A single mother-of-three who ran a Burger King store all on her own has been fired by the franchise.
Nykia Hamilton, 25, went viral after a customer at the fast food restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina, shared a video of her on TikTok last month working to serve food alone.
Hamilton said one of her employees quit and she didn’t have anyone else stepping in, so she had to open and close the place herself and cover the full 11am to 11pm.
‘Had to do the dishes, do prep, do the floor, do the front counter, drive-thru,’ Hamilton told WACH.
The mum had help one day, but due to understaffing, she did another closing shift solo.
‘We just don’t have any employees. Nobody wants to work anymore,’ said Hamilton, adding the toll it has taken on her family life too.
‘I be missing out on my kids’ lives when I work so much. I have to provide for them, but I really don’t have time to spend with them, and it hurts me a lot.’
Just over a month after the TikTok video was posted, things got worse for the hard-working sole provider.
‘Bruh (Burger King) fired me because I’ve been late because of my kids,’ she said while crying in her car in a video she posted to TikTok on August 8.
‘My mind is already f***ed up. I’m trying to keep pushing for my kids but I cannot do this s*** no more. The devil been on my back bad … I promise you he won.’
Burger King confirmed that Hamilton had been terminated ‘due to repeated attendance issues’.
‘No Team Member should ever be left to run a restaurant alone, even for a short period of time,’ stated a company spokesperson on Wednesday.
‘That’s not how we operate, and we’re disappointed that our policy, which requires more than one Team Member to work per shift, wasn’t followed…
‘While we can’t share more on individual personnel matters, we’re focused on making sure every restaurant, whether company or franchise-run, has the staffing and support needed to take care of our Team Members and deliver the kind of experience our Guests expect.’
A GoFundMe page for Hamilton had raised more than $100,600 as of Thursday afternoon.
‘Thank yall so much for the support I didn’t expect turn out but I promise I won’t let yall stay tune for videos dropping soon,’ she wrote in an update to it on Wednesday.
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