At your job, it can feel great to be recognized for your work. But sometimes it can be hard to feel appreciated when the way your employer acknowledges you is pretty lackluster.
In a recent video, posted to TikTok, user LaQueya Huggins (@melaninjeepher) posted such a situation. In the video, it appears employees are gathered in an office room with music playing and packages of Cup Noodles sitting on a table along with various seasoning options.
“@Verizon play [to much, feeding us struggle meals for employee appreciation,” @melaninjeepher said in the video’s caption.
While the video’s caption indicates the TikToker works for Verizon, a spokesperson for the company said in a statement to the Daily Dot the TikToker’s name, as it’s featured on her TikTok account, is not in its employee directory. “I can confirm this is not a Verizon retail store location,” they added.
The video was viewed 287,000 times, and Huggins said in a comment she “didn’t feel appreciated that day.”
@melaninjeepher @Verizon play to much 😂feeding us struggle meals for employee appreciation #verizon #employeeappreciation #fyp #strugglemeal #atwork ♬ original sound – LaqueyaShaneya
According to a Glassdoor Employee Appreciation Survey from 2013, 53% of employees say they would stay longer at their job “if they felt more appreciation from their boss.” And about 80% of employees report they are motivated to work harded when shown appreciation at work.
“And I thought my company was cheap with Costco pizza,” one commenter said.
“This gotta be management type of issue bc usually it’s managers just buying the food & submitting [an] expense report,” another commenter said.
“Inflation is hitting real hard these days,” someone else commented.
One commenter responded, “At least they had the seasonings out,” to which @melaninjeepher said, “Right but they knew better. We worked too hard dealing with their customers’ attitude for cup noodles.”
Update 9:50am CT, Oct. 27: LaQueya Huggins told the Daily Dot that while the video is old, as she started working at Verizon in 2018 and has since left the company, it was filmed at a Verizon call center. She provided the Daily Dot proof of her employment at the company and that the video was taken in 2019. “I posted the video just because Snapchat reminded me of it. It’s not the first time this video has been posted to any of my social media. This is just the first time it gained this much of attention and I didn’t think it would,” Huggins said, adding that she “just recently got a TikTok.”
