Popeyes Fired a Pregnant Manager for Getting Robbed at Gunpoint
A Texas location of fast-food chicken chain Popeyes allegedly fired a pregnant shift manager after her store was robbed by a masked gunman. Marissa Holcomb couldn’t open the safe, but she gave the robber $400 from the register. She says a manager gave her a choice: reimburse the company for the stolen money or lose her job.
She chose the second option, and two days after the armed robbery, she was fired.
A spokesperson for the owner of that Popeyes’ franchise told Houston’s KHOU that Holcomb was technically let go because she’d left too much money in the register, something the company says she’d been warned about before.
Holcomb disputes their claim that she should have put the money in the safe sooner. She told KHOU that March 31, the day of the robbery, was exceptionally busy because of a special offer on two-piece chicken meals, and the money in the register was “what we made within one hour.”
Fortunately, Popeyes’ national office has gotten involved, telling the franchise owner to “reach out to the employee to apologize and rectify the situation,” according to a statement from the CEO Wednesday.
That same day, Holcomb met with franchise owner Amin Dhanani, who apologized and offered to let her return to the job with $2,000 in back pay.
Holcomb, who is five months pregnant with her fourth child, is reluctant about returning to the job after what happened, but she’s been applying for other work since she was fired and hasn’t found anything else.
“I do need a way to support my kids,” she told KHOU. “I don’t want to go back to a business where I’m treated the same and I just get pushed back out if something else happened.”
