A long time ago when all St. Louis Bread Companies were still called St. Louis Bread Company, regardless of where they were located -- not this clunky "Panera" business ("time of bread," c'mon) -- there were only a handful of stores in the 314.
Back then there were employee handbooks, sure, but the biggest rules were (and still are) referred to as "Cultural Values," and there are just three.
The best-known one is also the most succinct: "No jerks." As in, employees shouldn't be jerks to customers, and they shouldn't be jerks to each other.
These days, there are nearly 2,000 bakery-cafes in locations from Canada to California to New York. As they say: Mo muffies, mo problems. (Also, nobody says this.)
Yesterday a video went viral on Gawker, showing a violent altercation at a Panera on Park Avenue in Manhattan. An employee became upset, and a manager flat-out clocked her.
Punches were thrown, cops were called, people were fired. In short, things got really nasty:
"We have a zero-tolerance policy for violence and worked swiftly with authorities to investigate. The associates who were determined to be involved no longer work for Panera," a spokesperson told Gawker.
We've reached out for further comment from Bread Co. -- er, Panera -- HQ in Sunset Hills, and we'll update this post with more details if we hear back.
"No jerks" -- a pretty good little policy for life and work alike. Getting coworkers to adhere to it? Well, that's messier than running a still-warm bagel through the damn bread slicer.
