When a young store clerk uploaded a photograph of himself inside a Lawson convenience store ice-cream cabinet in the height of summer, he probably thought everyone would find it funny.
But when the photo appeared on Facebook, it went viral, causing an unforeseen backlash that lead to Lawson firing the clerk and dissolving its franchise contract with the store — which just happened to be owned by the boy’s parents.
Netizens agree that his actions were inappropriate, but feel sorry for his parents’ loss of livelihood over a simple childish prank, while others argue that Japan has become too obsessed with hygiene.
From IT Media News:
Convenience Store Clerk Uploads Picture Of Himself Lying Inside Ice-Cream Freezer Cabinet On Facebook, Lawson Apologises, Dissolves Store’s Franchise Contract
When a photograph showing a member of staff inside the freezer cabinet that ice cream is sold from was uploaded on the internet, Lawson apologises, saying “This is completely unacceptable”.
A photograph showing a member of staff lying down inside an ice-cream freezer cabinet inside a ‘Lawson’ convenience store was uploaded to Facebook, causing upset, with comments such as ‘Isn’t that unhygienic?’. On July 15, Lawson apologised, saying ‘Since the freezer cabinet is used for handling foods, this behaviour is completely unacceptable”, revealing that they had dissolved the franchise contract with the store.
The problem photograph was of a young man lying down inside an ice-cream freezer cabinet in the store, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and was uploaded with comments from friends such as “You’re 22, dude, what are you doing!”, “Dare I say it! He’s trash!” It was discovered that the store was Lawson from a logo seen in the photograph.
The photograph was posted on internet message boards, and information such as the details of the branch, and the fact that the boy in the photograph was the son of the people who ran the franchise was also posted online, and it began to trend. There were some commenters who said “I’ll never buy ice-cream from Lawson again”, and apparently there were a flood of complaints to the company.
According to Lawson, the branch is a franchise store in Kamobe, Kochi. After confirming whether or not the story was true, the freezer cabinet and the ice cream were removed, and (1) The franchise contract with the branch has been dissolved based on the stipulations in the contract; (2) The staff member inside the cabinet will be released from employment; other staff members will undertake re-training; (3) From 5pm on July 15, it is decided that the branch will be closed temporarily. We will inform customers of its re-opening when the decision is made.
The company stated that “We apologise sincerely for having made our customers feel upset and uncomfortable. We have reflected on the incident, and decided that this kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable since the freezer cabinet is used for handling food. All of our staff and franchises will join together work hard in regaining the trust of our customers, so that something like this will never happen again.
Lawson’s apology to customers.
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Dissolved the franchise contract wwwwwwwwwww
名無しさん＠１３周年：
What’s gonna happen to the owner?
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Wow, they dealt with that quickly w
The internet is something to be afraid of.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
LMAO cos they were so quick to deal with it appropriately www
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Lawson has the power to deal with complaints.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
What’s happening to the guy? Can they get a huge sum of money from him?
名無しさん＠１３周年：
We can relax and carry on buying stuff there.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Guess there must be loads of people who want to become convenience store owners.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Guess that clerk has no choice but to give his internal organs.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Feel sorry for the owners. Sue properly, make this trash pay 100,000,000 yen.
名無しさん＠１３周年：[in response to above]
Looks like the guy is the owner’s son, so that’s not going to be a solution.
Comments from Twitter:
MATSUMOTO Yutaka:
This is awful RT
あきらけい:
Huh? For sure this young guy is an idiot, but Lawson dealing with this by dissolving the franchise contract is just unbelievable. I won’t go to a convenience store like that.
クロ :
His parents also got caught up in this, their lives are over.
なる＠ムギクラスタ:
It’s a complete disaster that the franchise contract got dissolved…and it still hasn’t stopped trending online.
カミュ:
Losing your job like this would drive you to suicide.
榊（さかき):
It’s fair enough that the boy gets fired because you only reap what you sow, but to go so far as to dissolve the franchise contract is pretty harsh.
ハセベカヅキ:
This is the good and bad of SNS, the idiots are gonna start falling.
Toyoshige Ito:
Lawson dealt with this surprisingly quickly.
ゆっちさん
Every Lawson store is not like this, but they’ve dealt with it reasonably, because all of their store would end up being seen this way.
おシウマイ君:
They’re closing the store? That’s going too far. Isn’t this something that could be done with by saying “we wiped the freezer with alcohol”? This incident, and even stuff with food ingredients makes me think that recently we’re just too obsessed with cleanliness. In the old days we were more tolerant, weren’t we?
ひろゆき:
This guy’s life is over.
