Teen Fired From Jack In The Box For Giving A Veteran Free Coffee And Tacos

Fox 5 - It’s a story about a good deed gone bad: 19-year-old Alex Mesta says he was fired from his job at a Jack in Box restaurant in Bakersfield, California after he was caught on surveillance video giving a military veteran free tacos.

Mesta admits to giving the customer other freebies in the past because he was a veteran and a regular. “Since he’s a vet, I don’t think I should charge him for his coffee,” he explained. “It’s like, not even a dollar for his coffee.”

One night, the teen server decided to give the veteran two tacos — which retail for just $0.99. He says that the food items were left over at the end of the day and destined to the thrown out. “It’s either throw them away or make them for him,” Mesta explained.

But his actions were caught on store surveillance cameras—and someone from corporate wasn’t happy with what they saw. Mesta says he was fired from the job, which he’d held for two years.

Meanwhile, Jack in the Box released a statement, which read, in part: “regarding this incident, while it would not be appropriate to provide complete details on an internal disciplinary issue, our actions in this case were not based on just one incident and had nothing to do with the guest’s military experience.”

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This is a way more complex issue than meets the eye. It’s very easy to hive-mind and go “rabble rabble rabble, fuck Jack in the Box, this kid is a saint, rabble rabble rabble”. Do I think it’s worth firing someone because they gave away 2 dollars of food? No. Do I think there is way more to it than just giving away 2 dollars of food? Absolutely. I’ll try to break it down fairly and look at all angles like they taught me at the University of Maryland school of journalism which I did not attend.

1) There is a lot of he-said, she-said in this story. Teen claims he was fired for giving away a cup of coffee and 2 tacos. He said he “doesn’t feel I should charge him for his coffee”. Now, on one hand, very nice of the kid to want a vet to enjoy a free cup of coffee. On the other hand, I could understand a company not wanting their employees to decide if they “feel” like charging someone for their order. How many people can he decide he doesn’t “feel” like charging? It’s a very slippery slope.

2) The old “throw them away or make them for him” reasoning. Again, it’s 2 tacos for 1 dollar, not going to put JITB out of business, the guy is a vet, it’s very nice to give a vet free tacos. But it’s also very easy to give away free food when it’s not your food to give away. If everyone came in when the store was closing and expected free tacos, they wouldn’t sell any tacos. I can see how the company would not want their employees to do this. And at the very least, ask a manager before you start giving away free food. Ever worked at a food place before? The manager will probably say ok, but just do the responsible and sensible thing and at least ask first.

3) It doesn’t seem like this is the first time the kid has been reprimanded. JITB said “our actions in this case were not based on just one incident”. Maybe he didn’t feel like charging his friends? Or maybe he was slacking off at the job and had been warned before? When dealing with cases like this, we always have to remember there is always more than meets the eye. It’s so easy to make it a military/veteran thing and immediately side with the kid, but there could be much more we don’t know about.

4) Jack in the Box would not fire someone for giving away 2 dollars of food to a military veteran. Why would they want that AWFUL publicity? This is probably the easiest point in the world to make. Again, it seems like this was one of many times they wanted to fire this kid, and he was able to spin it successfully to make himself look like a hero and JITB look like the assholes. Very savvy. Which brings us to point 5…

5) It doesn’t even matter if JITB was in the right here. This kid could have stolen thousands of dollars from the register, but he got out ahead of the story and claimed he got fired for giving a vet free food, so JITB looks bad once you read the headline. So if you ever get fired from a job, just make a Facebook status saying you got fired for helping the troops. You got fired because you cared too much. For being too American.

It’s interesting how headlines like mine, “Teen Fired From Jack In The Box For Giving A Veteran Free Coffee And Tacos” and the corresponding article can make you feel one way, but then when you think about it, you realize hmm, maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye.

And the thing is, the kid probably meant well. That’s what I think got lost in my 5 points, he meant well. He was trying to help a vet. We certainly need more than that. I just think there is way more to this than a kid being fired for giving away 2 dollars worth of food and I wanted to take the other side of it for blog reasons, because you can only write “rah rah go America” blogs so many times before you get redundant. Sometimes I like stretching my brain to see if it still works.

PS: Jack in the Box is overrated. You live in Cali bro, go work at In N Out. Idiot.