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Comcast Store Punished Low Sales By Smashing Pies In Workers' Faces, Lawsuit Claims (arstechnica.com) 180

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-good-look dept.
A former Comcast retail employee alleges that a Connecticut store manager tied the lowest-performing salesperson to a chair each month and had co-workers smash a cream pie into their face, recording the incidents as a sales-motivation tactic. The plaintiff says he resigned after reporting the alleged assaults and is seeking damages for constructive discharge and emotional distress. Ars Technica reports: A Comcast store in Plainville, Connecticut, "had a policy that the highest-ranked Retail Sales Consultant for the prior month was instructed by his or her supervisor -- Ms. Peterson, the Comcast Store manager -- to tie the lowest-ranked sales consultant for the prior month to a chair in the back office and thereafter assault that person by violently smashing a cream pie in their face," the complaint alleged (PDF).

Plaintiff David Figueroa's lawsuit said he was hired as a retail sales consultant on February 2, 2026, and was supervised by store manager Sully Fuentes Peterson. Figueroa alleges that Peterson "designed and implemented" the pie-in-face ritual to meet goals related to sales and positive responses in customer surveys.

"Defendant did not inform the Plaintiff prior to his acceptance of Defendant's offer of employment that the Comcast Store has a policy of subjecting Retail Sales Consultants to public assaults by co-workers -- at the direction of Ms. Peterson, the store manager -- for the purpose of increasing Defendant's sales and profitability," the lawsuit said.

Figueroa resigned on February 27, and he alleges it was a constructive discharge. The lawsuit says the defendant, Comcast, was negligent because it "reasonably should have known" about the store management's policies and that the policies could harm employees. Comcast "failed to properly supervise the Comcast Store's management team," allowing store management to humiliate employees "for the purpose of promoting the Defendant's revenues and profits," the lawsuit alleged. Comcast said in a statement: "The Company has zero tolerance for harassment, humiliation, or any behavior that compromises a respectful and safe workplace. This matter is in litigation so we will not comment on the specific allegations, other than to say that we disagree with the claims in the complaint and its characterization of the alleged events, and intend to fully respond through the legal process."

Comcast Store Punished Low Sales By Smashing Pies In Workers' Faces, Lawsuit Claims More | Reply

Comcast Store Punished Low Sales By Smashing Pies In Workers' Faces, Lawsuit Claims

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  • Sales managers are (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @07:22AM (#66264014)
    The scum of society. Sure lets be sadistic and have fun by humiliating people. It really builds the team and encourages people to do better. Except of course its assault. But hey what is a little crime good for but to give some low level manager a feeling of power over their world.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Not sales managers, retail managers. Just basically the same floor employee given a modicum of power and responsibility and the power goes to their heads. Add to that the fact their employees are typically high school aged kids who don't know the law, whose parents are "tough it out" kind of people and the want of spending money means a captive audience for them to basically do every illegal thing in the book.

    • We get really up in arms about low-level crime committed by low level employees. So like this is a major point of outrage for the entire country. And God help you if you're a postal worker stealing birthday card money. Plus we will spend hundreds of billions of dollars going after people who steal a tiny amount of money. Like enormous resources go into tracking down people who steal cars worth a few thousand bucks. Although I get the frustration of having some numbnuts steal your beater. Somebody took my ol

  • Brutality of Banality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @07:32AM (#66264022)

    The plaintiff says he resigned after reporting the alleged assaults and is seeking damages for constructive discharge and emotional distress.

    And I hope the plaintiff wins. When I used to work in retail and fast food, I ran into similar primitive managers, for whom humilitation was, apparently, a good management strategy.

    But I never saw anything like this, going into the physical.

    And that's the problem with many sales positions - no shade to the industry or its workers, but we tend to see the most uneducated savages climbing to management positions. Not just bad managers, but really horrible, abusive types.

    • Re:Brutality of Banality (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @09:10AM (#66264132) Journal
      If he wins this lawsuit, he will win twice: he will no longer have to work at Comcast. That's about the most toxic work environment you can find.

  • "designed and implemented" pie-in-face ritual (Score:4, Funny)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @07:50AM (#66264034)
    Sounds like more care was taken in developing this pie ritual than 80% of software development.

  • What the hell is that? Is that a salesman in PC-speak?

    • The bigger question is what exactly is a "Comcast retail store", anyhow?

      • I would think it obvious by the name. Comcast is a network operator in addition to owning NBC Universal - cable boxes, cable modems and a mobile phone MVNO.

        They have retail stores where you can buy phones, and sign up for services - mobile, internet, cable TV, streaming, etc. You can get help with your shit. You can get replacement cable modems if yours dies.

        This isn't hard.

      • It's where you go to argue with someone exactly like this manager about why your bill is $300/month.

        The one near me had an old lady go back in with a hammer and smash up the store. I completely understand why she did it.

  • The sales manager must have been a film studies major and, when it became obvious he'd never actually become an actor, took on being a sales manager to eke a living. But film studies doesn't teach you much about that, so he thought back and tried to find a model for how to do the job. His solution: Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross [youtube.com]. I can picture it now: "you gotta have brass balls to sell internet service."

