Burger King's New Promo Is Getting People to Share Their Funny, Unique, Sad and Straight Up Weird Stories About Getting Fired

Getting fired sucks. On the up side, sharing your story can score you a free Whopper.

August 31, 2017 2 min read

Though getting fired can be a sore subject for many, Burger King is enticing people to share their stories of being let go in exchange for a free Whopper. And lots of people are taking the bait.

So, if you’ve ever been fired and feel courageous enough to publicly share the story on social media, you could score some free food. The process behind the fast-food chain’s “Whopper Severance” deal is pretty simple: People can head to LinkedIn, post that they’ve been fired in the past and use the hashtag #WhopperSeverance, and the fast food chain will send a link to register for the severance deal.

By leveraging a negative and touchy topic on a site where people prioritize their image, this edgy marketing strategy has gotten a lot of people talking -- and some even confessing. Approaching the topic in a “light-hearted nature,” the fast food chain says in a statement: “While getting fired sucks, for Burger King restaurants fire-grilling is a good thing.”

Burger King has announced it’s willing to give away up to 2,500 Whopper Severance packages, but you’d better act fast if you’ve got a story to dish. More and more people are posting to LinkedIn to share their stories and score some free burgers, and while you might expect these stories to be sensitive or sore in tone, many are quite the opposite.

While some have shared funny, quirky anecdotes, such as standing up a supervisor on a date or simply not showing up for work, others have taken the promotion as an opportunity to raise important workforce issues. Of course, many people’s stories just plain and simply made no sense.

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Click through the slides to read them for yourself.

Some took it light heartedly.