Arby's Employee Fired After Fleeing Armed Robbery: 'I'm Not Going to Die in Arby's Tonight'
An Arby's employee of 23 years was unceremoniously terminated last week from her job as assistant manager of a store in Fairborn, Ohio, less than a day after she managed to flee an armed robbery by climbing out of the drive-thru window.
Mary Archer was in the process of closing up shop just before 1 AM on Friday when a man in a dark colored hoodie entered the restaurant and held her up at knifepoint.
The 56-year-old says a co-worker had just left for the day, and she was all alone in the restaurant with her attacker.
She recalls being cornered in the store's office, but found an opening and pushed the man away, bolting toward the drive-thru window. She cried for help before climbing out and fleeing the scene.
"I had pushed him away…because I'm like, ‘I'm not going to die in Arby's tonight…I'm just not,'" she told News Center 7.
But Arby's management wasn't particularly concerned with Archer's traumatic experience, or the fact that it was the third in-store armed robbery Archer had been subjected to in the past six months.
She was immediately fired for violating the company's safety and security policy, which requires at least two employees to be present in the store at all times.
An Arby's human resources exec told WHIO-TV he felt bad for Archer, but policy violation demanded termination "without exception."
That's fine by Archer, who told the station she didn't want her job back. "We have no alarms, no cameras," she said. "That should have been nipped in the bud the very first attempt."
The armed robber is still on the loose; no valuables were reported missing from the restaurant.
