Chick-Fil-A Fans Are Rolling Their Eyes At This Trash Can Complaint

Redditor Jmiller28031 was upset enough on October 9 to join the online discussion forum and vent. What could be the burning issue important enough to motivate someone to join Reddit after ignoring the platform for the first 16 years of its existence? The threat to democracy in America? Global warming? Systemic racism? Maybe billionaires playing space cowboy? Well, what about COVID-19?

The pandemic has brought enormous consequences. Trillions of dollars have been lost in the global economy, per Statista, and The New York Times reports that total deaths are in the millions. When you talk about economic impacts in the U.S., the restaurant industry has been one of the pandemic's biggest victims. Near the end of 2020, Bloomberg reported that restaurants were in "free fall," according to a National Restaurant Association vice president, with 110,000 of them closed permanently. Before the delta variant rose up this summer and the virus that causes COVID-19 appeared to be in retreat, restaurants could finally welcome guests indoors but continued to struggle because they couldn't find enough workers (via Time).

Jmiller28031's complaint on Reddit was about COVID-19's impact on the restaurant industry. As the Redditor mentioned in their first post ever, their local Chick-fil-A's dining room was closed, and the restaurant didn't provide trash cans for patrons eating in their cars outside.

Jmiller28031's post on the "ChickFILA" subreddit was titled, "Won't even take responsibility for their garbage." They wrote, "Chick-fil-A has closed down in-store dining and forces folks to eat in their car or elsewhere. Yet none of their store have garbage cans for their patrons." They concluded with, "I say if you can't find a trash can leave it at their doorstep!"

The sympathy expressed for this new Redditor was on a par with the karma points they'd accumulated since their Reddit cake day, four days ago: -15. "Cry me a river," one commenter quipped. Others engaged Jmiller28031 in debate. "You could just be a decent human being and dispose of your trash properly," Redditor mollythewiz said. Mollythewiz, fairly sparkling with a Reddit karma score of 2,473, continued: "It's not fast food workers' jobs to pick up after you. Understaffing is a big issue right now...."

To be fair to Jmiller28031, they said they don't even eat at Chick-fil-A. They operate some businesses adjacent to a Chick-fil-A, and they must bear labor and disposal costs because people are filling the Reddit poster's garbage cans with used Chick-fil-A wrappers. "My goal is to create the realization that they need their own bins," Jmiller28031 said, "not to expect their customers to have to use others' garbage."

Can't we give a frustrated Chick-fil-A neighbor and Redditor a karma point? After all, the COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on them, too.