We all know that holiday office parties can get out of hand. A little too much of the ‘nog, and people can get possessed by the spirit in all the wrong ways. Which is apparently what happened at a Los Angeles Taco Bell Christmas party last year. According to Taco Bell former employee Alana Bechiom, the party started as a kick-back celebration for employees, and dissolved into a drunken orgy. She has since filed a lawsuit.
On December 18th, Bechiom was invited to the Taco Bell she worked at for what she was told was a pot-luck-style party. Bechiom arrived with a bowl of guacamole to find that her supervisor had “covered the windows of the restaurant with wrapping paper…also covered the cameras for the lobby in the inside of the restaurant.” Alcohol was served, possibly in too high a volume.
According to Bechiom, after stepping out briefly, she returned to find one co-worker having sex with his wife in front of the entire party. Said co-worker’s wife was also making out with two other female employees, one of which was the manager. Shocked by the behavior, Bechiom ran out of the restaurant, intent on grabbing her guacamole bowl, she returned to a different scene. One in which her manager and co-worker had become violently ill. Proceeding to vomit in the trash and Bechiom’s guacamole.
Bullied Out Of Her Job
Bechiom contacted Taco Bell HR immediately and the Colorado-based franchise management, Alvarado Restaurant Group. But was met largely with what can best be described as apathy. Bechiom claims she was threatened, and had her car windows smashed by her fellow ex-employees involved in the incident. According to Bechiom, Taco Bell “did nothing about these threats and instead told [her] that they were transferring her to a new location rather than disciplining the employees who threatened her.”
Bechiom has since quit, claiming she suffered real-world consequences for reporting the incident, as well as financial loss and hardship. Taco Bell and Alvarado Restaurant Group responded to KTLA’s request for a comment saying, “while we don’t own or manage this location, the franchisee who owns and operates this restaurant has shared that they take these claims very seriously.”
This absolutely sounds like something one might see in a National Lampoon movie, or a Dunder Mifflin holiday party.
