Hooters employee reveals ‘ridiculous’ reasons her co-workers were fired: ‘I’m glad I rethought applying here’

A Hooters employee has reignited a debate about the strict guidelines Hooters requires staff to follow after claiming in a video that a number of her co-workers were fired for allegedly breaking the company’s rules.

Jardin, who goes by the username @jardinmay on TikTok, shared a video about working for Hooters to the platform on Thursday, in which she can be seen dancing with a group of women also wearing the official Hooters Girls uniforms.

“POV [point of view]: having a good time with my homegirls at work,” the caption reads, before the clip transitions to a shot of just Jardin alone in her uniform. “They all get fired.”

The video, which has been viewed more than 2m times, prompted curious reactions from viewers, who urged Jardin to share the reasons her co-workers were fired.

“Okay, definitely need a story time,” one viewer wrote, while another encouraged her to “spill the tea”.

In a follow-up video, Jardin began by acknowledging that she would not be showing photos of her former co-workers, before claiming that the first woman was fired because she “showed up late,” which Jardin noted is typically handled with a “write-up”.

“And when they tried to write her up for being late, she brought up other girls that were late and never got written up,” she continued, adding that the former staff member was then written up again for something “petty”. According to Jardin, after the second warning, the woman got upset and began “yelling and screaming,” at which point she said her former co-worker was written up a third time. “You need two write-ups, and once you get two write-ups, you are supposed to be terminated,” Jardin said.

According to Jardin, the second of her co-workers to get fired was a woman who she claimed was let go because “of her hair”.

“One of the main rules of Hooters is, whatever you look like when you are hired, you have to maintain that standard, and so she dyed her hair red and they were saying you can’t come into work with your hair that colour,” Jardin recalled. “Obviously she’d already spent the money getting her hair dyed that colour and so she was fired because she wouldn’t change her hair back.”

A third co-worker “technically didn’t get fired,” but quit “before Hooters could say she was fired,” according to Jardin. As for what her offense was, the TikToker acknowledged Hooters’ jewellery rule, which she said states that employees can only wear “studs, no hoops” in their ears, and that they can’t wear a necklace at work and can only wear one ring [per hand].

According to Jardin, the woman had two nose studs as well as a septum piercing, “which is not allowed”. “So she got fired because she refused to take her piercing out,” she continued.

In the video, Jardin then claimed that her last co-worker was fired because a customer called the restaurant to complain about their bill being higher than what they had left in a tip, which Jardin noted meant that the customer thought their server “changed their tip”.

However, Jardin claimed that this can happen accidentally, as the Hooters location where she works is very busy, and it is “very easy to mistype a tip”.

“One time I tipped myself 10 cents and it was a $100 tip, and I didn’t notice it until I counted my money at the end of the night and I was like: ‘No, I made more than this,’” Jardin recalled, adding that she is not sure about the specific situation in which her co-worker was let go but that “when you’re working fast and you’re trying to answer customers, it’s just very easy to mistype a tip”.

According to Jardin, in addition to the four women that were fired from her Hooters location, four more “transferred to a different Hooters location,” and an additional two women went to work for a Hooters competitor.

In response to the video, many viewers criticised the restaurant chain’s strict Hooters Girls’ policies, with one person writing: “Well I’m glad I rethought applying here.”

“There is no way the pay is good enough to put up with that,” another person said, while someone else wrote: “This job sounds absolutely horrendous, holy sh*t.”

The video also prompted one person to reveal that they “can’t believe Hooters is still in business,” with the viewer adding: “Their rules are insane.”

Others compared the company to the military, while someone else noted: “I feel like they have rules like high schools do.”

“Hooters rules feel an awful lot like misogyny,” another person wrote.

Hooters has faced criticism for its controversial employee requirements before, after the restaurant chain attempted to roll out an outfit change that featured shorter shorts. In addition to rules about what employees can and cannot wear, the company also has specific guidelines regarding physical appearance, with the Hooters website noting that Hooters Girls are “identified by [their] glamorous styled hair, camera ready make-up, and fit body”.

As noted by Jardin, women hired by the company are also expected to follow a number of guidelines that dictate everything from jewellery and appropriate hair and nail colours to their social media usage.

The Independent has contacted Jardin and Hooters for comment.