Franchisee From Hell! Awards: Luke Benjamin, Pizza Time
January 3, 2009 by Sean Kelly
Filed under :-) Humor, PIZZA TIME, x Franchisees From Hell
(FranchisePick.Com) They say that good franchise companies don’t sell franchises, they award them. After all, franchisors are 
trusting their franchise owners with their most valuable corporate assets: their brand names. Their reputations. The goodwill they’ve spent years and millions of ad dollars cultivating.
Sometimes that trust is severely misplaced, and the franchisor gets its very own Franchisee From Hell! By definition, the aggravation, bad press and brand-damage of a Franchisee From Hell! wreaks on a franchise system clearly outweighs and franchise fees, royalties or ad contributions the FFH! could ever contribute.
Of course, Franchisees From Hell! are much appreciated by the blogosphere, for they feed its insatiable appetite for stories of dysfunction ranging from clownish (like Subway Franchisee From Hell! Cousin Vinny Agnello) to the inexplicable (like Holiday Inn franchisee Charles Morais) to the tragically bizarre (like Quiznos’ sex offender and murder suspect Michael Mele).
Hypothermia Time Pizza… Now Hiring!
Today’s Franchisee From Hell! Award winner comes to us from Richard Chemiel’s hilarious No-Name247 whose blog post states “…Luke Benjamin, franchise owner of Pizza Time in Lacey WA, got upset when his employees left the furnace on all night. So Benjamin shut off the heat, and point blank told employees that if they don’t like working there, to find another job.”
Luke Benjamin, who obviously knows how to keep them good-fer-nothing employees in line, posted the following note:
“If you don’t want to work here quit, otherwise shut up and do your job. The next person I hear complaining is off for two weeks. We don’t have heat!! You guys screwed up, not us. You want to blame someone, look in the mirror.”
It’s All About the Benjamin’s, Baby…
Benjamin is a well-rounded Franchisee From Hell! in that his Human Resource skills are surpassed only by his Public Relations savvy. He not only unashamedly agreed to be interviewed by King 5 news, but gave the camera crew full run of the Ice Station Zebra:
The temperature was 55 degrees when we went in on Friday, but we saw something else. There’s a space heater in the office where Benjamin’s wife – the real boss – runs her accounting business.
Then we get to the real truth of the matter.
“It doesn’t look good, but she’s my wife and my boss and she tells me what she’s going to do and I’m not going to argue with her,” said Benjamin.
When asked about the chilly treatment of his workers, Pizza Time Franchisee From Hell! stated “If they can’t deal with it then there are plenty of other jobs out there.”
Unfortunately for both Benjamin and Pizza Time, there are plenty of other places to order pizza, too.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
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I love it. Love it, love it, love it! Masochists that actually get to make free pleas for pain and suffering via mass media. And they are going to receive plenty. I’ve already emailed the Lacey Chamber of Commerce and the Pizza Time corporate office. I hope crickets can survive such cold temps, because quite soon crickets will be the only thing to be heard at that Pizza Time, soon to be renamed Closing Time. Then the Benjamins can be as financially bankrupt as they are morally bankrupt.
Also, if any of those employees are minors, that may constitute prosecutable child abuse.
If we could engineer cars to run on stupidity, there would be an infinite supply. Morons such as these owners prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wait until the first employee files a workman’s comp. claim for frostbite, hypothermia, or pneumonia.
It’s fun to watch morons self-destruct.
If we could engineer cars to run on stupidity…
I think this should be a priority of the new administration. Talk about an untapped natural resource…!
I am the manager of that store and the one seen on king 5 (go to king5.com) and was fired over this any donations (money, job offers, legal aid) would be appreciated contact king 5 or email me [site policies] I am not the only worker who has been suspended or fired over this.
Check this out from another Pizza Time in Olympia
http://www.iww.org/unions/iu640/pizzatime
Dan,
Are any of the employees minors? Because if they are, I believe some state, local, or even federal laws about endangering the safety of minors would apply here. Also, I will be amazed if you don’t get all sorts of offers of jobs, legal help, and money in the next week or so. Give ‘em hell. Even keeping it at 55 degrees is inhumane. Speaking of inhumane, it is illegal to treat animals the way these creepazoids have been treating their employees. And that doesn’t even include them swiping the tips or not giving breaks. Oh, don’t you worry, Dan. All will be well with you, and these wads are in for a world of hurt.
