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Praise is nice, but praise with a scheduling advantage turns coworkers into rivals.

A cafe owner decided that employees named in five-star Google reviews would get first pick when requesting days off.

The register crew began hinting, and sometimes outright asking, that customers mention them by name. Meanwhile, the cooks, who never leave the kitchen and rarely meet the people eating their food, were left behind.

Now a group of coworkers is competing for their own time off — and it’s not a sustainable system.

A glowing review has never cost so much.

Keep reading for the full scoop.

Our cafe turned getting weekends off into a Google review contest

I work at a small cafe, and our owner just introduced a new system where employees mentioned by name in 5-star Google reviews get priority when requesting days off.

This has created quite the uncomfortable system.

Now everyone at the register is awkwardly asking customers to mention their name in reviews.

Meanwhile, the kitchen staff are getting screwed because customers don’t even know who cooks their food.

Then the process got even more convoluted.

One of the cooks brought this up, and our owner said reviews are supposed to reflect the whole team.

Cool, so the whole team gets credit until it’s time to give someone a Saturday off.

We’re literally competing for our own free time now.

What a horrible (and potentially illegal?) situation.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

This user has an idea that just might work.

This commenter would write something like this.

Commenters were willing to band together to secure better working conditions for this café crew.

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If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about customer who won’t take no for an answer when it comes to outdated price-matching policies.

Maybe straight up mutiny is the answer.

The cafe runs on two halves, and only one of them gets to compete for Saturdays. That’s the flaw in a system built by this careless leadership.

Customers can’t thank a cook they’ve never met, so the kitchen loses by default. Bitter grumbling in the break room won’t change that.

What will is the entire crew sitting down with the owner and demanding a fair time-off policy.

This crew is way more powerful united than they are divided.

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Author

Benjamin Cottrell

Benjamin Cottrell | Assistant Editor, Internet Culture

Benjamin Cottrell is an Assistant Editor and contributing writer at TwistedSifter, specializing in internet culture, viral social dynamics, and the moral complexities of online communities. He brings a highly analytical, editorial voice to his reporting on workplace conflicts, malicious compliance, and interpersonal drama, with a specific focus on nuanced stories that lack an obvious villain.

As a published author of rhetorical criticism, Benjamin leverages his academic background in human communication to dissect and elevate viral social media threads. Instead of simply summarizing events, he provides readers with balanced, deep-dive commentary into why the internet reacts the way it does. In addition to his cultural reporting, he is an experienced fine art photography essayist and video game reviewer.

When he isn’t analyzing the latest viral debates, Benjamin is usually chipping away at his extensive video game backlog, hunting down the best new restaurants, or out exploring the city with a camera in hand.

Connect with Benjamin on Instagram and read more of his essays on Substack.