An arctic blast has affected much of the country, with multiple places falling below 0 temperatures. While many residents are being urged to stay indoors, people whose workplaces didn’t close due to the weather had to brace the storm to trek to work.
TikToker Millzy (@hiitsmillzy) highlighted one such workplace in a TikTok video that was viewed nearly half-a-million times. A Walmart in Rockford, Illinois, where the temperature has been below freezing (around 11am CT, it was -6 degrees Fahrenheit), shared a post featuring two of its employees standing behind several cases of ramen noodles. “Brr it’s cold outside. We appreciate our associates for braving the cold to be here. Stay warm with some ramen noodle soup and crackers,” the location wrote to accompany the photo.
“Walmart, you are a Fortune 500 company—on the top of the list; you are a multi-billion dollar corporation. And your way to show your appreciation is to give your employees 55-cent ramen?” Millzy questioned. “People walking to work, in -18 degree weather. Some people don’t have cars. Some peoples cars didn’t start, and they still showed up to work, somehow, someway, so they could get a paycheck.”
@hiitsmillzy lmao that pizza party soundin pretty nice right now #fyp ♬ original sound – millzy
Walmart workers commiserated in the comments section, sharing what they’ve received from the store in exchange for clocking in for undesirable shifts. “I worked at walmart up until a few weeks ago. we had to work on christmas, and our christmas ‘bonus’ was a ten cent temu pin,” one shared.
“I worked 3rd shift at walmart and we were lucky if we got the left over pizza from first shift that had been sitting out all day,” another said.
“I remember working deli at Walmart and they forced us to cook pizza for other departments we didn’t even get any of it,” another said.
Many claimed they’d consider themselves lucky if they received ramen from the workplace. “My store wouldn’t give us nothing,” one shared.
In the TikTok, Millzy said, “I can’t imagine going to work when everything else in the city is shut down because it’s so cold outside, and they say they are having a party, and it’s this. I would be so mad, I would clock out and go home.”
Walmart reportedly rakes in $1.67 billion a day.
Millzy claimed the Walmart took the post down after receiving “so much backlash.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Millzy (@hiitsmillzy) via TikTok comment, to Walmart’s press department via media request form, and to Walmart’s Rockford location via Facebook.