons, which is twofold higher than the national rate of 14.6 deaths per 100,000 persons."