Morning Brew: May 9th, 2008

Tim Horton's has an image of sponsoring charities so it comes as a surprise that they're so tight-assed about one measly Timbit, well at least at that Tim Horton's in London, ON. Three managers came out to discipline the employee? Wow, I wonder what the response is when something serious happens.

Re. Tim Hortons:
When i drive through with my dog in the drive through the lady with the Hijab always gives him a tim bit!

Off Topic: Is it just me or has the morning brew been missing out on several key topics..
1) the refusal of AID from the UN to Myanmar due to the military junta seizing supplies
2) The closing of BLAK at Bathurst and Queen

@ apetimberlake

It's not surprising that Japhet isn't highlighting news about the cyclone in Myanmar, because this is the blogTO Toronto-related news roundup. Furthermore, I don't think it's realistic to expect us to cover every local news topic either. Things will always slip through the cracks.

That said, feel free to send us news tips or feedback. There's a handy link and form at the top of the page :)

Cheers,
Jerrold

I've gone into Tim Hortons around midnight and I've received about 10+ tim bits from one of ther cash girls for buying two cookies. The manager should be fired.

I can see a Tim Hortons manager with small dick syndrom getting his little rocks off firing someone for taking a tim bit.

Perhaps they were simply looking for an excuse to fire this particular person.

Talking about missing things out - Happy Victory Day, everyone!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Day_%28Eastern_Europe%29

It's rather amusing to picture the marketing dept at Tim Horton's, probably having to work all weekend with their pr agency to find a way of papering over this disaster.
All those years cultivating an image as a down-home, neighbourly coffee shop -- down the crapper!

You remember when it was 79 cents? How touching.
It was only 10 years ago when it was 43 cents :P

You should carry more national news so you can comment on Citynews' headline 'Death Train Quarantined' (Hmm... Death Train Quarantine...that could make a good band name).

Although to be fair, Morning Brew was written and posted before that story arose.

It bothers me that the mention she was a mother of four in the first sentence of the story. In the Globe version it took until the second sentence to reveal she's a 27-year old single mother of four. Clearly a single parent who's pumped out 4 kids by 27 and is still working at a Tim's hasn't made the best choices in life, so who knows what else she's given away? Maybe this was just the final straw?

Serotonin: Wow, judgmental, much? Clearly, yes, she's not in the best situation, but it may not be a reflection of her moral character.

Another possibility is that while she is a good person, management has based their opinion of her based on her situation. 'Single mother of 4 working at a Tim Hortons? clearly she's a bad person and needs to be let go after this Timbit incident before she does something worse. Who knows, maybe next it will be a DOUGHNUT!'

RE: Death Train Quarantined

Just a thought... I really do hope the TTC's next generation of streetcars will have opening windows.

My point was that firing this woman over one timbit seems so extreme, that you can't ignore the possibility that she wasn't flawless at her job. People have no problem forming judgement about her manager, so why is it so wrong to judge this woman?

I also don't like that the fact she is a 27-year old single mother was pointed out so quickly, clearly to establish vulnerability. If this was a 19-year old childless male, I doubt it ever would've made the news. How many children you have, whether you are single, and your age has no relevance to this issue.

I disagree, Serotonin.

A single mother was able to recognize that a client/customer (another harried mother) was having a bad day -- and made a small gesture to help her, creating one of those Tim Horton's moments they mimic in the ads. If somebody in corporate sales reached out to a client with a gesture like that, she'd be called a genius and given a tidy bonus.

It's relevant to the story.

@Christopher

It's nice to see some of the older folk keepin' it real on blogTO. :p

It's only relevant because without that info there is no story, it's just someone getting fired for breaking the rules, which is really all this is.

We love to root for the underdog and against "the man." The story has been painted as the bad corporate-lackey manager preying on the poor, selfless mother of four. People eat that crap up as evidenced by the response. They project their own emotions into the situation, be it seeing their mother in place of this woman, or their anger at their own boss or previous boss, or any number of scenerios.

Tims has no obligation to give anything for free, and if the policy is to not give away free things, then it was in their right to dismiss her. Things also rarely occur in a vaccum, and chances are this woman did other things that were not up to her employer's expectations, and probably gave away lots of Timbits over her time working there.

There's being cold, but then there's also being overly empathetic. It's not like this is that situation in the States where a now mentally disabled woman was sued for nearly a half-million dollars by Wal-Mart, the same week her son was killed in Iraq and she didn't even understand what happened to him.

@apetimberlake

I hadn't seen anything about the closing of Blak but I totally would've covered it.

Post a link!

Serotonin: Your outrage is directed at the sloppy journalism of the papers (which I agree with wholeheartedly), not this woman then.

"Chances are" is an easy phrase, though, to throw around in this scenario. Chances are she was a lazy employee who gave away too many freebies to customers, but the same chances are the manager was overzealous in adhering to policy. Unfair dismissal *isn't* unheard-of.

Frankly, from the stories I've heard, it's impossible to tell exactly which situation is true. The woman has admitted that she never had a good relationship with that manager, but I haven't heard why. Maybe the manager is an asshole, or maybe she's a terrible employee.