Mr Baxter contact the BBB
Sean Kelly - Your post is excellent and the dubious award to Pizza Time is well-deserved.
Question: Although Luke Benjamin appeared in the KING 5 report, isn’t it his wife, the accountant, who is the owner, and isn’t she the one who made the decision to punish the employees by withholding the heat? Believe me, I’m not trying to let Mr. Benjamin off the hook. He is as culpable as she is. I just think a bit of clarification would be helpful.
What a team they are. Hope they enjoy their journey into bankruptcy!
Although Luke Benjamin appeared in the KING 5 report, isn’t it his wife, the accountant, who is the owner, and isn’t she the one who made the decision to punish the employees by withholding the heat?
The report referred to her as the owner, but also called Luke the owner. He, however, wrote the sign and was foolish enough to do an interview defending it. She clearly holds the purse strings - and puppet strings. Looks like they’re a great team.
After seeing what appears to be the wife’s public disclosure of her employees’ DUIs in retaliation, I think it would take more than a space heater to melt the ice in her workspace.
“Then we get to the real truth of the matter.”
I love this phrase. Some surprising truth that we can always get nice and touching realization.
Boycott Mrs. Benjamin’s accounting firm! The next 4 months are her bread and butter, a wholesale boycott will bankrupt them.
I don’t think its very nice to try to bankrupt anyone… hopefully they will learn their lesson, quickly.
It would be adviseable to her accounting clients to see if she categorized “heat” as an non-essential expense item.
Her pizza customers may want to count the pepperoni’s on their pizza. You can be sure she did.
I have a hunch there’s more to the story than what the Jesse Jones interview portrayed.
From the comments that Mrs. Benjamin has made, it sounds as if there are other issues going on and that it’s more a case of a disgruntled employee getting revenge on his employer for an accumulation of conflicts between the two.
I’m not so sure that the Benjamin’s are the terrible employers as they are being portrayed. There’s always two sides to any story.
You won, Mr. Baxter. You’ve managed to ruin this business because of your anger whether justified or not. I know you feel good about being able to do that.
However, I’m now questioning whether the Benjamins are as horrible as you make them out to be.
From the comments that Mrs. Benjamin has made, it sounds as if there are other issues going on…
Comments seemingly from Mrs. Benjamin’s (”Owner”) consisted of disparaging her pizza shop employees, publicly citing their DUIs, calling them unemployable and seeming to revel in their joblessness. That’s extremely unprofessional and immature for an owner of two businesses. It also did nothing to quell the uproar over their seeming indifference to the welfare of their employees. If anything, it reinforced the negative perceptions… warranted or not.
The fact that this happened in 2005 with the Olympia Pizza Time is disturbing. Hopefully, Pizza Time Corporate will put a PR crisis management program in place to keep their franchisees from imploding every time they face criticism.
You guys have GOT to be pulling my leg. Luke Benjamin’s own words and actions, which he not only doesn’t deny but defiantly admits on camera, speak for themselves. Unjustifiable no matter how you slice it. If Dan was the manager it should fall on his shoulders alone for not double-checking closing-time procedures had been performed. So by any common sense standard, HE and ONLY he should have been penalized. By deducting something from one of his checks, or losing manager status or being suspended or fired..whatever. NOT permanent corporal punishment of the entire staff. Which is what the Benjamins did and don’t deny.
We’re not even allowed to do this to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, for the love of Pete.
And yes, if Pizza Time Corp. doesn’t yank the franchise, they do deserve to lose business, and other Pizza Time’s can put pressure on the corp. bigwigs to lean on the Benjamins. That’s BS to say the corp’s hands are tied. If that were true, no corps would allow for independent franchisees, too much risk.
And the Benjamins do deserve to go bankrupt, even if some of you are now flip-flopping. Karma is a bitch.
I have been an employee and an owner in the restaurant business. These pizza time owners need to take a class on management-employee relations. I think all bosses get burned once in a while by bad employees, but my experience has been that when treated with respect, my employees have saved my tail more than once. They are my front line and I treat them as such. I hate to wish ill on anyone, but these two owners are not responsible enough to own a thriving business. In this horrible economy, they will surely fail. Bye Bye!
