An Olive Garden waitress says that management at the store she works at didn’t allow her to work her shift because she showed up to work wearing white socks.
Demi Austin Looney (@demibabyy2001) ranted about the incident from her car, presumably right after she was told to leave the restaurant, and uploaded the clip to TikTok where, as of Tuesday morning, it has amassed over 250,000 likes.
Viewers who saw her post shared their own dress code horror stories as well, while others couldn’t understand why the chain was being so pedantic about the colors of employees’ socks.
@demibabyy2001 I cannot
♬ original sound – Demi Austin Looney
“I just got sent out of work because my socks were…white,” Demi says. “Yeah, ’cause everyone and their mother’s just gonna lose their fucking appetite if they see a pair of white fucking socks. Grow the fuck up! God!”
According to Food Items, as of 2022, “the Olive Garden dress code has serving staff, bar staff, and bussers wearing black shirts (no tie), along with black pants, black socks, and black non-slip shoes.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Olive Garden and Demi via email for further comment.
One TikToker who saw her post responded that this type of attention-to-detail is particular to the food service industry, calling the line of work “hell.” They wrote, “I got reprimanded because my tie was light red instead of dark red like bffr [be fucking for real].”
Someone else claimed, “My old manager at Jimmy johns would literally LIFT my pant leg to see if I was wearing black socks… such a power trip.”
Another penned, “This is how it was when I worked at in n out but you could only have white socks. I had pink socks on one day and got sent home.”
One TikToker replied that when they were wearing a sock color that wasn’t in line with the company’s dress code policy they were told they could either take them off and work without wearing socks or they could go home. “This happened to me too they say I could either take the socks off and not wear any or I could go home,” they said.
Others followed along with Demi’s joke that white socks would eliminate their desire to eat.
“I literally was eating and you said white socks and I lost my appetite :(,” one wrote.
Another quipped, “I was actually eating at Olive Garden and saw a server with white socks and my appetite went away.”
