A restaurant chain announced it would close all of its branches for five days to save its “mentally defeated” employees from “long-term emotional damage.”
MyBurgerLab’s announcement on social media yesterday said the five-day closure, to begin July 26, was to give its workers a break after 483 days of battling the epidemic, as it had taken a toll on the team’s mental state, with no outlet for release.
“This month, we would like to raise a Mental Health Awareness Red Flag,” a cofounder identified as Renyi wrote on social media. “Let’s forget about profitability and hustle culture for a moment. What good is profit/break even if our team suffers long-term emotional damage from pushing too hard just to ‘stay alive’?”
“So, this 26th-30th July, we have decided as a team to close for 5 days to allow for every Geek from Store Operations to Central Kitchen to HQ Support Level to have a decent break since the pandemic began on 18 March, 2020.”
‘Honestly, we are mentally defeated’
The cofounder said when the first total lockdown was introduced last year, their team faced challenges head-on and came up with strategies to stay alive, got through the year due to everyone’s hard work and support.
Entering 2021 with “full hope and renewed vigour, the team was ready to “conquer the new post-COVID world.”
Renyi shared that his team was “mentally defeated” by the time COVID-19 cases recently crested 11,000 and the no dine-in rule remained in place.
He said they would use the time during this period to reassess how to care for staff mental health in the post-COVID world.
Malaysia reported a record high of 13,215 COVID-19 cases and 110 deaths yesterday.
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