That’s BS to say the corp’s hands are tied.
I never said their hands were tied. I said they’ve got to be careful in matters involving their franchisee’s employees to prevent what’s called creating an “agency” relationship which makes the franchisor liable for the actions of franchisee’s employees.
The franchisor can certainly put pressure and even pull the franchise rights if the franchisee is damaging the trademark and harming the chain’s image. But they would be much better off helping these owners see the error of their ways and stop self-destructing.
This is more a PR crisis than anything. These guys aren’t running a forced labor camp, just a cold pizza joint.
Evidently, the profit margins are very thin or non-existent for rhe Benjamin’s and they are trying to survive. You can bet the employee who forgot to turn off the furnace, as he was instructed to do, won’t do that again. In reality, this was probably the only fair and effective recourse the Benjamin’s had to discipline their employee under employment laws. Could they have fired the employee for cause for this negligence?
But, of course, if enough people complain to the Corporate Office, the Corporate office, the frandhisor, might think about terminating the Benjamin’s and taking their territory and giving it to someone else. I’m sure THEIR “discretion” under the franchise contract would allow them to do this and the COURTS wouldn’t find that this constituted excessive punishment of the franchisee by the franchisor. A story like this wouldn’t make the local papers, would it? .
Maybe Kathy K. and others, are competitors who want to put the Benjamin’s out of business? Who knows?
How about some press coverage and an award for a “FRANCHISOR from hell” and a little explanation of how difficult it is to operate a pizza franchise profitably when this sector is SATURATED.
If the Benjamin’s are trying to break even and are not profitable, of course they would be very sensitive to the increase in their overhead caused by a careless and insensitive employee.
Employees of franchisees can always bad-mouth their franchisee employer with apparent immunity under the law —whereas the franchisee owner can be terminated with NO compensation by the franchisor for damaging the “brand image” in the eye of the public.
All of the problems of financing and operating a “brand” franchised business as the legal employer are magnified because in reality the real employer “the franchisor” can give you an award for the “franchise from hell” and put you out of business if your management practices tarnish the brand name.
Let’s be fair here!
How about some press coverage and an award for a “FRANCHISOR from hell”
Is there ANY situation you can’t blame on the franchisor?
We award those every day. See the “Controversial Companies” section in the right sidebar.
Carol, you’re amazing.
Be fair, Sean! You know that franchisors evade and avoid fair employment laws and that, in reality, under the law of the contract, the franchisor is the paper owner of the franchised business but doesn’t share in any failure of that business or in any of the overhead expenses of running the business.
I know that there are probably some good franchisors out there who do provide profitabikle business opportunities, but it is true that they are “good” only because they choose to be good and can afford to be “good” because their concept is “hot” and maybe even producing profits for franchisees.
Under the current status quo of the law, franchisors do not have to be “good.”
I know you push only those “hot” concepts and franchisors and that you do a public good by providing a public voice for franchisees. Your Controversial Franchisors should be a MUST for new prospects.
Franchisors can’t come on Franchise Pick and defend themselves because, as you pointed out, they can’t make success or earnings claims outside of the contract. And, unfortunately, over 75% of them make no success or earnings claims within the contracts.
Since franchisors control the situation most of the time under the terms of the binding, unbargained, unfair franchise agreements, there are very few situations that can’t be traced back to them.
In this instance, I think it is grossly unfair that these people should be destroyed because of their (misguided?) efforts to discipline the employees that they pay.
Sure! There are BAD franchisees but I don’t think this scenario is a prime example of a bad franchisee employer.
“After seeing what appears to be the wife’s public disclosure of her employees’ DUIs in retaliation,”
There MUST be some kind of employment violation here. I do know that prior employers are not supposed to divulge to employers doing reference checks why an employee no longer is with the company. They’re only supposed to say whether they think they are a good worker, show up on time, or if THAT person would re-hire them.
Wouldn’t that fall in the same catagory as employers not being able to ask about your age?
I think a job application is the ONLY place where an applicant must put down whether they have been convicted of any crimes and even THEN that information is supposed to be between the employee and the employer.