    • Turn off your cable newsvertainment, it isn't helping with your personality disorder.

  • hazing? (Score:2)

    by v1 ( 525388 )

    Sounds similar to the practice of "hazing" new pledges at college fraternities. Too many times the frat organizations kept saying "it's not our fault, we didn't know, they were acting independently!". Finally campuses basically said the buck stops with the org, it's such a common problem you can't turn a blind eye and say you didn't know it was going on. It's your responsibility to be actively LOOKING for it and making sure it doesn't happen. And if it still happens, you'll be held partly responsible.

    Fu

  • Has to be better than actually being a customer. (Score:5, Funny)

    by FictionPimp ( 712802 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @08:40AM (#66264084) Homepage

    When given two options.

    1. Use comcast.
    2. Get tied down and cream pied in the face.

    Which is the better option?

    • That depends... are you into bondage an humiliation? Wait... didn't I see this one on PornHub?

    • If I had any choice but comcast, I'd take the pie to the face + a fiber connection from literally anyone else.

      But alas, I live in a spot that has absolute shit cell service from all providers, no POTS line, and no fiber. Comcast is the only play if I don't want to give money to Elon, and I do not if I can help it.

  • "we disagree with the claims in the complaint and its characterization of the alleged events, and intend to fully respond through the legal process.",

    Comcast: hostile inside and outside of the work environment.

  • Man, this makes me feel just a bit better about spending the last 30 years in various types of tech support.

    Fuck sales!

  • Positive and Negative Way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Koreantoast ( 527520 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @09:28AM (#66264176)
    The sales manager could have taken this in a positive way, let the top sales lead smash a pie into the sales manager's face as a morale booster. The "humiliation" is born by the leader on their own orders, so it's all in good fun. Pushing that humiliation down onto one of your other employees is just bullying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      That is certainly true. However I also don't think this lawsuit should be entertained. Nothing here rises to the level real harassment, except in the head of this former employer, if even there as it just as like they are suing some with deep pockets because they can.

      Cases like this need to be tossed, quickly and loudly to cut the bullshit.

  • Did the employee have to pay for the pie? That would be a bridge too far.

  • The beatings will continue until morale improves (Score:3)

    by zuckie13 ( 1334005 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @11:23AM (#66264414)

    I guess the management there decided to go for the actual implementation of the catchphrase.
    Sheesh.

  • The oppposite tack (Score:3)

    by PuddleBoy ( 544111 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @11:28AM (#66264424)

    Make it a reward, rather than a punishment.

    I worked for a sales organization that offered that, if the teams' total sales for a month exceeded 120% of the previous month's total, the Sales VP volunteered to sit in a chair (outside) and let the top performers push pies into his face. (Disclaimer: they were just pie tins with whipped cream in them and he wore large sunglasses)

    I still have pictures of the (very messy) results. A totally different kind of motivation that can work.

    • That would be perfectly fine.

      It's not a public flogging, instead it's someone agreeing (i.e. consent) and it's not bad performance based where there are rules about how to deal with underperformance, and pies to the face isn't part of that rule set.

      Literally nobody would have a problem with what you suggest.

  • Great, now "public assaults by co-workers" will be boilerplate in all new employment contracts. Thanks a lot!

  • Pay him $3,141,592 (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday July 30, 2026 @01:22PM (#66264758)

    for the pie

  • Abuse of employees wastes company time and doesn't improve performance. Even doing nothing has a better ROI.

    Deming repeatedly noted that main factor in selection of "employee of the month" is either statistical variance or a process not under statistical control, and the individual has little to do with it. The same applies to the bottom employee as well as the top. This is just as wasteful as stack ranking that requires firing the bottom n% of staff.

    But the median businessman has no idea how capitalism wor

    • Mebby capitalism infact doesn't work well and the median-businessman knows it ! So he reverts  to the tools that have been successful motivators for 25.000 years: fear, hunger and pain. That human governance uses those terrors  as default is  scientifically well-documented  from psychology lab-tests in the 1950s.

  • Clearly a winnable lawsuit... (Score:3)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday July 30, 2026 @01:38PM (#66264816) Journal

    But the first thing I thought of when reading this is how "sales" seems to constantly involve managers over teams who think all their employees have to be treated like kids, or at least assume simple-minded "motivators" actually work.

    Have any real studies been done on ANY of this? Because whether it's negative reinforcement like this public shaming/pie assault, or it's insanity like ringing bells each time a sale is made and some bozo interrupting the whole place with loud announcements? It all feels primitive and pointless to me.

  • An unpermitted touching.
    If he was afraid, or a reasonable person would be afraid , then it’s assault as well.

    I think I’d sue just to screw with comcast.

    I hate big judgements for frivolous things. But if this came into my courtroom I’d give him 100k.

  • If you get good sales, did you get to eat the pie instead?

  • It doesn't mention that the manager makes minimal wage with no health care. He's going to be hard to replace.

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