A flying burrito bowl is getting national attention because of the unusual sentence an Ohio judge imposed on the unhinged Chipotle customer who hurled her hot dish into the 26-year-old restaurant manager’s face.
Rosemary Hayne’s restaurant rage on Sept. 5 got her arrested and landed her in Parma Municipal Court Judge Timothy Gilligan’s court on Nov. 28, according to Fox 8 News, where he sentenced the 39-year-old woman to six months in jail. The judge suspended half the jail time and told Hayne she could knock another 60 days off her time behind bars if she got herself a job in a fast-food restaurant.
The judge is hoping Hayne learns empathy by working in the shoes of the fast-food employees she abused with her temper tantrum. You may not know this but it should not come as a surprise — fast-food restaurant work is an incredibly stressful job.
“You didn’t get your burrito bowl the way you like it and this is how you respond?” Gilligan told her. “This is not real housewives of Parma. This behavior is not acceptable.”
Angry, immature customers like Hayne lash out in McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s, Chipotle, Burger King and other fast-food eateries every day. Employees often get food thrown at them. They experience constant low-grade stress, long hours and unpredictability in their schedules for low pay and little to no recognition. Author Emily Guendelsberger documents all of this and more in her book, “On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane.”
(And these little jobs where the employees by and large feel underpaid and undervalued are BIG BUSINESS. Americans spent $382 billion on fast-food burgers, french fries, tacos, fried chicken, milk shakes and other munchables in 2022.)
@__n.o.n.e things getting a little spicy in the parma chipotle. #chipotle #parma #cleveland #fyp #fy #fypシ #foryou #burrito ♬ original sound - NA
The judge thinks that’s the kind of environment Hayne deserves — and it might be worse than jail.
“Do you want to walk in her shoes for two months and learn how people should treat people, or do you want jail time?”
Hayne took the deal and apologized but she also complained about her food again, which the restaurant had remade twice that day to satisfy her complaints.
“If I showed you how my food looked … it’s disgusting looking,” Hayne whined to the judge, apparently still feeling justified in how she went off in the Chipotle.
Gilligan retorted: “I bet you won’t be happy with the food you are going to get in jail.”
In an interview with Law & Crime, the judge explained his sentence.
“I thought, why not take this opportunity to have her learn how you how people should be treated, how you should react, and the appropriate response to that type of situation. And that can be best learned by placing her in the shoes of the … victim.”
That victim, the manager on the receiving end of the steaming hot burrito bowl, is Emily Russell. When police arrived, Russell was covered in meat, rice and sauce and her face showed evidence of a slight red mark. She was so traumatized by the episode and the lack of support from the Chipotle chain upper management that she quit her job.
This literal slap in the face was the final injury after a string of insults.
“It was mentally and physically getting hard on me,” Russell wrote in a Facebook post. She’d worked at Chipotle for four years. “Working 65-hour weeks, no raises, no appreciation. I just had enough.”
Russell, who got a new job and a promotion at a new Raising Cane's chicken restaurant, said she was OK with the judge’s sentence.
We have to wonder, however, what fast-food restaurant manager in Greater Cleveland is going to take a chance by hiring Rosemary Hayne?
This woman obviously has anger-management issues. Workers at the Parma Chipotle had seen her act out before. So had the customers. They had their phones ready to record when Hayne started misbehaving.
“Those cameras weren’t rolling because Taylor Swift just walked into the joint,” the judge told Law & Crime. “Those cameras were on because she made such a scene and wanted to be such a bully. And this was the second occasion. She walked in there and she made it absolutely clear to everybody in the place that she was going to be a bully and abuse and put on a show.”
If by chance someone does hire Hayne to sling hash browns, flip burgers or dish up burrito bowls, will she be a model employee serving up quality eats with a smile? Or will she show up as her sour self and get food thrown into her own face? She might experience real empathy then.
Russell said she was happy with the sentence. She believes Hayne will learn her lesson. If the judge had more of an eye-for-an-eye approach to the case, he might have offered Russell the chance to throw a hot steaming burrito bowl in Hayne's puss.
It's sad that episodes like this aren't all that unusual in an era where some workers in our society are deemed eminently abusable by the cruel and callous.
The silver lining in this story is that this woman’s assholery produced an epiphany for Russell. She decided to shove this job, moved on and found a better place to work where she feels valued and appreciated.
What do you think? Is it possible to learn empathy by working in someone else’s shoes?
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