Mark at BizLevity has a hilarious (as always) take on the situation. Check it out:
http://www.bizlevity.com/they-had-the-pizza-time-of-their-lives/
I especially like his idea for a Pizza Time Iditerod Sled Dog sponsorship. Scroll through BizLevity anytime you need a good laugh.
He’s added a musical version:
http://www.bizlevity.com/dirty-franchising-the-sequel/
Déjà vu for Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater where I’m from. This is the second store in the area that has had major problems, they are less than six miles apart from one another. Pizza Time must attract some sweet owners!
This is the comment posted by “Owner” at King 5. No one can seem to find it… it may have been deleted, but I have a copy. I assume it’s Ms. Benjamin:
_____________________
“We hired Dan when we bought the store in 2006 and John a year or so ago. Until now, Dan has been our main manager and someone I’d consider my friend. We’ve given them jobs and taken good care of them as employees and now they are bitting the hand thats feed them. Somehow Dan’s forgotten about all the good things we’ve done for him over the years.
Dan…who gave you your bedroom furniture when you had none?
Dan…who drove for you and gave you all the tips and commission when you got your DUI and lost your license?
Dan…who picked you and all your Christmas presents up last week when you were strand at home becuase of all the snow?
Dan…need I go on?
Everyone is singing Dan & John praises but they know nothing about Dan or John. Trust me…NO ONE ELSE WILL HIRE THEM WHEN THEY LOOK INTO THEIR BACKGROUNDS. Dan and John got suspended and of course they are unhappy and are only telling 1/2 of the story.
Dan’s statement of it being 19-25 degrees in the store is completely false. The pipes would have burst if it was that cold in here
We are great boses!!! Just ask the other employees that are still working here what they think of us. We are not making anyone work here. Order a pizza and talk to the delivery driver yourself. Sure its cold in the store, It has always has been cold. From the time we bought the store until just two weeks ago, the heat has never been run…so being cold is nothing new to Dan or John. Thurston County’s Make-up Air requirements make the HVAC system ineffective and very costly to run. In these tough economic times, we have to do everything we can to save money so that we have jobs to give our employees.
Dan’s statement of it being 19-25 degrees in the store is completely false. The pipes would have burst if it was that cold in here
And FYI…The Health Department does not require employees to wear gloves unless they are preparing ready-to-eat foods. The pizzas go through a 550 degree oven and are not considered a ready-to-eat food.
Keep in mind that boycotting Pizza Time only hurts the employees you’re trying to support. Most of our employees live paycheck to paycheck. Without customers ordering they won’t be here working. I encourage each of you to come and talk to us and get the whole story.
Hello Dan and John…you wouldn’t believe how many people have stopped by to pick up applications and want your jobs.”
There are no winners in this case.
The owners lose, because they are getting their name dragged through the mud, and are losing 2 managers from their store.
The employees lose, because the economy is tough, and though they may end up winning a small settlement, they will probably never get a good job again.
And customers lose, because they are losing what was probably a really good pizza place.
Sad state of affairs when things get completely debased like this and humanity is left behind.
Phil, who has a lively and popular blog called Slacker Manager, makes a great point. This is definitely a cautionary tale - but not one likely to benefir the current players.
Don: I saw the post about Pizza Time employee protests in Olympia in 2005.
There were also allegations of a traffic fatality caused by a Lacey Pizza Time driver who was making deliveries drunk. This would have been 2005 under previous owners. Do you recall that?
Quite a legacy for a small pizza chain
On the King 5 story, EclecticGemini posted the following:
…Lacey Pizza Time was directly involved in my husbands death, September 1, 2005, when he was hit head on by a Pizza Time employee, that had twice the legal limit of alcohol in her sysem, and had just finished delivering a pizza only minutes earlier. She had numerous priors on her record before her employment that involved, driving infractions, use of alcohold, burglary, robbery and assault.
The comments I found on the rant section are supposedly the owner making statements about the backgrounds of the employee that complained about Pizza Time. And that one of them at this time has a DUI, and lost his license, but was still employed there.
