Everyone has done it at least once, except it sounds like Chipotle workers may have ruined this for the rest of us. According to The Shade Room, Chipotle has hired on-call nurses who will look into claims that employees are actually feeling unwell and not simply too hungover for their shift. The move comes as a part of the popular restaurant chain's efforts to make changes to its food-safety policies. Essentially, if you call in sick with a cold or stomach flu, Chipotle will have an on-call nurse to check you out and make sure you aren't faking it. Then, with the nurse's confirmation that you are in fact sick, Chipotle will pay for the day off for the employee to get well again.
The update to their practices comes after a norovirus outbreak in 2017 where Virginia customers got sick. Then an internal investigation revealed that a part of the reason for the outbreak was in-store managers failing to apply the food-safety policies and also an employee being sick.
Chipotle CEO Brian Niccole said, "We have a very different food-safety culture than we did two years ago, OK?” He continued saying, “nobody gets to the back of the restaurant without going through a wellness check.” After what happened in 2017, it makes sense that Chipotle would take new measures to ensure the safety of their customers, but is this genius or going a little too far?