One CEO apparently forgot that his unpaid intern was just that, giving one uncompensated worker the verbal lashing of a lifetime in a recently leaked video.
Jon, better known by his username, @afromanpower, recently headed to TikTok with a harrowing clip of a fateful video call between him and his former boss, Digital Factory CEO Lawrence Griffith.
The interaction, one that reportedly occurred after Jon didn’t promptly reply to a message with every employee’s most feared request — jumping on a quick phone call — their resulting discussion was anything but professional, an interaction defined by cussing, verbal beatdowns and a firing so dramatic, it could easily put The Apprentice-era Donald Trump to shame.
“Have you lost your ******* mind?” Griffith admonished his — once again, unpaid — worker, reiterating that “This ain’t how **** works.”
“Normal etiquette is that you say something,” he continued. “You don’t just say nothing, that’s not how this **** works…. That **** is mean as ****. Do you understand that?”
Though Jon attempted to de-escalate their spat, apologizing, clarifying that he “knew we were going to get together today,” and encouraging him to “relax,” Griffith apparently had none of it, promptly giving Jon the ax.
“You’re sorry I feel that way?… Jonathan, you’re talking to the wrong guy right now,” Griffith replied. “You’re done. You’re fired. Bye.”
Though Jon’s video has since been removed — much like Digital Factory from his resume — he’s apparently far from alone in his frustrations with Griffith’s management skills.
According to several Glassdoor reviews, unpaid interns aren’t just a common occurrence at Digital Factory, a Chicago-based tech company — they seem to run the entire company on a rotating-door basis.
“Management is the problem. There is no proper division of labor,” wrote one former employee, another noting that “the hours are extreme” with Griffith allegedly demanding his underlings are “able to work 24/7.”
We would say these poor interns are not getting paid enough to deal with this, but yet again, they’re not getting paid at all.
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