If this is true, it seems that that Pizza Time Inc. did not learn much about running a business even after the death of my husband….
source: King 5 comments
Being stupid and cutting off heat to all employees is not a smooth move, but if you’re so worried about heat costs: why did you not get a programmable heat control as they are cheap and make much sense? Airing someone’s privacy to get back at him in a public forum? Even less bright and don’t help your attempt to deflect his criticisms of you.
…why did you not get a programmable heat control…?
Good point, Eric. In the video, you can see that they already have one. All they’ve got to do is set it (!)
The facts really need to be told here……Dan had been warned SEVERAL times to make sure the heat was shut off at closing and if it wasn’t Luke would shut the heat off. Dan is far from innocent in this matter and the fault lies with him. Sure, turning the heat off is a bit extreme….but when your kids constantly ignore your warnings…..drastic measures are taken. I worked at Pizza Time for several years with Dan and Luke and have seen first hand how Dan operates and he was lucky to have a job as long as he did. Dumbass is the word that comes to mind when I think of Dan. Way to go Luke!!!!!!!
Mike:
Ultimately, the employer is responsible for the quality of their employees, and they pay a steep price for their mistakes. Luke certainly did. I don’t quite get this “suspended” status they put him on. When you realize you’ve got a bad employee, you need to cut them fast, definitively and move on.
Most of us who have been employers learned that the hard way. I know I did. Now Luke has.
Dan was “suspended” prior to his contacting King 5. If they had just fired him for whatever he did to deserve that, it would have just been a “disgruntled ex-employee” non-story.
I don’t know what the legalities are, but IMHO a pizza shop guilty of a DUI fatality should not have employees with a history of drinking and driving. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, just not someone who should be managing a business based on driving.
MRINetwork also known as Management Recruiters International or MRI Network is a global recruitment franchise. They have a track recork of misrepresenting the truth. For years they falsely portrayed someone as a regular franchisee who had no valid franchise agreement and who was not paying them royalties. This got so bad that he eventually owed them more than £170,000 UK Pounds or approx $300,000 US Dollars in unpaid royalties. MRInetwork continued with this deception for years and fooled all real franchisees and clients alike. Read the facts about this and more questionable business practices by MRINetwork and their owners at http://www.cdicorp.info
Specifically read about:
The years of misrepresentation by MRI Network http://www.cdicorp.info/mrimisrepresentation.html
MRINetwork Breach of Franchise Contract http://www.cdicorp.info/rogerhballou-damage-to-mrinetwork.html
Joseph R Seiders affidavit misstatements made under oath http://www.cdicorp.info/josephrseidersaffidavit.html
Roger H Ballou mistatements to shareholders http://www.cdicorp.info/rogerhballou-denial.html
Sarbanes Oxley concerns - was the debt correctly written-off? See why Roger H Ballou is so coy about clarifying his legal obligations under SOX rules http://www.cdicorp.info/rogerhballou-denial.html
Steve Mills denies responsibility http://www.cdicorp.info/stevemillsdeniesresponsibility.html
Read the facts and form your own opinion otheir ethics and actual business practices of MRINetwork and their owners CDI Corporation.
Not surprising that you, Bob Stewart, have posted on Franchise Pick and that you have chosen this particular thread. But, I’m sure Sean will want to move your comments to a more appropriate thread.
It appears that you have had exposure to both the franchisee and the franchisor from hell who shilled false appearances to you for the purpose of misleading you to their advantage.
Obviously, as is revealed from the current crisis in our financial markets, “fraud” in practice has been legalized by the big law firms who teach their clients how to walk the very thin line between legal practice and criminal activity.
If I were sitting on a jury looking at this, I would believe that you were the victim of a continuing or ongoing breach of contract and fraudulent inducement but jury trials in commercial disputes are becoming a thing of the past — and especially in franchising.
I assume your contract with MRI Network mandates arbitration of any disputes and of course, it is my opinion that the arbitrators almost always come down on the side of the franchisors because of federal regulatory policy that favors franchisors over franchisees.
In the zest of government to promote franchising and to protect franshiSORS and those franchisees who are still standing in franchise systems, the regulators have created the perfect climate for fraud. They have redefined “legal fraud” in the process of protecting franchisors at the highest levels of our court system.
As can be seen from the failure of our economy, the checks and balances are not working. The banks and the insurance companies and the investment community became the victims of their own greed and the walking of that thin line between right and wrong.