The company pizza party is the universal symbol of corporate apathy towards its employees. The seemingly kind gesture has become ridiculed as being a placeholder for legitimately hearing workers’ needs and rewarding them accordingly for their labor.
A TikToker named Jeremy (@jerms.24) criticizes the practice of pizza parties in a video where he mockingly embraces the practice as a beacon of light in his dismal existence as a worker bee for his company. Many viewers joined in on the gag themselves, expressing that they shared the same disdain for the faux-care businesses will often exhibit towards their employees.
Jeremy begins his video looking despondent. A voiceover followed by captioned overlays reads, “I was feeling really down and out about not getting a raise this quarter but then I remembered the company pizza party.”
He then beams a smile, hope restored, as he says, “I could barely contain my excitement, this was the morale boost I needed. This is going to be the best unpaid 15-minute break ever, this right here, this is what it feels like to be cared about.”
Jeremy relays this previous sentiment after approaching a box of Blaze pizza in the break room. He opens it, revealing a few, tiny slices of pizza, with a message written in pen on the bottom of the box’s upper lid. “Only one slice!! — Management,” it reads, followed by a heart emoji.
Brief panic enters Jeremy’s eyes, which he then tempers with forced understanding, resolving himself to enjoy this gift from the company, no matter how paltry it might be.
“No, no, this is OK, this is the American Dream, this is what it’s all about, it’s all about the shareholders. Thank you,” Jeremy says as he holds up a minuscule slice to the camera with a look of resigned gratitude in his eyes.
Commenters were quick to get in on the joke themselves. “A pizza party????? I as a shareholder did NOT approve of this,” one person wrote. To which Jeremy jokingly apologized, “I’m sorry!!!! Back to work, Mr. Smith!! Right away!!! You know what? Take my kids college fund as an apology.”
Someone else joked, “My initials are R O and I because the only thing that matters to me is the shareholders return on investment.”
Someone else said Jeremy picked the wrong type of pizza for the party, writing, “You wish it was blaze pizza, no they getting little caesars.”
Earlier this week, a similar story went viral after a worker slammed their employer for catering Chick-fil-A after they asked for a raise.
It’s not difficult to understand why so many Americans are feeling disenfranchised by the state of the U.S. workplace. Inflation has skyrocketed as of 2021, with analysts directly attributing the increased cost of living for Americans to the change in U.S. leadership.
Unfortunately, salaries don’t appear to be keeping up with inflation, either, which means that folks’ paychecks aren’t stretching out as far as they need them to, and all the while, U.S. businesses have been logging in record profits.
The sting of folks not being paid what they believe that they are worth has been made only more demoralizing when several massive U.S.-based corporations have been logging in record profits in 2022. This is after tens of thousands of employees have been laid off in the tech sector from companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Cisco, and others.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Jeremy via TikTok comment for further information.
